scholarly journals Peer Review in Law Journals

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jadranka Stojanovski ◽  
Elías Sanz-Casado ◽  
Tommaso Agnoloni ◽  
Ginevra Peruginelli
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Research Misconduct ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Publication Type ◽  
Chi Square

The field of law has retained its distinctiveness regarding peer review to this day, and reviews are often conducted without following standardized rules and principles. External and independent evaluation of submissions has recently become adopted by European law journals, and peer review procedures are still poorly defined, investigated, and attuned to the legal science publishing landscape. The aim of our study was to gain a better insight into current editorial policies on peer review in law journals by exploring editorial documents (instructions, guidelines, policies) issued by 119 Croatian, Italian, and Spanish law journals. We relied on automatic content analysis of 135 publicly available documents collected from the journal websites to analyze the basic features of the peer review processes, manuscript evaluation criteria, and related ethical issues using WordStat8. Differences in covered topics between the countries were compared using the chi-square test. Our findings reveal that most law journals have adopted a traditional approach, in which the editorial board manages mostly anonymized peer review (104, 77%) engaging independent/external reviewers (65, 48%). Submissions are evaluated according to their originality and relevance (113, 84%), quality of writing and presentation (94, 70%), comprehensiveness of literature references (93, 69%), and adequacy of methods (57, 42%). The main ethical issues related to peer review addressed by these journals are reviewer’s competing interests (42, 31%), plagiarism (35, 26%), and biases (30, 22%). We observed statistically significant differences between countries in mentioning key concepts such as “Peer review ethics”, “Reviewer”, “Transparency of identities”, “Publication type”, and “Research misconduct”. Spanish journals favor reviewers’ “Independence” and “Competence” and “Anonymized” peer review process. Also, some manuscript types popular in one country are rarely mentioned in other countries. Even though peer review is equally conventional in all three countries, high transparency in Croatian law journals, respect for research integrity in Spanish ones, and diversity and inclusion in Italian are promising indicators of future development.

scholarly journals Chief Editor's Voice

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Prof. Dr. Ashok Kumar Jha
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Journal ◽  
Service Commission ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Double Blinded

The RMC of the campus feels much pleasure to publish the annual multi-disciplinary peer reviewed research journal DRISTIKON as vol. 11(1). The journal and the articles published in it are clear evidence and fulfill the requirements laid down by UGC, Nepal, Tribhuvan University Service Commission, APA 7th ed. and other platforms. The journal is designed to serve as an outlet for an intellectual forum for the communication of intellectual ideas among professionals and other social scientists in relevant areas in general and with special reference to Nepal. The board welcomes all the professionals, researchers and all those interested to publish their research findings with significant contribution to society, education sector and international platform. Authors are also encouraged to submit papers which are related to current international, national or local issues. Almost all the scholarly and research articles published in the journal undergo the editorial peer review process prior to publication to fulfill the requirements of peer review process guided by UGC, Nepal and international standard. The goal of the peer review process is to ensure that the valid article is accepted, the messy article cleaned up, and the invalid article rejected. The board of editors has accepted the reviewer’s recommendations. All the articles submitted for publication are subjected to rigorous double blinded peer review to ensure its quality before it gets published.  Manuscripts submitted to this journal must not have been published or accepted for publication or submitted for publication elsewhere. The journal strictly follows guidelines of APA 7th ed. as well as strongly opposes plagiarized contents without proper citation. Following the necessary corrections and additions resulting from the review process the twenty accepted papers were included into the issue covering the specific areas of Nepali, English, Political Science, Science and Management. The cooperation extended by scholars and institutions in publishing this journal is highly appreciated. The opinions expressed in the articles are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of either the publisher or the editorial board. All manuscripts once published becomes the property of the publisher. We hope that inspiration and encouragement from the readers will continue to keep the ‘Dristikon’ alive and develop. We are also looking forward to receiving your comments and suggestions for further improvement in the future. We are grateful to the peer reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. The editorial board heartily thanks all the writers who have contributed research articles. We would also like to give special thanks to the campus chief Mr. Damodar Bhandari for his constant support in terms of finance and administration for the publication of this journal.

scholarly journals The Rise of Predatory Journals in Foot and Ankle Surgery: Propitious or Detrimental?

