Recognizing and Rewarding Peer-reviewers

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Pathiyil Ravi Shankar

Peer review (PR) is a relatively recent development though it has become an established part of academic publishing. PR started becoming common in the 1960s and 70s. Peer review can be of different types. It can be blinded or open. The process can be done before publication or after a manuscript is published. Portable reviews, impact neutral PR, collaborative PR, and registered reports are also used. There are challenges with peer review which remains a largely subjective process. Due to increasing number of journals and submissions there is an urgent need for more reviewers, especially from the developing nations and from women. Academic publishing is a lucrative business dominated by a few big publishers. Reviewers should be rewarded financially either directly or through processing charge waivers or through journal and database subscription for their efforts.  

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva ◽  
Aceil Al-Khatib

Without peer reviewers, the entire scholarly publishing system as we currently know it would collapse. However, as it currently stands, publishing is an extremely exploitative system, relative to other business models, in which trained and specialized labor is exploited, in the form of editors and peer reviewers, primarily by for-profit publishers, in return for a pat on the back, and a public nod of thanks. This is the “standardized” and “accepted” form for deriving mainstream peer reviewed literature. However, except for open peer review, where reports are open and identities are known, traditional peer review is closed, and the content of peer reports is known only to the authors and editors involved. Publons launched in 2012 as a platform that would offer recognition to peer reviewers for their work. In 2016, Publons rewarded the most productive reviewers with a “Sentinels of Science” award, accompanied by a dismal monetary reward (38 US cents/review) for their efforts. A site aimed at registering pre- and post-publication peer efforts, Publons was perceived as a positive step towards a more transparent peer review system. However, the continued presence of fake peer reviews and a spike in retractions, even among publishers that were Publons sponsors, suggests that perhaps peers may be exploiting Publons to get recognition for superficial or poor peer review. Since all reviews are not public, their content and quality cannot be verified. On 1 June 2017, ClarivateTM Analytics, which owns the journal impact factor—most likely the most gamed non-academic factor in academic publishing—which is a measure of the number of citations of papers in journals, many of which are published by the for-profit publishers—including Publons sponsors—that “employ” free peer reviewers to quality check the literature they then sell for profit, purchased Publons. Touting the purchase as a way to increase transparency, and stamp out fake peer review, some who had supported Publons felt betrayed, even cancelling their Publons accounts immediately when learning of this purchase. Their concerns included the possible “gaming” of peer review as had taken place with the journal impact factor. This commentary examines possible positive and negative aspects of this business transaction, and what it might mean to academics and publishers.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cody Fullerton

For years, the gold-standard in academic publishing has been the peer-review process, and for the most part, peer-review remains a safeguard to authors publishing intentionally biased, misleading, and inaccurate information. Its purpose is to hold researchers accountable to the publishing standards of that field, including proper methodology, accurate literature reviews, etc. This presentation will establish the core tenants of peer-review, discuss if certain types of publications should be able to qualify as such, offer possible solutions, and discuss how this affects a librarian's reference interactions.


Philosophies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  

Rigorous peer-review is the corner-stone of high-quality academic publishing [...]


Author(s):  
Ann Blair Kennedy, LMT, BCTMB, DrPH

  Peer review is a mainstay of scientific publishing and, while peer reviewers and scientists report satisfaction with the process, peer review has not been without criticism. Within this editorial, the peer review process at the IJTMB is defined and explained. Further, seven steps are identified by the editors as a way to improve efficiency of the peer review and publication process. Those seven steps are: 1) Ask authors to submit possible reviewers; 2) Ask reviewers to update profiles; 3) Ask reviewers to “refer a friend”; 4) Thank reviewers regularly; 5) Ask published authors to review for the Journal; 6) Reduce the length of time to accept peer review invitation; and 7) Reduce requested time to complete peer review. We believe these small requests and changes can have a big effect on the quality of reviews and speed in which manuscripts are published. This manuscript will present instructions for completing peer review profiles. Finally, we more formally recognize and thank peer reviewers from 2018–2020.


