Reflection on peer reviewing as a pedagogical tool in higher education

Previous research has emphasized both the importance of giving and receiving peer feedback for the purpose of active learning, as well as of university students’ engagement in reflection to improve learning outcomes. However, requiring students to explicitly reflect on peer reviewing is an understudied learning activity in higher education that may contribute to the utilization of peer-feedback and promote further learning. In this study, we suggest reflection on peer reviewing as one approach to providing a platform for students to engage in reflective practices and for stimulating active learning in higher education, and to make that learning visible to the educator. We examine 26 undergraduate students’ reflections on peer-review to identify categories of reflection and what students have learnt from the peer reviewing process. Our findings reveal six different categories of reflection suggesting students’ active engagement in learning and pointing to the ways educators can direct and instruct students how to reflect. We discuss how these findings can inform university lecturers in the use of reflection upon peer reviewing as a pedagogical tool in higher education.

Happy New Year from the Editor

Dear readers, advisors, authors, editors, and peer reviewers, As we welcome the new year, we look forward to the opportunity to publish new arguments and pose challenging questions about ethical dilemmas in the realm of medicine, science, and technology. Reflecting on the peer review process at this juncture seems especially important considering the bioethics climate and the challenges in doing justice to ethical dilemmas. Unlike scientific peer review, replicability, reliability, and evaluation of methods are largely irrelevant to much of the bioethics literature, except for empirical research. Much like papers published in law, the humanities, and social sciences, peer reviewing contextual arguments in bioethics requires us to evaluate argument validity and ensure that arguments are based on facts or appropriate hypotheticals. The risk that voices are quieted merely because the editorial staff or peer reviewers would choose the other side of an argument is high and requires mitigation steeped in serious processes built into the peer review system. It is especially important to hear diverse views that represent many points along a continuum during polarized times. The papers that offer conceptual arguments that we tend to publish at Voices in Bioethics call for an examination of logic and argument foremost, with a special emphasis on which conclusions are drawn from the premises supplied. At Voices in Bioethics, the peer review process aims to be inclusive, so we balance our instincts to criticize with our goal to accept as many papers that meet our guidelines as possible. We welcome new arguments, especially ones that highlight overlooked viewpoints, considerations, or stakeholders. We acknowledge how many great ideas result from people who speak English as a second or third language, or who do not use English at all. All of those affected by or who observe an ethical dilemma are welcome to submit their ethics arguments surrounding health care, technology, the environment, and the broader sciences. We are happy to read papers by those outside of bioethics and those with any level of education. We use the peer review questions about mechanics only to inform editors of what the process might entail. We do not accept or reject based on mechanics or style alone. The nature of many bioethics journals is to publish papers that may reflect the bioethics status quo or apply common bioethical frameworks to new problems. In addition to that, we try to showcase new ways of thinking and additional considerations. After all, publishing is not about publishing papers that mimic older well-cited articles or that apply only those frameworks learned in the classroom. It is about giving voice and contributing to an open access ecosystem where new and old ideas coexist, their worth measured not in hits or likes, but in their contribution to ethical analysis. Wishing a happy new year to our advisors, editors, peer reviewers, authors, and readers.

Can a paid model for peer review be sustainable when the author can decide whether to pay or not?

Given how hard it is to recruit good reviewers who are aligned with authors in their functions, journal editors could consider the use of better incentives, such as paying reviewers for their time. In order to facilitate a speedy turn-around when a rapid decision is required, the peer-reviewed journal can also offer a review model in which selected peer reviewers are compensated to deliver high-quality and timely peer-review reports. In this paper, we consider a peer-reviewed journal in which the manuscript’s evaluation consists of a necessary peer review component and an optional speedy peer review component. We model and study that journal under two different scenarios to be compared: a paid peer-reviewing scenario that is considered as the benchmark; and a hybrid peer-review scenario where the manuscript’s author can decide whether to pay or not. In the benchmark scenario of paid peer-reviewing, the scholarly journal expects all authors to pay for the peer review and charges separately for the necessary and the optional speedy peer-review components. Alternatively, in a hybrid peer-review scenario, the peer-reviewed journal gives the option to the authors to not pay for the necessary peer review if they are not able to pay. This will determine an altruistic amplification of pay utility. However, the no-pay authors cannot avail of the optional speedy peer review, which determines a restriction-induced no-pay utility reduction. In this paper, we find that under the hybrid setting of compensated peer review where the author can decide whether to pay or not, the optimal price and review quality of the optional speedy peer review are always higher than under the benchmark scenario of paid peer-reviewing, due to the altruistic amplification of pay utility. Our results show that when the advantage of adopting the hybrid mode of compensated peer review is higher due to the higher difference between the altruistic author utility amplification and the restriction-induced no-pay utility reduction, the journal can increase its profitability by increasing the price for the necessary peer review above that in the benchmark scenario of paid peer review. A key insight from our results is the journal’s capability to increase the number of paying authors by giving the option to the authors to not pay for the necessary peer review if they are not able to pay.

Thanks to the Reviewers of the Journal in 2021

We would like to thank everyone who has helped us by peer reviewing articles submitted to the Ukrainian Journal of Remote Sensing in 2021. By way of thanks here is a list of everyone who has given their time to write a review.