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 2473011420S0009
Author(s):  
Adeshina Adeyemo ◽  
Umur Aydogan
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Surgical Techniques ◽  
Foot And Ankle ◽  
Inclusion Criteria ◽  
Predatory Journals ◽  
Ankle Surgery ◽  
Online Archive

Category Other Introduction/Purpose: In the world of foot and ankle surgery, much like other surgical fields, research has always been a strong foundation for advancing the field and making strides into improving our knowledge base, perfecting surgical techniques and discovering ways of improving patient outcomes. In recent years, there has been the advent of predatory journals in orthopaedic surgery, though many clinicians may not be familiar with what predatory journals are. The aim of our study is to objectively analyze F&A surgery predatory journals and compare them to higher impact journals in F&A surgery and dispute whether or not predatory journals are beneficial or detrimental to the field of F&A. Methods: Our inclusion criteria involved all existing foot and ankle journals that were considered to be predatory according to Beall’s criteria. Our authors viewed Beall’s online archive, in addition to a recent publication by Yang et al (4), in which we were able to gather a list of several predatory journals related to the field of foot and ankle surgery. After discussion with the authors, it was decided to select three of the higher impact well-known foot and ankle journals to use as a comparison to the predatory journals. The journals that were selected were the Foot and Ankle International journal (AOFAS), Foot and ankle specialist, and the European Foot and ankle specialist (EFAS). Many journal demographics factors (ISSN, peer review process, PubMed indexig, etc) were compared between both types of journals. Results: Of 7 predatory journals, only 2 (28.6%) responded to an online message in regard to the demographics of their journal. Of the journals that responded, none of the journals directly answered all of the questions that were asked. Only 4 of the 7 journals (57%) disclosed their impact factor, and they ranged from 1.508 to 2.52. 2 journals (28.6%) had an editorial board, while one (14%) did not have an editorial board. Information regarding the editorial board was unable to be gathered from 4 journals, as they did not respond to online messages. 4 journals disclosed an article processing fee ranging from $360-$2145. Conclusion: With financial incentives and job promotions being based on research publications, more and more predatory journals are being created to allow authors in the field to publish. However, this rise in predatory journals is detrimental. With a lack of a thorough peer review for some journals, sky-high article processing fees, and hidden peer review processes, these journals are a threat to the next generation of researchers who are not savvy in literature review. We must make a push to have more stringent criteria to critique and index articles.

scholarly journals Editorial

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 001-001
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Editorial Policy ◽  
Open Access Journal ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Online Journal ◽  
Applied Chemistry

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to Biointerface Research in Applied Chemistry, a new open access journal, which is dedicated to innovative, practically oriented original research on the fabrication, characterization, functionalization, and manipulation of biomaterials and nanomaterials, hybrid nanosized structures and nanocomposites, with a strong emphasis on the ecological and biomedical applications of nanosystems, new strategies for fighting antibiotic resistance and biofilms’ development in natural, medical and industrial environments, design of new synthetic compounds and the discovery of new natural bioactive compounds. The prime aim of Biointerface Research in Applied Chemistry is to publish first-class, original research articles under an open access policy with minimal fees for the authors. The quality of the published articles will be assured by a fast yet rigorous peer-review process. The editors will usually reject papers outside the scope of the journal with an immediate decision. Authors who wish to withdraw their manuscript (at any stage of the process) should contact the editorial board. Biointerface Research in Applied Chemistry is published as an online journal, distinguishing between different types of publications: reviews, which are expected to produce a coherent argument about a topic or a focused description of a field, full articles presented as comprehensive reports on original research of the highest quality and short communications, which should be concise, usually no longer than 2500 words and not intended to publish preliminary results, but an independent report representing a significant contribution to the field of interest. Short communications are also send to peer review. For reviews and full articles there will be no page restrictions in place. Our editorial policy inquires that all submitted papers should be complete in themselves and adequately supported by experimental details. We are looking forward to receiving some of your very best manuscripts for publication in Biointerface Research in Applied Chemistry and to participate to an increased international dissemination of scientific information in fully-searchable electronic formats.

