“Authors lose time and effort when their manuscript is rejected by a journal and they have to repeat the submission process in subsequent journals. Plus, it is estimated that 15 million hours of researcher time is wasted each year repeating reviews. Both of these challenges could be addressed if journals and publishers could transfer manuscripts between publications using different submission-tracking systems. With the growth of cascading workflows, manuscripts are regularly transferred within a publishing group. But a growing challenge is to transfer the manuscript (and, optionally, peer-review data) across publishers and manuscript systems and even to and from preprint servers.

A group of manuscript-management suppliers has taken up this challenge and is working together with NISO to develop a common approach that can be adopted across the industry. …”

“Members of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) have approved the ‘Manuscript Exchange Common Approach’ (MECA) – a major new academic publishing initiative co-led by HighWire Founding Director John Sack. The project will see the industry’s leading technology providers work together on a more standardized approach to the transfer of manuscripts between and among manuscript systems, such as those in use at publishers and preprint servers….

Momentum has gathered pace since the project was first presented by John at the 2017 SSP Annual Meeting, with the first use case for the project now live….”