Bidders/Reviewers

1. Receive an invitation email to become "Bidder"
2. Get access to EquinOCS
3. Bidding
4. Receive paper assignments
5. Submission of reviews
6. Receive revised versions of documents

1.   Receive an invitation email to become "Bidder"

If you are invited as a bidder, you receive the following invitation by email. The notification is also visible in the system in the "Notifications" window.

In this case, a confirmation or rejection to complete the review is required. To do this, you need to log in or register in the system.

After your confirmation, you get a notification at the project home page.

2. Get access to EquinOCS

The system is available by the following link: https://equinocs.springernature.com

You must register in the system by filling out the following form

Then the new account need to be activated

The activation link and code sent by email

By using this link or code, the activation process finishes

3. Bidding

If bidding is activated for the project, then all users who are allowed to place bids can do so in the ''Bid'' section.

Users can evaluate the paper with 5 marks: conflicted, rejected, indifferent, interested, desired. Each mark has its own color and icon.

This is the example of the ‘’Bid’’ window before bidding.

This is the example of the “Bid” window after bidding:

4. Receive paper assignments

As soon as the PC chairs/Volume Editor complete the assignments of the papers, the reviewers receive the notifications and can commence peer review. The notification is sent by email.

The notifications are also visible in the system in the "Notifications" window.

Once notified, reviewers can start the paper review process and submit their reviews. 

Support on Peer Reviewing for Springer Nature can be found on springernature.com.

5. Submission of reviews

Reviews for the assigned papers can be submitted in the ''Review'' window.

In this window, the reviewers can see all assigned papers, view paper details, submit their reviews, and invite sub-reviewers.

To submit the review, the reviewers: 

• must select Evaluation (accept, weak accept, indifferent, week reject, reject) 

• must select Confidence (high, middle, low)

• must submit Report on the corresponding text field

• can add Confidential Comment (optional)

• can upload new file in PDF format (optional)

The result of review is immediately visible on the web page. You can view or change your review later.

6. Receive revised versions of documents

As soon as the Author submits a new revised version of the paper, reviewers are notified and can start reviewing a new version of the paper. The notification is not sent by email but is displayed on the system in the ''Notifications'' window.

New reviews of edited papers can be submitted in the "Review" window. The process for submitting new reviews is similar to the process for submitting the first round review described in the previous section of this document.  The revised documents are marked with a special mark - "revision".