scholarly journals Announcing a New Registered Report Article Type at the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Holly L. Storkel ◽  
Frederick J. Gallun
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Publication Bias ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Hearing Research ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Structural Problems ◽  
Article Type

Purpose: This editorial introduces the new registered reports article type for the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research . The goal of registered reports is to create a structural solution to address issues of publication bias toward results that are unexpected and sensational, questionable research practices that are used to produce novel results, and a peer-review process that occurs at the end of the research process when changes in fundamental design are difficult or impossible to implement. Conclusion: Registered reports can be a positive addition to scientific publications by addressing issues of publication bias, questionable research practices, and the late influence of peer review. This article type does so by requiring reviewers and authors to agree in advance that the experimental design is solid, the questions are interesting, and the results will be publishable regardless of the outcome. This procedure ensures that replication studies and null results make it into the published literature and that authors are not incentivized to alter their analyses based on the results that they obtain. Registered reports represent an ongoing commitment to research integrity and finding structural solutions to structural problems inherent in a research and publishing landscape in which publications are such a high-stakes aspect of individual and institutional success.

scholarly journals Ensuring Quality and Status: Peer Review Practices in Kriterium, A Portal for Quality-Marked Monographs and Edited Volumes in Swedish SSH

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Hammarfelt ◽  
Isak Hammar ◽  
Helena Francke
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Peer Reviews ◽  
Publication Patterns ◽  
Novel Approach

Although established forms of peer review are often criticized for being slow, secretive, and even unfair, they are repeatedly mentioned by academics as the most important indicator of quality in scholarly publishing. In many countries, the peer review of books is a less codified practice than that of journal articles or conference papers, and the processes and actors involved are far from uniform. In Sweden, the review process of books has seldom been formalized. However, more formal peer review of books has been identified as a response to the increasing importance placed on streamlined peer-reviewed publishing of journal articles in English, which has been described as a direct challenge to more pluralistic publication patterns found particularly in the humanities. In this study, we focus on a novel approach to book review, Kriterium, where an independent portal maintained by academic institutions oversees the reviewing of academic books. The portal administers peer reviews, providing a mark of quality through a process which involves reviewers, an academic coordinator, and an editorial board. The paper studies how this process functions in practice by exploring materials concerning 24 scholarly books reviewed within Kriterium. Our analysis specifically targets tensions identified in the process of reviewing books with a focus on three main themes, namely the intended audience, the edited volume, and the novel role of the academic coordinator. Moreover, we find that the two main aims of the portal–quality enhancement (making research better) and certification (displaying that research is of high quality)–are recurrent in deliberations made in the peer review process. Consequently, we argue that reviewing procedures and criteria of quality are negotiated within a broader discussion where more traditional forms of publishing are challenged by new standards and evaluation practices.

scholarly journals Thank You to Our 2020 Reviewers

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kit Sturgess
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Board Members ◽  
Board Meeting ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
Strategic Initiatives ◽  
New Information ◽  
First Time

