ScholarOne helps to update peer review process

Virginia Business
April 2006

Professors are only too aware of the maxim “publish or perish.” That kind of stark reality is intimidating enough. Adding to their anguish is a review process for scholarly articles that can take as long as two years.

The time gap between writing an article and getting it into print eventually caught the attention of Charlottesville publishers Bill Carden and Joseph Jennings. They are the owners of Carden Jennings Publishing Co., which publishes Albemarle Magazine and other periodicals. In 2000, the two decided to spin off a new software service company called ScholarOne to provide Web-based workflow solutions for scholarly publications. They say that the service has enabled customers to cut the review process by as much as 50 percent.

Carden and Jennings became aware of this business opportunity in 1996 after the American Diabetes Association asked them to develop a system to speed the review process. “What we found was, here was a process that was handling arguably the most important information in the world across many, many academic disciplines, but yet the process to approve that content was completely archaic,” says Carden. “There was no automation, no centralization databases and no real communication capabilities.”

ScholarOne started developing customized software to address the problem. But as the Internet became increasingly popular, Carden and Jennings revamped the company to become an application service provider. That means that ScholarOne provides software and technical support. Customers access the network using a Web browser.

The company offers several products, but its flagship offering is Manuscript Central, which manages manuscripts through the scholarly journal peer review process. “There can be numerous participants in a review transaction, and they’re going to be geographically dispersed,” says Carden. “So you might have an editor in Japan, an author in the Netherlands and reviewers in South Africa, Ireland and the U.S. With our product and services, they’re able to get together in real time and save money on administrative tasks and distribution.”

The scientific, professional and academic communities are clearly impressed. The company has 175 customers (many of which are umbrella organizations) and 1,100 system installations. Oxford University, for example, has 41 publications using Manuscript Central and recently signed a multiyear contract to use the company’s services for more than 90 scholarly journals. Other customers include the University of Virginia, the American Chemical Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics and Blackwell Publishing (a major journal publisher).

Carden says that ScholarOne — which has 80 employees and offices in Charlottesville, Washington, Boston, London and Bielefeld, Germany — has been profitable every quarter since 2003. Its revenue grew 47 percent in 2005, to more than $9.3 million.

Carden says the company’s goals are to continue to grow at least 35 percent annually and to tap other opportunities in the academic community.