December 31, 2003, North Andover, MA, USA – Aries Systems Corporation announced today that users of the Editorial Manager online peer review system have been smoothly upgraded to a new release of Editorial Manager, Release 2.1.

One of the key advantages of the Editorial Manager system is that upgrades are undertakenwithout breaking backwards compatibility. This means that existing users can take advantage of the new features, equally as well as journals launching with Editorial Manager for the first time. “A successful new release must serve the interests of existing users, as well as of newly deployed sites” explained Richard Wynne, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Aries Systems Corporation, the developer of Editorial Manager.

Editorial Manager Release 2.1 includes numerous capabilities that increase the competetive advantage of journals using Editorial Manager:

• Configurable duplicate submission checking
• User registration de-duplication and merging
• Author revision reminders
• Optional blocking of Editor access to reviewer comments for their own manuscripts
• Configurable “from” e-mail addresses for e-mail letters
• Optional automatic assignment of submitted revision to prior handling editor
• Configurable sharing of author and reviewer information across multiple journals
• Enhanced capabilities for reviewer registration and invitation
• Enhanced reviewer selection
• Controlled release of accepted manuscripts for early publication (WebFirst)

“Many of these enhancements were developed as a result of feedback from the 2003 Editorial Manager User Group meeting and are designed to make life easier for journal office staff,” commented Tony Alves, Product Manager at Aries Systems. “I’m looking forward to the 2004 EM User Group meeting where we will gather further ideas for innovation.”

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.