F1000Research ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Giordan ◽  
Attila Csikasz-Nagy ◽  
Andrew M. Collings ◽  
Federico Vaggi

BackgroundPublishing in scientific journals is one of the most important ways in which scientists disseminate research to their peers and to the wider public. Pre-publication peer review underpins this process, but peer review is subject to various criticisms and is under pressure from growth in the number of scientific publications.MethodsHere we examine an element of the editorial process ateLife, in which the Reviewing Editor usually serves as one of the referees, to see what effect this has on decision times, decision type, and the number of citations. We analysed a dataset of 8,905 research submissions toeLifesince June 2012, of which 2,750 were sent for peer review, using R and Python to perform the statistical analysis.ResultsThe Reviewing Editor serving as one of the peer reviewers results in faster decision times on average, with the time to final decision ten days faster for accepted submissions (n=1,405) and 5 days faster for papers that were rejected after peer review (n=1,099). There was no effect on whether submissions were accepted or rejected, and a very small (but significant) effect on citation rates for published articles where the Reviewing Editor served as one of the peer reviewers.ConclusionsAn important aspect ofeLife’s peer-review process is shown to be effective, given that decision times are faster when the Reviewing Editor serves as a reviewer. Other journals hoping to improve decision times could consider adopting a similar approach.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malte Elson ◽  
Markus Huff ◽  
Sonja Utz

Peer review has become the gold standard in scientific publishing as a selection method and a refinement scheme for research reports. However, despite its pervasiveness and conferred importance, relatively little empirical research has been conducted to document its effectiveness. Further, there is evidence that factors other than a submission’s merits can substantially influence peer reviewers’ evaluations. We report the results of a metascientific field experiment on the effect of the originality of a study and the statistical significance of its primary outcome on reviewers’ evaluations. The general aim of this experiment, which was carried out in the peer-review process for a conference, was to demonstrate the feasibility and value of metascientific experiments on the peer-review process and thereby encourage research that will lead to understanding its mechanisms and determinants, effectively contextualizing it in psychological theories of various biases, and developing practical procedures to increase its utility.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damian Pattinson

In recent years, funders have increased their support for early sharing of biomedical research through the use of preprints. For most, such as the COAlitionS group of funders (ASAPbio 2019) and the Gates foundation, this takes the form of active encouragement, while for others, it is mandated. But despite these motivations, few authors are routinely depositing their work as a preprint before submitting to a journal. Some journals have started offering authors the option of posting their work early at the point at which it is submitted for review. These include PLOS, who offer a link to BiorXiv, the Cell journals, who offer SSRN posting through ‘Sneak Peak’, and Nature Communications, who offer posting to any preprint and a link from the journal page called ‘Under Consideration’. Uptake has ranged from 3% for the Nature pilot, to 18% for PLOS (The Official Plos Blog 2018). In order to encourage more researchers to post their work early, we have been offering authors who submit to BMC Series titles the opportunity to post their work as a preprint on Research Square, a new platform that lets authors share and improve their research. To encourage participation, authors are offered a greater amount of control and transparency over the peer review process if they opt in. First, they are given a detailed peer review timeline which updates in real time every time an event occurs on their manuscript (reviewer invited, reviewer accepts etc). Second, they are encouraged to share their preprint with colleagues, who are able to post comments on the paper. These comments are sent to the editor when they are making their decision. Third, authors can suggest potential peer reviewers, recommendations which are also passed onto the editor to vet and invite. Together, these incentives have had a positive impact on authors choosing to post a preprint. Among the journals that offer this service, the average opt-in rate is 40%. This translates to over 3,000 manuscripts (as of July 2019) that have been posted to Research Square since the launch of the service in October 2018. In this talk I will demonstrate the functionality of Research Square, and provide demographic and discipline data on which areas are most and least likely to post.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
pp. 1656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamidreza Sadeghi Gandomani ◽  
Seyed Majid Yousefi ◽  
Mohammad Aghajani ◽  
Abdollah Mohammadian-Hafshejani ◽  
Abed Asgari Tarazoj ◽  
...  

A rapid literature search strategy was conducted for all English language literature published before July 2017. The search was conducted using the electronic databases PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. The search strategy included the keywords ‘colorectal cancer’, ‘epidemiology’, ‘incidence’, ‘mortality’, ‘risk factor’, and ‘world’. In 2012, the highest CRC incidence rates were observed in the Republic of Korea, Slovakia and Hungary while the lowest incidence rates were seen in Singapore, Serbia and Japan. The highest CRC mortality rates in both sexes were seen in Central and Eastern Europe and the lowest mortality rates were found in Middle Division of Africa. The main risk factors for CRC include nutritional factors, past medical history, smoking, socioeconomic status, and family medical history. According to the increasing trend of CRC incidence and mortality in the world, implementation of prevention programs such as screening programs, diet modification, and healthy lifestyle education is necessary. Peer Review Details Peer review method: Single-Blind (Peer-reviewers: 02) Peer-review policy Plagiarism software screening?: Yes Date of Original Submission: 26 August 2017 Date accepted: 20 Sept 2017 Peer reviewers approved by: Dr. Lili Hami Editor who approved publication: Dr. Phuc Van Pham  


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