Peer‐reviewing geen valide basis voor erkennen en waarderen van onderzoeksprestaties

Peer-reviewing fungeert als poortwachter voor onderzoeksvoorstellen en wetenschappelijke publicaties. In het statement van de VSNU over Erkennen en Waarderen van wetenschappers (Recognition and Rewards) wordt niet kritisch gereflecteerd op peer-reviewing ter beoordeling van wetenschappelijke prestaties. De kwaliteit van referentenrapporten als beoordeling van onderzoeksvoorstellen is soms twijfelachtig. De referentencommentaren op manuscripten voor publicatie zijn vaak inadequaat, inconsistent en/of vooringenomen. De beoordelingen door vakgenoten missen betrouwbaarheid en validiteit. In het beoordelingsproces zijn auteur(s) en reviewers ongelijkwaardig. Peer-reviewing draagt daardoor bij aan aangeleerde hulpeloosheid en sociale onveiligheid van wetenschappers. Peer reviewing ter beoordeling van onderzoeksprestaties verdient heroverweging.

Volume 10, Issue 2, Formation

In editors of the Iraqi Journal of Embryos and Infertility Researches (IJEIR) are thankful to the huge efforts made by the reviewers in peer reviewing the submitted manuscripts. Thanks to their efforts the second issue of the 10th volume is now available online with open access to the articles content. We are looking forward in inclusion in relevant indexing in the near future. We would like to acknowledge the reviewers for their contribution, and we wish them the greatest success. We ensured the anonymity of both reviewers and authors and followed a double-blind peer-review procedure. We strictly followed the COPE ethical code in the published studies. As of now, the IJEIR is published in new website https://ijeir.net/index.php/ijeir supported by the Open Journal Systems (OJS), therefore all the activities were strictly by the online system. Journal reviewers were given the proper credit via Publons (an online platform that promotes the peer review process). Currently, IJEIR is indexed in Google Scholar, Science gate, Crossref, Iraqi academic journals, Publons, Dimensions, LOCKSS, and CLOCKSS. Our articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and the rights are with the authors which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Preface

It is our great pleasure to introduce the Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Renewable Energy and Materials Technology (ICOREMT 2021), held at Erbil, Iraq, from the 2nd to the 3rd of August 2021. The core aim of ICOREMT-2021 has always been to bring together early-career researchers, scientists, academics, engineers, and postgraduate students to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of science, technology, and engineering. Accordingly, the professional keynote speakers and researchers have presented various perspectives on research. All submitted papers were have gone through an initial assessment by the editors of ICOREMT-2021 before sending them for reviewers. The latter were carefully selected from many countries to ensure reliable outcomes. The committee of STEPS-2020 followed an accurate and professional double-blind peer-reviewing process that involved 223 reviewers from all over the world. In total, 272 papers were submitted to ICOREMT-2021; 22 were rejected during the initial assessment process, and 56 papers were accepted (acceptance rate of 20.59%). The accepted papers demonstrated novel ideas and impressive effort in engineering science and technology. We wish to express our sincere gratitude to all individuals, authors, editors, reviewers, and committees of ICOREMT-2021 who have contributed to ICOREMT-2021. Without their support, it would not have been possible to make ICOREMT-2021 a successful event in this challenging time. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to our partner, Tikrit University, Iraq. Without their support, it would not have been possible to host such a successful international event. Warmest regards, STEPS Team List of Editors and Scientific Committee are available in this pdf.

Facebook me!: Initial insights in favour of using social networking as a tool for translator training

This paper argues in favour of integrating and using online social networking, more specifically Facebook, within the translation classroom. This has numerous benefits in terms of aptly preparing trainees for the marketplace and also helping to foster a classroom community by encouraging a collaborative learning environment. A descriptive analysis of five undergraduate courses suggests that using online social networking as a teaching strategy has a significant impact: from engaging students through collaborative translation projects, to peer-reviewing assignments, to establishing ‘telepresence’, Facebook allows the trainer to ‘connect’ the classroom.

Publishing more than reviewing? Some ethical musings on the sustainability of the peer review process

Based on our editorial experience, and acknowledging the regular editor grievances about reviewer disengagement at professional meeting and conferences, in this article we argue that the review system is in need of significant repair. We argue that this has emerged because an audit culture in academia and individual incentives (like reduced teaching loads or publication bonuses) have eroded the willingness of individuals to engage in the collective enterprise of peer-reviewing each others’ work on a quid pro quo basis. In response to this, we emphasise why it is unethical for potential reviewers to disengage from the review process, and outline the implications for our profession if colleagues publish more than they review. Designed as a political intervention in response to reviewer disengagement, we aim to ‘politicise’ the review process and its consequences for the sustainability of the scholarly community. We propose three pathways towards greater reviewer engagement: (i) senior scholars setting the right kind of ‘reviewer’ example; (ii) journals introducing recognition awards to foster a healthy reviewer progression path and (iii) universities and accreditation bodies moving to explicitly recognise reviewing in workload models and evaluations. While all three proposals have merit, the latter point is especially powerful in fostering reviewer engagement as it aligns individual and institutional goals in ‘measurable’ ways. In this way, ironically, the audit culture can be subverted to address the imbalance between individual and collective goals.