Peer Review
Peer review is an essential part of the scholarly publishing process, ensuring quality control for the research published in journals. Though most researchers agree with the principles of peer review, many feel there is room to improve how it is implemented. The Scholarly Communication Group explores ways to improve quality standards and practices in scholarly communications, including peer review.
Peer review is an essential part of the scholarly publishing process, ensuring quality control for the research published in journals. An author’s manuscript is reviewed by experts in the field (his/her peers) who validate the research, recommend whether the article should be accepted for publication and identify any changes needed. This allows a journal to publish the ‘best’ articles. Peer review is also often used for screening grant proposals.
Though most researchers agree with the principles of peer review, many feel there is room to improve how it is implemented. Recently there have been suggestions about alternatives, like open peer review. The Scholarly Communication Group is interested in ways to improve peer review and exploring alternatives. They commissioned the study below to review the state of the art. Future initiatives will be reported here in due course.
The Peer Review Process
Fytton Rowland (LoughboroughUniversity), The Peer Review Process, October 2002
This study reviews recent literature and covers a range of issues including researchers’ views on peer review, problems and issues, electronic peer review, costs of peer review, and alternatives in an electronic environment.
The report finds that peer review of scholarly articles continues to be regarded as a high priority in most disciplines despite concerns over its actual effectiveness in ensuring quality control and issues like subjectivity, bias, abuse, and fraud. New kinds of refereeing procedures, such as open peer review and double-blind refereeing, have emerged as a consequence of the shift to electronic publishing and there is a lively debate about post-publication open peer review, with a consensus forming that it is a valuable adjunct to traditional refereeing but not a replacement for it.
Rowland highlights the administrative costs of the peer review process and notes that any suggested innovative scheme of scholarly communication needs to identify a source of revenue to cover costs of this magnitude. He suggests that the ‘author pays’ model appears to hold the greatest promise.