What major advantages does the interactive scientific journal SE offer to the authors of scientific papers?

• rapid appearance and free dissemination;
• transparent peer review;
• immediate feedback via interactive discussion within the scientific community;
• moderate article processing charges and inclusion of colour plots, animated visualization, etc. at no extra charge;
• efficient new way of publishing special issues (no "waiting for the last paper");
• liberal copyright agreement.

What major advantages does SE offer to the readers and scientific community?

• free and rapid dissemination of novel concepts and data;
• fostering and documentation of scientific discussion;
• enhancement of scientific quality control by Interactive Public Peer Review^TM;
• enhanced information content of scientific papers by appended comments;
• promotion of scientific conciseness and completeness at the same time by including comprehensive abstracts rather than imposing strict page limits.

How are efficient distribution and permanent archiving and accessibility of SE articles achieved by the publisher Copernicus Publications?

SE and its discussion forum are accessible online and free of charge. Copernicus Publications makes sure that the open-access publications are indexed and archived worldwide in electronic archives, search engines, and databases to guarantee their maximum dissemination and impact.

How are discussion papers and interactive comments archived in SED, and are the interactive comments citable?

Discussion papers are archived in SED and receive a DOI. The short comments, referee comments, editor comments, and author comments posted in the interactive discussion of the papers also receive their own DOI, which allows citation of every individual interactive comment.

How does SE ensure the quality of its discussion papers?

• First of all, manuscripts with a clear lack of substantial results or with excessive formal deficiencies will be sorted out rigorously in the access review.
• Even if a low-quality paper passed the access review and was posted in the discussion forum, its deficiencies would most probably be revealed in the interactive public discussion by the referees and other interested scientists.
• The access review is meant to assure the basic scientific and technical quality of the papers posted in SED, but the opportunity for an efficient public discussion by all interested members of the scientific community is expected to enhance the actual quality control beyond the limits of the traditional peer review. Even if there are no short comments from the scientific community, a full peer-review process in the traditional sense, albeit in a more transparent way, is still assured before full acceptance and publication of a paper in SE.

What happens if a manuscript that has been posted as a discussion paper is not accepted for publication as a final paper in SE? Can the manuscript be removed from SED?

Discussion papers posted in SED remain permanently archived, citable, and publicly accessible and therefore cannot be removed. This approach has been chosen for a number of practical and conceptual reasons, and it has proven to be beneficial for scientific communication and quality assurance as explained above. For further information, please see the EGU Position Statement on the Status of Discussion Papers Published in EGU Interactive Open Access Journals.

Nevertheless, we are aware that the appearance of a paper in SED and subsequent non-acceptance into SE can be inconvenient for authors. In such cases, the authors have the following options to proceed:

• Option A

  The authors can appeal to the SE executive editors for review and revision of the editorial decision. In this case, the executive editors will carefully review the decision of the topical editor who originally handled the manuscript. This process will normally involve the original or additional referees and an iteration of manuscript review and revision. An appeal is recommended only if the authors are firmly convinced that the editorial decision not to accept the paper for SE was clearly erroneous and that their manuscript clearly meets all evaluation criteria for acceptance into SE.

• Option B

  The authors can submit a rewritten manuscript for review, discussion, and publication in SED and SE. If the topical editor and/or authors of a manuscript discussed in SED conclude that the manuscript can and should be rewritten in a way which goes beyond regular revisions (e.g. addition of substantial new results, etc.), a rewritten manuscript can at any time be submitted for independent review and discussion in SED, and final publication in SE.

• Option C

  The authors can submit the manuscript to an alternative journal. In many scientific journals, posting in a scientific discussion forum (like SED) is considered equivalent to prepublication on a scientific preprint server (like arXiv.org) and is not regarded as a reason for exclusion from (re)submission for fully peer-reviewed publication. We expect that in the long run most if not all scientific journals will adopt this policy. Authors of discussion papers that are not accepted for further review after discussion or where a revised manuscript was not accepted for final journal publication can request a withdrawal if needed for resubmission to another journal. The discussion paper stays online but the reader is notified about the withdrawal.

  Normally, even very good manuscripts can be further improved by revision. In the unlikely event that a very good manuscript cannot achieve publication in SE, a revised and further improved version is very likely to achieve publication in an alternative journal.

Overall, we are confident that the advantages of permanent archiving outweigh the potential disadvantages. For exceptional individual cases in which this policy may be disadvantageous, we regret any potential inconvenience. Nevertheless, we hope that we have the authors' understanding and continued support in the effort to improve scientific communication and quality assurance via interactive open-access publishing.

Where can authors find guidance on data and software deposition, availability, and citation?

Copernicus Publications is a signatory of the Commitment Statement in the Earth, Space, and Environmental Sciences. The Enabling FAIR data project provides extensive guidance on questions relating to data and software deposition, citation, and availability. This guidance is mostly also applicable for data outside the Earth, space, and environmental sciences: http://www.copdess.org/enabling-fair-data-project/enabling-fair-data-faqs/