If your journal is already on Snapp or you're moving to Snapp, we'll send you regular updates and information on new features and upcoming webinars.
For more information about what we're working on, see our roadmap hosted on Trello.
Recent updates
Feedback Process (Editor Experience)
Feedback - New Process
The development of the new system is an ongoing process inline and in consultation with our staff, the academic community and our collective expectations. Your feedback and thoughts are very much welcome, and has already been invaluable when it comes to planning developments to the system. In the past the feedback channels have been numerous - however we have implemented a new process that ensures your feedback is funnelled through to the best teams to assess in line with development strategies and the current roadmap.
How do I submit feedback on Snapp?
Going forwards, to ensure your feedback is considered, please use the feedback button located in the footer of the Snapp platform to access the survey
We value your feedback on the Snapp Platform. All feedback received is reviewed and monitored by various teams across the Snapp ecosystem.
How is my feedback used?
Feedback helps our product teams understand how Snapp can be better enhanced to meet the needs of its users. The product teams will assess suggestions and requests in parallel with the strategy for the system, analyse themes and if viable, prioritise and add to the quarterly roadmap for Snapp.
Unfortunately not every request is viable or can be actioned for Snapp, however your feedback is crucial to the future of the platform.
Please note, that while feedback is received and reviewed, we cannot respond to individual comments or requests.
What about the Feedback I’ve already provided?
This new process doesn’t overwrite the existing feedback we have received so far. Anything we have recorded through past routes will be stored for future reference, and much of it has already driven many of the new features showcased on this page.
We are confident that your feedback will continue to drive positive change going forwards with this new channel
Improved task dashboard design (Editor Experience)
See a quick snapshot of open tasks, filtering options, and an improved layout for each task.
How it works:
Find a new task overview section on the task dashboard and new filters with the total number of tasks.
- The ‘View all’ filter is set as default.
- You can select one filter at a time.
- The task filters appear in the order of the peer review.
- The filter won’t be shown if there are no outstanding tasks.
Try it out
Publication and researcher metrics for each reviewer (Editor Experience)
You can now see relevant publications, the H-index and the number of citations in each reviewer’s profile, making it easier to understand why a reviewer is being recommended.
Take a look on Snapp
Remind reviewers from Snapp (Editor Experience)
You can now send a message to a reviewer to remind them to accept or return a report. This option is available before or after they have accepted an invitation.
How it works:
- Click the ‘Message reviewer’ link to open the message window.
- Use the text editor to personalise your message.
- The link to accept or decline the invite or to submit a report is automatically included (although hidden from your view).
- Snapp will keep a record of when the message was sent.
Filter by journal or collections (Editor Experience)
Filter the submissions list by journal or collection
How it works:
- From the ‘Submissions’ list, you can now filter by journal or collection.
- You can use this in combination with the ‘Submission stage’ and ‘Editor’ filters.
Reviewers can view all files in one place (Reviewer Experience)
Reviewers can now use the new ‘Quick Preview’ of the submission to view files as a single document without having to download all of the source files.
How it works:
- Clicking on ‘Open Quick Preview’ opens a new tab showing a view of the whole manuscript in the browser.
- For Word submissions, this will be a HTML view.
- For PDF submissions we will just show the PDF in the browser.
- Both versions can be printed, and downloaded from the browser.
New metrics on the analytics dashboard (Editor Experience)
EiCs and Springer Nature Publishers can now see metrics about active submissions and turnaround time (TAT) for first decision.
How it works:
On the analytics dashboard you can now see:
- Average time to first decision. This is defined as the time from submission to either acceptance, rejection or request for revision
- A pie chart showing active and past submissions
- A pie chart showing active submissions by submission stage
This data can be filtered by the initial submission date and is included in the PDF and CSV downloads.
Try it out on Snapp
One-click invitation of recommended reviewers (Editor Experience)
This new feature makes it easier to find and invite reviewers.
