ScienceGeist

No formal investigations have been conducted into the efficacy or potential influence of reviewer recommendations on editorial decisions, and the impact of this on the expectations and behaviour of authors, reviewers and journal editors. This article addresses key questions about this critical aspect of the peer review submission process.

A new study suggests that making reviewers' reports freely readable doesn't compromise the peer-review process.

Milton Packer wonders if the time has come for instant replay.

Wiley claim they are committed to moving towards greater openness and reproducibility of research, including increasing transparency in peer review

The EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships selection process undergoes analysis.

To increase transparency in science, some scholarly journals have begun publishing peer review reports. Here, the authors show how this policy shift affects reviewer behavior by analyzing data from five journals piloting open peer review.

ORCID has provided peer review functionality for going on three years. Peer review recognition is part of our broader commitment to improve recognition for all research contributions. It’s something that reviewers feel strongly about too.

The Global State of Peer Review is one of the largest ever studies into the practice of scholarly peer review around the world. Discover the findings here.

New approach to peer review proves popular with authors, with very similar acceptance rates for male and female last authors, but with higher acceptance rates for late-career researchers compared to their early- and mid-career colleagues.

The integration of AIRA - Artificial Intelligence Review Assistant - into Frontiers' digital peer-review platform enables faster, more efficient quality control and manuscript handling.

BMC Biology's 'portable peer review' policy aims to save editors and researchers time and effort, but academics question whether authors will want to share details of past rejections.

To date, the majority of authors on scientific publications have been men. While much of this gender bias can be explained by historic sexism and discrimination, there is concern that women may still be disadvantaged by the peer review process if reviewers' unconscious biases lead them to reject publications with female authors more often. One potential solution to this perceived gender bias in the reviewing process is for journals to adopt double-blind reviews whereby neither the authors nor the reviewers are aware of each other's identities and genders. To test the efficacy of double-blind reviews, we assigned gender to every authorship of every paper published in 5 different journals with different peer review processes (double-blind vs. single blind) and subject matter (birds vs. behavioral ecology) from 2010-2018 (n = 4865 papers). While female authorships comprised only 35% of the total, the double-blind journal Behavioral Ecology did not have more female authorships than its single-blind counterparts. Interestingly, the incidence of female authorship is higher at behavioral ecology journals (Behavioral Ecology and Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology) than in the ornithology journals (Auk, Condor, Ibis), for papers on all topics as well as those on birds. These analyses suggest that double-blind review does not currently increase the incidence of female authorship in the journals studied here. We conclude, at least for these journals, that double-blind review does not benefit female authors and may, in the long run, be detrimental.

Funders and publishers have a lot to gain from sharing and aligning peer reviews.

The burden on the peer review community is increasing as the volume of published research articles grows. Research output is rising exponentially and this is putting pressure on the system, with many academics inundated with requests to peer review. The recent Global State of Peer Review report highlights a growing “reviewer fatigue”.To help address this, Springer Nature and Publons, part of Clarivate Analytics, have announced a partnership to improve the peer review process and enable peer reviewers to receive recognition for their contribution.

In academia, assessment of grant proposals is the forward‐looking review, the laying out and checking of your research plan, while peer reviews in journals are the final, consolidatory scrutiny before publication. An important difference between these academic checkpoints and my, admittedly somewhat forced fashionista analogy, is that in academia the two stages of review take place independently of each other.

Peer review is lauded in principle as the guarantor of quality in academic publishing and grant distribution. But its practice is often loathed by those on the receiving end. Here, seven academics offer their tips on good refereeing, and reflect on how it may change in the years to come

Automated tools could speed up and improve the review process, but humans are still in the driving seat. Most researchers have good reason to grumble about peer review: it is time-consuming and error-prone, and the workload is unevenly spread, with just 20% of scientists taking on most reviews. Now peer review by artificial intelligence (AI) is promising to improve the process, boost the quality of published papers — and save reviewers time.

Competitive funding once helped novel ideas get off the ground, but now funding 'excellence' is hampering new research, says Dutch institute

It is a great challenge to get Early Career Researchers (ECRs) involved in peer review and to get them the necessary training to be confident reviewers.

Review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes significantly affect how faculty direct their own career and scholarly progression. Although RPT practices vary between and within institutions, and affect various disciplines, ranks, institution types, genders, and ethnicity in different ways, some consistent themes emerge when investigating what faculty would like to change about RPT. For instance, over the last few decades, RPT processes have generally increased the value placed on research, at the expense of teaching and service, which often results in an incongruity between how faculty actually spend their time vs. what is considered in their evaluation. Another issue relates to publication practices: most agree RPT requirements should encourage peer-reviewed works of high quality, but in practice, the value of publications is often assessed using shortcuts such as the prestige of the publication venue, rather than on the quality and rigor of peer review of each individual item.

A look at the system's weaknesses, and possible ways to combat them.

A new Research Square product for tracking peer review activity of a paper in submission.

A manuscript is much more than words on paper. Painstakingly drafted, fuelled by coffee over long nights, then (constructively) dismantled by colleagues, re-drafted several times, and finally, assembled into something you're proud of. It is the culmination of months or years of hard work, and could potentially lead to recognition for you and your whole... Read more "

Scientists receive too little peer-review training. Here's one method for effectively peer-reviewing papers, says Mathew Stiller-Reeve.

Data underlying science’s quality control process is revealing worrying trends — and suggestions are pouring in on how to address the concerns.

How three scholars gulled academic journals to publish hoax papers on ‘grievance studies.’

Governing board of the evidence-based medicine group may now be dissolved entirely.