What we discovered fundamentally shapes our approach to product development.
Editors Are Solving Problems We Should Be Solving
The editors we spoke with are remarkably resourceful. They've built sophisticated workflows that extend well beyond any single platform, integrating Excel spreadsheets, reference databases, and creative workarounds to manage everything from single-editor book series to journals processing 500+ manuscripts annually.This resourcefulness is impressive. It's also a signal. When 65% of editors report needing more flexible workflows to match their specific publication types and disciplines, they're telling us something important: the tools aren't keeping pace with how scholarly publishing has evolved.
Modern editorial work crosses international boundaries, drawing from global reviewer pools while coordinating across time zones and languages. It spans vastly different contexts and scales. And through it all, time remains the scarcest resource. Our research suggests editors could reclaim 40-60% of time currently spent on administrative tasks through better automation and streamlined processes. The reviewer invitation process alone (often requiring 15-20 invitations to secure 2-3 quality reviews) represents a significant opportunity for improvement.
What Surprised Us Most
We expected to find variation across disciplines and journal sizes. What we didn't expect was the consistency. Editors across all fields identified remarkably similar enhancement opportunities, particularly around reviewer discovery. While mathematics editors need specialized integrations with arXiv and engineering journals would benefit from connections to conference proceedings databases, the core priorities aligned.We also didn't expect the response to our prototype to be quite so constructive. Editors appreciated the modern visual design and improved information display, particularly the high-priority manuscript section and reviewer metrics dashboard. But they also pushed us to balance new features with interface simplification and emphasized that foundational improvements matter as much as visual updates.
This feedback was exactly what we needed to clarify our path forward.
Where We're Headed
We're iterating on the prototype based on specific testing feedback, with particular focus on reviewer discovery and manuscript tracking workflows. We're planning our next testing round in partnership with editors who'll help us prototype and refine solutions for their most time-consuming tasks. And we're strengthening the foundation: prioritizing core functionality improvements like enhanced search capabilities and robust auto-save features.Every enhancement will follow the same cycle: listen to editors, prototype solutions, test with real users, refine based on feedback, and measure actual impact on editorial efficiency.
The opportunity is clear. We can help editors reclaim hundreds of hours annually through thoughtful improvements, giving them more time for what matters most: making editorial decisions that advance human knowledge rather than managing administrative tasks.
This means much needed changes are coming to ScholarOne Manuscript. We’re actively working on developing the expansion of ScholarOne Gateway to our editorial users, bringing them the same modern and intuitive working experience that we’re building for authors and reviewers.
Read more about the 2026 ScholarOne Manuscript Product Vision here.