How it works:
- When a reviewer declines, they can recommend an alternative reviewer.
- These recommended reviewers are added to the list of reviewers on the page, the same as reviewers shortlisted via Reviewer Finder.
- You can invite recommended reviewers directly, without having to copy details into Reviewer Finder.
New Guest Editor role (Editor Experience)
This reduces the workload of EiCs, lead editors and journal supervisors (publishing editors).
How it works:
The new Guest Editor role, called 'Assigning Editor', can assign collection manuscripts and make recommendations on collection manuscripts they handle. However, they cannot make any revision or publication decisions.
Find out more about roles and permissions.
Total submissions (Editor Experience)
You can now see the total number of submissions as well as the page count
If you select filters, these will also show in the the total count
Reviewer Deadline Selection - Update (Editor Experience)
As well as being able to pick from a preselected set of days for the reviewer due date, you can also change it manually from 1 to 100 days.
Submission status filters (Editor Experience)
On the Submissions page, you can now filter by ‘Submission stage’.
How it works:
The filter will show the following labels:
- In progress submissions = from ready to be assigned to an editor, to final decision
- Ready for assignment = needs assigning (unassigned submissions will not appear)
- No Reviewers invited = 0 reviewers invited
- Reviewers invited = from 1+ invitation sent, to 1 reviewer accepted
- Reviewers accepted = 2 reviewers have accepted to 1 report received
- Ready for decision = 2+ reports have been received
- With author for revision = out with authors
- Past submissions = final decision has been made
New task to highlight overdue reports (Editor Experience)
A new task, ‘Resolve overdue reviewer reports’, opens when the deadline to return an outstanding report has passed.
How it works:
You have the following options:
- Invite more reviewers.
- Be reminded later to follow up. This closes the task, which will reopen after 14 days if no reports are submitted in the meantime.
- Make a decision on the available report(s):
- (recommend to) accept
- (recommend to) reject
- (recommend to) request revision
- Email the reviewer outside Snapp.
Task dashboard enhancements (Editor Experience)
The ‘Find and invite reviewers’, ‘Assess reviewer reports’, and ‘Resolve overdue reviewer reports’ tasks now have more information to help you decide what action is needed. This includes:
- Number of reviewers invited
- Number of reports returned
- Number of reviewers accepted
- Number of reviewers declined
- Number of reports overdue
- Number of reports pending
Find qualified reviewers faster (Editor Experience)
We’ve developed a new algorithm to provide better reviewer recommendations.
The tool learns about the expertise of researchers based on their past publications and uses it to suggest the best reviewer for the manuscript.
Our pilot tests found that people who were suggested by the new algorithm were almost 50% more likely to accept the review invitation.
How it works
- The algorithm learns about the expertise of researchers based on their past publications.
- When fed a new manuscript (title and abstract), the algorithm guesses who in the database could have been the author.
- Excluding the manuscript authors and any other researchers that have conflicts of interest, the results show the algorithm's suggestions for the best reviewer of the manuscript.
Wait for next report (Editor Experience)
You can declutter your task board by closing the ‘Assess Review Reports’ task until another report is returned.
How it works
Press the ‘Wait for next report’ button to close the ‘Assess Review Reports’ task.
- This button is only visible when the number of reports returned is less than then number of accepted reviewers
The button is not shown when reports returned matches the number of accepted reviewers
Analytics Dashboard for EICs and Publishing Editors (Editor Experience)
Benefit:
Editors in Chief and Publishing Editors can find essential information about their journals on an easy to monitor dashboard.
How it works:
On the dashboard, Editors in Chief and Publishing Editors will find metrics covering a range of different aspects of the journals they work on. It can provide provide answers to questions like:
- How many submissions have my journals had this calendar year?
- How many articles were rejected during August?
- What is the average turnaround time to final decision for each editor?
