FEATURE Peer review
Wiley pilots transferable peer-review system
Jackie Jones discusses why Wiley is piloting a new system to help transfer peer review between journals
R U
apid publication is a widely-pursued goal for authors and publishers. However, the review part of the process can take a long time – a study by Mark Ware for the Publishing Research Consortium in 2008 found that review took on average 80 days per paper[1]
.
With the prospect of waiting nearly three months for a response, it is not surprising that peer review can be a much-maligned process. And it all starts over if the paper gets
rejected from the author’s first choice journal (often for reasons of impact or scope). The entire peer-review process is repeated upon
resubmission to another journal and it’s not uncommon for reviewers to be asked to review the same paper multiple times by different journals. To address this issue, we are piloting Wiley’s transferable peer review. This is a system to preserve, and transfer the initial peer review, enabling the review to travel with the article on its route to publication. We believe this enhanced system of transferring papers and reviews in a seamless manner will save authors, reviewers and editors time. By reducing the number of reviews in the universe, we aim to reduce the burden on reviewers, while helping
editors to make prompt decisions and increase the publication speed of many papers. While there are initiatives to take the journal out of the peer-review process all together and detach reviewer reports from publication in a specific journal, we believe that many authors know which journals they would prefer to publish in. They want to own that choice, rather than being told which journal they should submit to or waiting for a journal to bid for publication of their paper (which they may not wish to publish in). Wiley’s transferable peer review is currently been piloted amongst nine of our high-impact neuroscience titles[2]
. Papers submitted to one
of these journals will be reviewed using the journals’ usual review format. If the paper is rejected, authors can opt for Wiley to transfer the paper to another neuroscience journal within Wiley, sharing the peer review that has
Incentivising peer review
Janne-Tuomas Seppänen describes a new journal that he hopes will provide recognition for good peer reviews
nlocking knowledge is an innately rewarding calling for academics, and excellence in research, demonstrated through published work, is the key to academic career advancement. But there are some aspects of academic practice that have less obvious benefits to a researcher. A good example of this is peer review. What are the incentives for excellence in peer reviewing? Sense of duty is often mentioned, and getting the collegial gratitude of the journal editor. With a slight blush, some privately admit they think there could be some quid-pro-quo for their next own submission to that journal (hopefully they are wrong). However, excellence in reviewing is
12 Research Information FEBRUARY/MARCH 2014
most commonly ‘rewarded’ only by more frequent reviewing requests from journals that have access to the (private) database the publisher is accumulating on the reliability and quality of your peer reviewing.
The reality is that there is little incentive to put significant effort into peer reviewing, particularly for already-established academics. The lack of incentives for peer reviewing results in difficulties in finding willing, qualified reviewers in the first place, and then in getting reviews in time. Lacking rewards for excellence, peer reviewing is too often done haphazardly without much effort to justify arguments by logic, data or literature. Writing carefully justified, diligent peer reviews
should be a rewarding activity. The scientific community should find ways to recognise excellence in peer reviewing.
This is the task that Peerage of Science is set to accomplish. The cornerstone of our approach is peer-review-of-peer-review. Reviewers write knowing that their work is going to be read, judged and scored by their peers. This increases the effort reviewers put into their peer reviews in Peerage of Science, and results in higher average quality. When incompetent peer reviews occur they are flagged with poor scores and can be justifiably ignored, and feedback from colleagues helps these reviewers recognise the need to improve. Peer reviewing in Peerage of Science – done for multiple journals simultaneously – presents the prospect of gaining quantitative, peer-reviewed recognition as excellent peer reviewer. But it would be even better if good reviewers
could gain public recognition, and if the justified reviewer arguments – both the praising and the
@researchinfo
www.researchinformation.info
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28