What to Consider when Asked to Peer Review a Manuscript
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) discuss what you should consider when you are asked to peer review a manuscript.
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Quality in Peer Review: An Interview with Tracey Brown, Sense About Science
Continuing our celebration of Peer Review Week 2019, today Alice Meadows interviews Tracey Brown, OBE, Director of Sense about Science, which has been involved in Peer Review Week from the start.
Quality is Multi-Dimensional: How Many Ways Can You Define Quality in Peer Review?
Quality is Multi-Dimensional: How Many Ways Can You Define Quality in Peer Review?
Alice Meadows and Karin Wulf kick off the fifth annual Peer Review Week with their thoughts on defining quality in peer review principles and practices.
Peer Reviewers Need a Code of Conduct Too
Journals and editorial boards must accept their responsibility to guide positive reviewer behaviour and constructive feedback.
Open Up: A Survey on Open and Non-anonymized Peer Reviewing
A case study discussing and analysing the benefits and limitations of open and non-anonymized peer review.
Filling in the Gaps: The Interpretation of Curricula Vitae in Peer Review
A study of the use of curricula vitae for competitive funding decisions in science suggests that bibliographic categories such as authorship of publications or performance metrics may themselves come to be problematized and reshaped in the process.
Criteria for Assessing Grant Applications: A Systematic Review
Identification and synthetisation of studies that examine grant peer review criteria in an empirical and inductive manner.
Amidst Criticism of the Peer Review Process, the Valuable Contributions of Reviewers Should Be Defended
Amidst Criticism of the Peer Review Process, the Valuable Contributions of Reviewers Should Be Defended
As flaws in the peer review process are highlighted and calls for reform become more frequent, it may be tempting for some to denigrate and dismiss the contributions of the reviewers themselves.
Why We Shouldn’t Take Peer Review as the ‘Gold Standard’
Targeting a general audience, this opinion piece argues that with more transparency about the publication process, we might have a more nuanced understanding of how knowledge is built - and fewer people taking “peer-reviewed” to mean settled truth.
Balancing Author Satisfaction with Reviewer Needs
Authors want their papers published quickly while also expecting high-quality reviews. Reviewers want reasonable deadlines. These two groups come from the same communities so why the disconnect?
Why It's So Hard To Reform Peer Review
Measurement creates a temptation to achieve a measurable goal by less than totally honest means. As in physics, the simple act of measuring invariably disturbs what you are trying to measure.
Peer Review Week Is Five!
The fifth annual Peer Review Week will take place from September 16-20, 2019. This post reflects on its history and achievements.
You've Completed Your Review - Now Get Credit with ORCID
Reviewers can now enter their ORCID iD in the Editorial Manager submission system for all PLOS journals and opt-in to automatically get credit when they complete a review, the same way they would for their published articles.
Launching Transpose, a Database of Journal Policies on Preprinting & Peer Review
Launching Transpose, a Database of Journal Policies on Preprinting & Peer Review
ASAPbio launched Transpose, a database of journal peer review, co-reviewing, and preprint policies relating to media coverage, licensing, versions, and citation.
Peer Review is Not Just Quality Control, It is Part of the Social Infrastructure of Research
Peer Review is Not Just Quality Control, It is Part of the Social Infrastructure of Research
The purpose of peer review is often portrayed as being a simple ‘objective’ test of the soundness or quality of a research paper. However, it also performs other functions primarily through linking and developing relationships between networks of researchers.
Taiwan Considers Double-blind Peer Review for Grants
If the system is adopted, reviewers and applicants will be anonymous, in an attempt to make selection fairer.
Registered Reports: Peer Review Before Results Are Known to Align Scientific Values and Practices
Registered Reports: Peer Review Before Results Are Known to Align Scientific Values and Practices
Registered Reports emphasize the importance of the research question and the quality of methodology by conducting peer review prior to data collection. High quality protocols are then provisionally accepted for publication if the authors follow through with the registered methodology.
Artificial Intelligence is Selecting Grant Reviewers in China
The country's major funding agency says the tool reduces the time it takes to find referees.
Early-Career Researchers Commonly Ghostwrite Peer Reviews. That's a Problem
Early-Career Researchers Commonly Ghostwrite Peer Reviews. That's a Problem
Our Taken for Granted columnist discusses a new report about the practice-and recommendations for reform.
Junior researchers often ghostwrite peer reviews
A new survey reveals the alarming extent of a practice that is universally considered unethical.
Three-year Trial Shows Support for Recognizing Peer Reviewers
Thousands of Nature referees have chosen to be publicly acknowledged.
'Friendly' Reviewers Rate Grant Applications More Highly
Swiss funding agency banned applicant-nominated referees after a 2016 study found evidence of bias. Those results are now being made public.
Self-organising Peer Review for Preprints - A Future Paradigm for Scholarly Publishing
Self-organising Peer Review for Preprints - A Future Paradigm for Scholarly Publishing
The development of preprint servers as self-organising peer review platforms could be the future of scholarly publication.
How many reviewers are required to obtain reliable evaluations of NIH R01 grant proposals?
How many reviewers are required to obtain reliable evaluations of NIH R01 grant proposals?
The National Institutes of Health uses small groups of scientists to judge the quality of the grant proposals that they receive, and these quality judgments form the basis of its funding decisions. In order for this system to fund the best science, the subject experts must, at a minimum, agree as to what counts as a “quality”proposal. We investigated the degree of agreement by leveraging data from a recent experiment with 412 scientists.
Attitudes of Referees in a Multidisciplinary Journal: An Empirical Analysis
Attitudes of Referees in a Multidisciplinary Journal: An Empirical Analysis
Paper finds that the disciplinary background and the academic status of the referee have an influence on their reviewing tasks. Articles that had been recommended by a multidisciplinary set of referees were found to receive subsequently more citations than those that had been reviewed by referees from the same discipline.
Saint Matthew Strikes Again: An Agent-based Model of Peer Review and the Scientific Community Structure
Saint Matthew Strikes Again: An Agent-based Model of Peer Review and the Scientific Community Structure
This paper investigates the impact of referee reliability on the quality and efficiency of peer review. We modeled peer review as a process based on knowledge asymmetries and subject to evaluation bias.
Does Incentive Provision Increase the Quality of Peer Review? An Experimental Study
Does Incentive Provision Increase the Quality of Peer Review? An Experimental Study
Although peer review is crucial for innovation and experimental discoveries in science, it is poorly understood in scientific terms. Discovering its true dynamics and exploring adjustments which improve the commitment of everyone involved could benefit scientific development for all disciplines and consequently increase innovation in the economy and the society.
Opening the Black-Box of Peer Review
This paper investigates the impact of referee behaviour on the quality and efficiency of peer review. We focused on the importance of reciprocity motives in ensuring cooperation between all involved parties. We modelled peer review as a process based on knowledge asymmetries and subject to evaluation bias. We built various simulation scenarios in which we tested different interaction conditions and author and referee behaviour. We found that reciprocity cannot always have per se a positive effect on the quality of peer review, as it may tend to increase evaluation bias. It can have a positive effect only when reciprocity motives are inspired by disinterested standards of fairness.
Assessing Peer Review by Gauging the Fate of Rejected Manuscripts: the Case of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
Assessing Peer Review by Gauging the Fate of Rejected Manuscripts: the Case of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
This paper investigates the fate of manuscripts that were rejected from JASSS- The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, the flagship journal of social simulation. We tracked 456 manuscripts that were rejected from 1997 to 2011 and traced their subsequent publication as journal articles, conference papers or working papers.
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