Peer review FEATURE


already taken place and thereby receiving a speedier decision.


An additional component of this transfer is the use of a standard review scorecard used among all participating journals and filled out by the reviewer in parallel to the current peer review at each journal. Using the scorecard, reviewers can provide a quantitative assessment of the quality of the research (experimental approach, data quality, interpretation of results) and also its novelty, impact and interest (study objectives, advancement and level of broad interest). We hope the scorecard will increase the portability of the reviews and make them more useful to other journals in the pilot. This is not the first time Wiley has been involved in such an initiative. Some of the journals in this pilot are also members of the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium (NPRC), a cross-publisher initiative that passes on reviews to other journals if authors choose to resubmit their manuscript to another journal in the NPRC. However, our approach in this pilot goes


further. We manage the whole transfer process for authors, transferring the manuscript, as well as the reviews. This means that the author doesn’t have to go through a laborious submission process for a second time. Once an


author agrees to transfer to another journal in the pilot we take care of this and simply ask them to approve the work we have done. We want to ensure that papers are not sent out for review again unnecessarily, delaying a decision. To this end, we encourage reviewers to share their identity amongst the editors of participating journals (although they have the


‘The primary goal of the scorecard is to provide a framework for


objective evaluation’ Jackie Jones


option to remain anonymous if they wish). Our goal is to preserve, and enhance the quality of the peer-review process. With this in mind, authors are encouraged to consider a transfer only when appropriate. The purpose is not to provide a soft reject option for the original journal or keep poor papers in the system. Authors are also encouraged to revise their manuscripts in light of reviewer comments prior to transfer, and to explain these revisions to the new journal in order that it can make an immediate accept or reject decision.


Of course most journals are attached to their own approach to peer review and it can be difficult to perform review outside the context and lens of a specific journal. The primary goal of the scorecard is to provide a framework for objective evaluation. We are conscious of not wanting to duplicate work for reviewers, or for the scorecard to be redundant. Conversely we do not want reviewers to rely only on the scorecard and forgo the detailed comments that are most useful to the author.


At present, uploading the scorecard is optional for reviewers and will we assess the take-up during the pilot. We look forward to feedback from authors and reviewers during this phase. The pilot will run for at least six months and results will be used to develop a robust process that can be expanded across our journal portfolio.


Jackie Jones is executive journal editor at Wiley FURTHER INFORMATION


M. Ware, Peer review: benefits, perceptions, and alternatives, Publishing Research Consortium, 2008 www.publishingresearch.org.uk/documents/ PRCsummary4Warefinal.pdf [2]


[1]


www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/peerreviewpilot


critical – were publicly available. Hence, we are very excited about the launch of Peerage of Science’s own journal.


Proceedings of Peerage of Science (ProcPoS) is


a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, invitation- only journal, focusing exclusively on publishing commentary articles. Since the peer reviews in Peerage of Science are themselves peer-reviewed,


manuscript targeting any published article; ProcPoS editors track interesting manuscripts there and may make direct publishing offers to the authors just like other participating journals. We hope ProcPoS grows into a popular and widely followed post-publication peer review platform, where anyone can publicly promote works they consider deserving more attention,


‘The reality is that there is little incentive to put significant effort into peer reviewing, particularly for already-established academics’ Janne-Tuomas Seppänen


ProcPoS editors may choose to invite a high- scoring peer reviewer of a given manuscript to contribute a commentary targeting that forthcoming article. Thus good peer reviewers gain a citable publication out of the reviewing work they do in Peerage of Science. Another way to get published in ProcPoS is to write a commentary targeting an article. While it is not possible to submit directly to ProcPoS, anyone can submit to Peerage of Science a commentary


www.researchinformation.info @researchinfo


or publicly criticise flawed research, or draw attention to overlooked implications – if their arguments withstand peer review and are judged worth publishing by our editors. We envision that the best peer reviewers gain solid reputations as respected science critics, so that investing time and effort into doing high- quality peer reviews becomes a valuable part of advancing an academic career. ProcPoS should be a journal where all scientists both hope and fear


their latest work getting the attention it deserves. ProcPoS strengthens the core services that Peerage of Science offers for publishers, so funding the journal from other activities of the company makes sense. However, ProcPoS is also an experiment in a new publishing model. It seeks to get revenue from “public patronage”. All articles can be freely accessed, but you are asked to purchase a public patron licence if you find the work useful and valuable to you. Patrons pay whatever amount they consider to be fair value, and ProcPoS then pays royalties to the authors. Yes, it is easy to dine and dash, but we trust that people and organisations are honest and willing to support with small payments a model that avoids both paywalls and author fees, while forwarding fair royalties to the authors. One advantage of this approach is that it clearly separates the journal from vanity publishers; to generate any revenue, articles have to be perceived valuable by readers, and a selective editorial policy is well aligned with sustaining the journal.


Janne-Tuomas Seppänen is founder and managing director of Peerage of Science and an Academy of Finland postdoctoral fellow at the University of Jyväskylä


FEBRUARY/MARCH 2014 Research Information 13


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