Take a look
‘Quick Preview’ Feature (Editor Experience)
This is a way for Editors to make a quick decision on the manuscript by enabling the entirety of a manuscript (incl. figures and tables) to be viewed, without having to download everything
How it works:
- There is now a link in the universal header to "Open Quick Preview"
- This triggers a new tab to open showing a view of the whole manuscript in the browser.
- For Word submissions, this will be a HTML view
- For PDF submissions we will just show the PDF in the browser
Add/move/remove collection (Editor Experience)
Editors can now add/move/remove a collection at any stage
How it works:
- Search or select a submission from the 'All submissions' page.
- Click on the submission details link
Editors are now able to change collection at any time on the submission details page through the Actions menu.
Improved visibility of collections papers (Editor Experience)
New labels have been added to collections that have opted in to new features:
Notify editors to invite more reviewers (Editor experience)
The handling editor is now notified when a submission cannot achieve its target number of reviewers.
How it works
- Snapp will send an email notifying the handling editor that they need to invite more reviewers. The email will include a link to the re-opened ‘Find and invite reviewers’ task.
- A notification is also shown on the Find and Invite Reviewers task page.
Filter by editor (Editor experience)
You are now able to filter the 'All Submissions' list by 'assigned handling editor'
How it works:
- From the ‘All submissions’ list, you can now filter s by 'assigned handling editor'
- This includes the option to filter by ‘You’, allowing just you to see your assignments
Updated reviewer invite statuses (Editor experience)
On the reviewer management table you can now see additional information including:
- The due date of a report
- How many days a report is overdue
- When a reviewer was reminded
- Reasons for reviewers declining the invitation (if provided)
- Suggested reviewers (if provided)
Future iterations will include the ability to invite suggested reviewers directly from this page.
How it works
- Go to the Find and Invite Reviewers task or to the Reviewers tab on the Submission details page
- The additional information has been added to the table
Variable deadlines for reviewers (Editor/Reviewer experience)
You can now select an appropriate deadline for a reviewer to return a report, from seven to ninety days.
How it works:
- From the reviewer invitation you can specify how many days you want the report to be returned in
- The predefined ranges are: 7, 10, 21, 28, 60 and 90 days, with the default set to 10 days
- You can also select the deadline if you are using the ‘Invite all’ function
- The due date is shown to the reviewer on the Accept/Decline page and in the reviewer form
- Reviewers will be reminded halfway through the deadline
Personalise decision emails for rejection or revision (Editor experience)
You now have the flexibility to edit the text of the ‘Reject’ and ‘Revision’ decision emails allowing you personalise the communication to your authors.
How it works:
- Click on either ‘Reject’ or ‘Request Revision’ to see the decision email
- Click on ‘Edit’ to make changes
- Click ‘Save’ to make sure you save the changes
- Click ‘Preview’ and then ‘Send’
Easier to use manuscript reference numbers (Editor experience)
We’ve added short, simple reference numbers to make talking about manuscripts easier.
Each manuscript will get a new, unique reference. For example: 2022-81
How we create the reference:
- 2022 = because we received the submission in 2022
- 81 = because it’s the 81st submission to that journal in that year
It's also searchable from the 'All submissions' page.
See the history of a submission (Editor experience)
See a timeline of major events and audit who did what.
How it works:
- Search or select a submission from the 'All submissions' page.
- Click on the submission details link
- Click on the ‘History’ tab
Discussion on submissions (Editor experience)
Editors can now add comments to submissions, making it easier to discuss the manuscript with the editorial team on your journal. Please see here for more information on the tool
Accepting a submission before peer review (Editor experience)
Editors are now able to accept a submission at any time on the submission details page through the Actions menu.
Uploading LaTex files (Author experience)
Authors can upload LaTex files during their initial submission. We compile the LaTex files into a PDF which the author can download and review. This PDF can then be made available to editors and reviewers.
Title, abstract, and author details are auto-extracted and used to pre-fill the form fields.
Search for a submission (Editor experience)
Editors can search for submissions by ID or title.