2020 will be a year to remember! One of the standout features for me has been the speed with which ‘science’ has responded to the crisis in terms of developing and disseminating new information to the community highlighting the importance of digital communication – a space that Veterinary Evidence comfortably occupies. The availability of pre peer-reviewed papers has become the norm but it has also emphasised the essential need and benefit of the peer-review process as a significant number of pre-review papers have not made it through to ‘publication’ as issues were identified during the peer-review process. As Editor-in-chief it makes me proud and thankful that Veterinary Evidence has a strong but agile peer-review process and I would like to thank all of our editors and reviewers for their continued support and their diligence in meeting demanding timelines during of these challenging times allowing Veterinary Evidence to publish more content than ever before. Without your highly valued knowledge, expertise and insights Veterinary Evidence would not be growing into the key knowledge source that it is today. The Veterinary Evidence Editorial Board Meeting was held for the first time digitally on 7 December with the largest number of editorial board members able to attend. Members from across the globe were able to take part in wide and varied discussions around the development of the journal, resulting in important strategic initiatives and some key action points to pursue. The availability of the board to attend digitally will facilitate more frequent meetings allowing the journal to be more inclusive, and responsive to the changing landscape, as well as providing a digital recording of the event available for those board members unable to attend. Key areas discussed included development of the format of PICOs and further refining the process for approving them, strategies to encourage engagement and submissions from veterinary nurses, and the development of policies to encourage diversity and inclusion within the board and contributors to the journal, as well as ways to increase the reach of the journal. Having only been Editor-in-chief since September, I have been very impressed by how active and dedicated our reviewers and board members are and how dynamic and forward-looking Veterinary Evidence is as it matures into a key contributor to veterinary literature. None of this would be possible without your support for which I am very grateful.  

scholarly journals Is peer review evolving in the open access environment? A survey of Croatian open access journals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jadranka Stojanovski ◽  
Ivana Hebrang Grgić
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
Peer Reviewers ◽  
Parent Institution

Most of the journals in Croatia adopted the open access (OA) model and their content is freely accessible and available for reuse without restrictions except that attribution be given to the author(s) and journal. There are 444 Croatian scholarly, professional, popular and trade OA journals available in the national repository of OA journals Hrcak, and 217 of them use peer review process as the primary quality assurance system. The goal of our study was to investigate the peer review process used by the Croatian OA journals and the editors’ attitude towards open peer review.An online survey was sent to the Hrcak journal editors with 39 questions grouped in: journal general information, a number of submitted/rejected/accepted manuscripts and timeliness of publishing, peer review process characteristics, instructions for peer reviewers and open peer review. Responses were obtained from 152 editors (141 complete and 11 partial). All journals employ peer review process except one. The data were collected from February to July 2017.The majority of journals come from the humanities (n=50, 33%) and social sciences (n=37, 24%). Less represented are journals from the field of biomedicine (n=22, 14%), technical sciences (n=16, 11%), natural sciences (n=12, 8%), biotechnical sciences (n=10, 7%) and interdisciplinary journals (n=3, 2%). Average journal submission is 54 manuscripts per year, but there are big differences among journals: maximum submission is 550 manuscripts, and minimum just five. In average journal publishes 23 papers after the reviewers’ and editors’ acceptance. In average it takes 16 days for sending the manuscript to the reviewer, 49 days for all the reviewers to send the journal a detailed report on the manuscript, 14 days to the editors’ decision, and another 60 days for the paper to be published.External peer review process where reviewers are not members of the editorial board or employees of the journal’s parent institution was used by 86 journals (60%). Other journals use external peer review process where reviewers are not members of the editorial board but could be employees of the journal’s parent institution (n=40, 28%), and editorial peer review. Remaining 10% journals combine previous three types of the peer review. Only 20% journals use exclusively reviewers from abroad, 44% are combining international and national reviewers, and 36% journals use only reviewers from Croatia.The majority of journals provide two reviews for each manuscript, and the process is double blind. Detailed instructions for peer reviewers are provided by less than half of the journals (n=57, 40%), but ethical issues like plagiarism, conflict of interest, confidentiality etc., are neglected. Usually, a reviewer is not informed of the final decision upon the manuscript, and reviews are not shared among reviewers.Somehow surprising was the opinion of the majority of the editors that reviewers must get credit for their efforts (n=121, 85%). On the other hand, editors are not familiar with the concept of open peer review, which can be easily used for that purpose. Some editors believe that open peer review is related to the identity disclosure: both authors’ and reviewers’ (n=35, 25%), reviewers’ (n=27, 19%), and authors’ identity (n=14, 10%). For many editors open peer review implies publicly available reviews (n=65, 36%) and authors’ responses (n=46, 33%). Open peer review is an unknown concept for some editors (n=32, 23%).In spite of all criticism traditional peer review is predominant in Croatian OA journals. Our findings show that traditional peer review is still the preferred review mechanism for the majority of journals in the study.

