Adjudicator should take more or less time than referees?

[PeteSampras]

my paper was in "awaiting referee report" during 1 month.
After this, the asociate editor says "We have now received both primary referee reports. However, as they do not agree we have to send your manuscript and the referee reports to an adjudicator. "
The page of the journal says : "If the referees’ reports are not in agreement, the paper and the reports are sent to an independent adjudicator (often a member of the journal’s Editorial Board) who is first asked to form their own opinion of the paper and then to read the referees’ reports and adjudicate between them. A decision is then made based on the adjudicator’s recommendation. If a referee is overruled by an adjudicator, we will normally notify the referee of this. "

My question is : the Adjudicator should to take more o less time than referees ??

 

[Choppy]

I don't see any reason why it would be expected to take any less time. There's more to do.

And it's also important to remember that as a journal editor, you can *ask* someone to perform this task. But the referees or adjudicators are ultimately volunteers. They have their own research, deadlines, responsibilities, and as an editor you really have no idea what else they have on their plate at any given time. So you wait. Or, if they take too long, you find someone else.

One month is not an unreasonable amount of time to hear back from both referees. If you hear back from the adjudicator within another month, that's a two month turn around, which is pretty fast considering everything that has to happen.

Be patient. Work on something else in the meantime.

Hopefully you'll hear something positive soon. But if it's not positive, at least you'll have something else coming down the pipe.

 

[Vanadium 50]

As you were told not one week ago,

Anything less than 6 months sounds normal in my experience.