What is the Difference Between Editorial Review and External Review?

The proposal and book review workflows allow for two different processes, which can be run in any sequence or in parallel. Whilst the processes of assigning the reviewers is mostly the same, the information that the reviewers see is different.

Editorial Review Assignment: This is a task for someone internal/linked to the publisher, acting as quality control within the publishing team. For example, a Publishing Committee, Editorial Board, Series Editor etc may be used as Editorial Reviewers.

The Editorial Reviewer will be required to complete a review form, but the key difference compared to an External Review is that they will also be able to see all historic reviews associated with the submission. I.e. an Editorial Reviewer will be able to see all completed External Reviews and also any previous Editorial Reviews that may have been completed. The intention is that the Editorial Reviewer will have the whole review feedback available to them, so that recommendations are based on all available data, rather than only the proposal/submission at that point in time. 

An ‘Editorial Reviewer’ will need to be added to an Editorial Group in order to be assigned review tasks. 

External Review Assignment: This task is for someone external to the publisher to provide peer review feedback. They will normally be someone completely independent of both the publisher and the book project, so that impartial feedback can be obtained.

Unlike the Editorial Review Assignment, the External Reviewer will only see the proposal/submission at that point of time and none of the review history. They will be asked to provide feedback based on the quality of the submission at that point in time.