May 30, 2013, North Andover, MA, USA – Scholarly journal editors have long requested better tools to help identify candidate reviewers during peer review. Historically, Editorial Manager (a cloud-based service adopted by more than 5,000 journals) has addressed this problem by relying on internally maintained databases. Now, thanks to a new collaboration with ProQuest, an information company central to serious research, submitted manuscripts can be automatically matched with reviewers drawn from an external pool of more than 3.5 million curated scholar profiles.

Using an Application Programming Interface (API), Editorial Manager transmits manuscript metadata to the ProQuest Pivot™ service, which streamlines workflow in university research offices. The proprietary software algorithms of Pivot create a digital “fingerprint” from the metadata, match the fingerprint to its embedded collection of scholar profiles, and then generate a relevance-ranked candidate reviewer list. Editors can click on names to view biographic and bibliographic details including CrossRef® links to candidates’ published articles. This makes it quick and easy for editors working in Editorial Manager to find and assess the viability of candidates as reviewers for manuscripts under consideration.

On the same web page, editors can then conveniently invite selected reviewers. Editorial Manager takes care of downstream workflow activities such as email notifications, due date tracking, reminders, review submission, etc.

Lyndon Holmes, President at Aries Systems Corporation commented, “Pivot has more than three million pre-populated scholar profiles of actively working academics, so it is natural that Aries should collaborate with ProQuest to make it available to editors during the mission-critical task of peer review. Integration with Editorial Manager adds value by providing the right data at the right time, at the right point in the workflow.”

“We take significant pride in the unique set of scholar profiles we have built and maintain within ProQuest,” said Sharon Lubrano, Vice-President and General Manager, ProQuest Research Solutions.  “We leverage the profiles for use in our product portfolio and we are open to opportunities to partner around this data with other providers of workflow solutions and scholarly content products. Aries is completely aligned with us on the benefits this data will have for the peer review selection task.”

Aries Systems will market the solution under the product name of “Reviewer Discovery.” For a limited time, journals can evaluate Reviewer Discovery at no charge for a three-month period; thereafter annual fees apply. Reviewer Discovery can be activated in Editorial Manager Version 10.1 (currently in Beta Test and planned for initial release in June 2013). Reviewer Discovery will be available for demonstration in the exhibit hall at the upcoming SSP Annual Meeting in San Francisco on June 5-7.

About ProQuest (www.proquest.com):
ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information.  Key to serious research, the company has forged a 70-year reputation as a gateway to the world’s knowledge – from dissertations to governmental and cultural archives to news, in all its forms.  Its role is essential to libraries and other organizations whose missions depend on the management and delivery of complete, trustworthy information. ProQuest’s massive information pool is made accessible in research environments that accelerate productivity, empowering users to discover, create, and share knowledge. An energetic, fast-growing organization, ProQuest includes the ProQuest®, Bowker®, Dialog®, ebrary®, and Serials Solutions® businesses and notable research tools such as the RefWorks® and Pivot™ services, as well as its Summon® web-scale discovery service.  The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world.

About Aries
Aries Systems transforms the way scholarly publishers bring high-value content to the world. The company’s innovative and forward-looking workflow solutions manage the complexities of modern print and electronic publishing – from submission, to editorial management and peer review, to production tracking and publishing channel distribution. As the publishing environment evolves, Aries Systems is committed to delivering solutions that help publishers and scholars enhance the discovery and dissemination of human knowledge. Publish faster, publish smarter, with Aries Systems.