Peer Review Practices in Scientific Journals and Developmental Scholarship in South Africa: A Peer Reviewer Perspective

The development of science starts with investment in human capital development. Thus far arguments are that it is innovation and development of science which can assure the country of good economic, political and social development. A continuous investment in the youth in academia is a necessity to foster and continue the requirement and continuity of the development of science in academia to advance the society developmentally. This article is conceptual in approach and uses secondary literature to argue that the goal to pursue developmental scholarship, does not only lie with incapacity to mentor, but also lie with the complex peer review system which should enable the emerging researchers with an opportunity to enter the publication space. Therefore, the methodological perspective of the article is purely qualitative and based on scientific materials explored to answer the research question raised in the article. This article concludes that the goal of achieving the next generation of researchers in both academia and practice shall require a system which is highly developmental through a well-developed system of mentoring within the academic environment. Received: 19 August 2021 / Accepted: 6 October 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021

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The Pioneering Role of Sci in Post Publication Public Peer Review (P4R)

10.20944/preprints202101.0395.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ahmad Yaman Abdin ◽

Muhmmad Jawad Nasim ◽

Yannick Ney ◽

Claus Jacob

Keyword(s):

Peer Review ◽

Scientific Discovery ◽

Scientific Article ◽

Scientific Journals ◽

Peer Review System ◽

Review System ◽

Double Blind ◽

Single Blind

Scientists observe, discover, justify and eventually share their findings with the scientific community. Dissemination is an integral aspect of scientific discovery since discoveries which go unnoticed have no or little impact on science. Today, peer-review is part of this process of scientific dissemination as it contributes proactively to the quality of a scientific article. As the numbers of scientific journals and scientific articles published therein are increasing steady, processes such as the single-blind or double-blind peer review are facing a near collapse situation. In fact, these traditional forms of reviewing have reached their limits and, because of this, are also increasingly considered as unfair, sloppy, superficial and even biased. In this manuscript we propose forms of Post Publication Public Peer Review (P4R) as valuable alternatives to the traditional blind peer review system. We describe how the journal Sci has explored such an approach and provide first empirical evidence of the benefits and also challenges such a P4R approach is facing.

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The Pioneering Role of Sci in Post Publication Public Peer Review (P4R)

Publications ◽

10.3390/publications9010013 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 13

Author(s):

Ahmad Yaman Abdin ◽

Muhammad Jawad Nasim ◽

Yannick Ney ◽

Claus Jacob

Keyword(s):

Peer Review ◽

Scientific Discovery ◽

Scientific Article ◽

Scientific Journals ◽

Peer Review System ◽

Review System ◽

Double Blind ◽

Single Blind

Scientists observe, discover, justify and eventually share their findings with the scientific community. Dissemination is an integral aspect of scientific discovery, since discoveries which go unnoticed have no or little impact on science. Today, peer review is part of this process of scientific dissemination as it contributes proactively to the quality of a scientific article. As the numbers of scientific journals and scientific articles published therein are increasing steadily, processes such as the single-blind or double-blind peer review are facing a near collapse situation. In fact, these traditional forms of reviewing have reached their limits and, because of this, are also increasingly considered as unfair, sloppy, superficial and even biased. In this manuscript, we propose forms of post-publication public peer review (P4R) as valuable alternatives to the traditional blind peer review system. We describe how the journal Sci has explored such an approach and provide first empirical evidence of the benefits and also challenges, such a P4R approach faces.

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Open peer review: A randomised controlled trial

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.176.1.47 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 176 (1) ◽

pp. 47-51 ◽

Cited By ~ 109

Author(s):

Elizabeth Walsh ◽

Maeve Rooney ◽

Louis Appleby ◽

Greg Wilkinson

Keyword(s):

British Journal ◽

Randomised Controlled Trial ◽

Peer Review ◽

Open System ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Scientific Journals ◽

Peer Review System ◽

Review System ◽

Randomised Controlled ◽

Better Than

BackgroundMost scientific journals practise anonymous peer review. There is no evidence, however, that this is any better than an open system.AimsTo evaluate the feasibility of an open peer review system.MethodReviewers for the British Journal of Psychiatry were asked whether they would agree to have their name revealed to the authors whose papers they review; 408 manuscripts assigned to reviewers who agreed were randomised to signed or unsigned groups. We measured review quality, tone, recommendation for publication and time taken to complete each review.ResultsA total of 245 reviewers (76%) agreed to sign. Signed reviews were of higher quality, were more courteous and took longer to complete than unsigned reviews. Reviewers who signed were more likely to recommend publication.ConclusionsThis study supports the feasibility of an open peer review system and identifies such a system's potential drawbacks.

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