The Peer Review of “Outcome of Depression in Psychiatric Settings”

1994 ◽  
Vol 164 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-308
Author(s):  
Alan Lee ◽  
Gordon Parker
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Editorial Decisions ◽  
Shed Light

To facilitate the introduction of this new section, designed to shed light on the peer review process, the Editor has used the review of a paper of which he is a co-author. The referees for this paper were originally anonymous, but they both agreed to be named for the purposes of this article. The original article was twice the length of the published version. The effect of the assessment should be readily apparent. Editorial decisions were undertaken by members of the Editorial Board other than the current Editor.

scholarly journals Assessment of Variables that Influence Agreement Amongst Reviewers for Foot & Ankle International

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 2473011418S0030
Author(s):  
John Kwon ◽  
Tyler Gonzalez ◽  
Chris Miller ◽  
Shera Palmer Cook ◽  
David Thordarson
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Univariate Analysis ◽  
Scientific Quality ◽  
Foot And Ankle ◽  
Initial Decision ◽  
Area Of Interest

Category: Other Introduction/Purpose: The peer-review process is a rigorous process under which manuscripts are assessed for their overall scientific quality and is generally accepted as the highest standard of scientific scrutiny with regard to medical publishing. A common criticism regards the often disparate nature of reviewer recommendations when a decision is rendered which belies the supposed uniformity of the review process. The purpose of this investigation was to: (1) examine the historic level of agreement amongst reviewers for Foot & Ankle International (FAI) and (2) to assess variables which may influence agreement in order to improve the peer-review process. Methods: Approval to conduct this study was obtained from the Editorial Board of FAI. All manuscripts submitted to FAI during 2015 which underwent peer-review were included in the analysis. For each reviewed manuscript, demographic data was collected regarding specific reviewer and manuscript characteristics in a de-identified manner. Univariate analysis was performed. Results: 442 manuscripts underwent peer-review by 198 reviewers during the study period. During this time period, other papers were reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and rejected prior to being sent out for review. Of the 884 reviews performed, 339 (38%) recommended rejection, 353 (40%) recommended revision and resubmission and191(22%) recommended accept. Only 199 manuscripts (45%) had a decision rendered in which both reviewers agreed on the initial recommendation.The most common initial decision was rejection (52.7%) followed by revise and resubmit (42.8%). Only 20 manuscripts (4.5%) received an outright acceptance upon initial review. Comparing the agreeing versus disagreeing reviewers, there was no difference in demographic data such as reviewer age or experience. When examining key words (designated by reviewers as a particular area of interest within foot and ankle), there was no association between shared interests and level of reviewer agreement. Overall, for all reviewers, mean acceptance rate was19% (+/- 16%), mean reject rate 37% (+/- 20%) and mean revise 44% (+/- 19%). Conclusion: Regarding initial decision for publication in FAI, there was only 45% agreement amongst reviewers for manuscripts which underwent peer-review in 2015. However, no reviewer-specific variables examined in this investigation were found to correlate with agreement. Despite reviewers having similar interests in various aspects of foot and ankle surgery, this did not lead to an increased likelihood of agreement. Agreement and more uniform assessment of manuscripts by reviewers may be increased by specific education.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document