Peer review Flashcards
Definiton peer review
Critical assessment of manuscripts submitted by journals by experts (reviewers) who are not party of the editorial staff
Reviewer should be independent from author
What is the purpose of peer review?
Peer review filters publications by quality and by relevance
- Quality: Ensure research is accurate, methodological and follows ethical standards
- Relevance: That the scope fits the journal
Peer-reviewed publications validate the quality of research, establishing the researcher as an expert in their area of study, and affects the allocation of research funds
5 criticisms of peer review
- Conservatism: Not open to new ideas and favoring of already established ones
- Not effective to spot errors and detecting fraud: More effective tools today
- Lack of consistency (different reviewers - different feedback) and objectivity (reviewers background knowledge affect feedback)
- Openness to abuse (idea theft) and bias (connected with objectivity, reviewers are biased based on their knowledge)
- Labor intensive, expensive and often slow leading to publication delays without reviewers being reimbursed for their time
8 things peer review contribute with
- Prevent publication of bad, low quality work
- Check that research design and methodology have no flaws
- Ensure correct and clear reporting, with clear references
- Verify correct interpretation of results
- Balance innovation and caution
- Select relevant work of interest to readers
- Provide evidence to editors whether articles meet selection criteria for publication
- Generally improve quality and readability of publication (more a by-product)
Process of scientific publishing
- Authors submit a manuscript
- Online submission via software Editorial manager
- Internal review by editors
- External review by reviewers (1, 2 most often or 3)
- If revision is required, authors submit revised version and answer all quesitons/comments
- Revised version -> repeat 3. and 4.
- Might be more revision iterations
- If revision is satisfactory, manuscript is put into production process that include formatting and language corrections
What are the three options for editors based on external review
- Reject
- Accept as is
- Accept after minor/major revision
What are the two peer review options?
Closed peer review: What most journals apply and can either be single blinding (authors don’t know reviewer identity, could lead to bias if reviewer have pre-existing knowledge on authora) or double blinding (neither authors or reviewers don’t know anybodies identity with the goal to reduce bias, but it can be difficult to hide identity)
Open peer review: Less usual and both reviewers and authors know each others identity. Pros: More accountability from both sides, transparent, easy to implement and reviewers can be given public credit. Cons: Potential bias, lack of anonymity could influence willingness to provide critical feedback
Reviewer’s checklist
- Scope: Paper within journal scope?
- Research objectives: Clarity, importance, have they been met?
- Study design and methodology: Correct or any flaws?
- Soundness of results: Is data sound and are there enough repetitions?
- Interpretation of data
- Originality and significance of the work and findings
- Existing literature: Properly presented and credited?
- Presentation of material and data
What to include in reviewer’s report
- Summary and significance of paper and findings, strength/weaknesses/flaws
- Major issues: Technological, design or interpretation flaws and their severity
- Minor issues: Language, figures/tables, reference issues, etc
- Opinion/recommendation (the three options)
How does journals ranking work?
An impact factor is calculated based on citations / publications, and is a measure of a journals relative importance within its field.
Most renowned Journals have IF = 40-60, the higher the better
