Tag Archives: scholarly publishing

Peer Review Week 2022

peer review week logo

September 19 to 23 sees the international celebration of Peer Review Week in the academic community, emphasizing the central role peer review plays in scholarly communication. The theme for 2022 is Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research.

What is peer review?

In broad terms, peer review is the pre-publication evaluation of scholarly work by experts in the same field as the submitting authors or with expertise in the methodology they chose. It is common in academic publishing and helps ensure the rigor of publications. Its aim is to either help improve or reject submitted papers that do not meet minimal criteria of good scholarly practice, originality, and methodology. The purpose of this quality control is to build and maintain trust in the published scholarly content, the publishing platforms, and the research process as a whole. Reviewers are invited by the editors or suggested by the authors. Referee activity is considered a courtesy and an academic honor, reflecting a certain reputation and expertise that a reviewer has gained. It is not usually compensated.

A brief history of the peer review process

It is challenging to determine precisely how old the academic peer review process is. While some historians of scholarship have dated it back to the pre-Gutenberg era, and others quote Francis Bacon as one of its trailblazers, many histories of the scholarly system agree that the origins of the contemporary peer review system can be traced back to the editorial practices of the learned societies in the early to mid-18th century, with the Royal Society of London commonly named as one of the main originators.

Contemporary peer review slowly emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. The steadily growing volume of scientific publications called for a screening process, and the newly invented Xerox photocopier made it possible to send out copies of manuscripts to multiple reviewers on a large scale. It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that some of the most reputable journals in academia embraced the practice (Nature in 1964; The Lancet in 1976). Today it is a well-established system, guided by standards and principles that preserve it as one of the pillars of the academic publishing ecosystem.

The increasing awareness of the concept in the broader public is the latest chapter in the history of peer review. Previously it was known primarily to an expert scholarly audience. The Covid-19 pandemic changed that. The tremendous demand for readily available knowledge about the virus led to an unprecedented acceleration of related research. To make the exponentially growing SARS-COV-2 research available as quickly as possible, interest in preprints – scientific papers published before peer review on dedicated servers – increased. Because these preprints are now more commonly used as primary sources, explanations of the peer review process have since found their way into journalistic reporting on scientific topics.

Different types of peer review

Since its establishment, the peer review landscape has diversified. Not only are there different approaches to traditional peer review, but with the advent of the open scholarship movement, newer peer review practices have emerged. They break with some of the established practices of classical peer review, such as anonymity (in Open Peer Review) or confidentiality (in Social Peer Review).

The terminology around peer review is not always used consistently, but some procedures and their terms have become largely accepted. The main types of traditional peer review are commonly distinguished by their approach to anonymity. Anonymity is seen as a critical factor in traditional peer review to eliminate or minimize potential bias among reviewers. Any comments and editing suggestions by the referees remain confidential and are not published along with the work.

  • Single-blind PR – Reviewers are aware of authors’ identities.
  • Double-blind PR – Neither authors nor referees know each other’s identities.

Recently, the term “blind” has come under criticism for being ableist and a number of journals and publishing platforms have shifted to referring to it as “anonymous peer review”.

Newer, innovative types of peer review step away from anonymity/confidentiality and include:

  • Open Peer Review – The identities of authors and reviewers are known to each other and sometimes revealed to the public (there are other interpretations of this term).
  • Transparent Peer Review – The identities of authors and reviewers are known to each other, and any comments and editing requests by the referees will be made publicly available. The published article usually has an accessible version history.
  • Social or Community Peer Review – The wider (academic) community is invited to participate in reviewing a submitted work and suggest changes. These suggestions and the resulting revisions are usually documented publicly. This approach can be found in the form of pre-publication or post-publication reviews.

Common critique of the peer review system

Critics of traditional peer review question whether it is adequate in a scholarly environment evolving toward more open procedures and principles. Commons criticisms include:

While many critics believe the peer review system needs improvement and some are calling for its elimination, there seems to be an ongoing consensus among an academic majority that the system is a foundation of academia.

Current discussions

This is only a selection of current discussions. Peer review is a broad topic that is studied extensively not only in scholarly communication, philosophy of science, and scientometrics but also in individual academic disciplines themselves.

Further Information

To learn more about peer review and Peer Review Week, consult the Peer Review Week committee’s official blog, their Youtube Channel, or Scholarly Kitchen’s series of articles in celebration of the event. On Twitter, follow the handle @PeerRevWeek and use the hashtag #peerreviewweek22.

What Do We Want? (We’re Not Sure!) When Do We Want It? (Hard to Say!):

In celebration of Open Access Week 2016
The BC Research Libraries Group is Proud to Present

RICK ANDERSON

President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing &
Associate Dean for Collections and Scholarly Communication at the University of Utah

who will speak about

What Do We Want? (We’re Not Sure!) When Do We Want It? (Hard to Say!): Reconciling the Needs of Analysis and Advocacy in Scholarly-Communication Reform

Monday, October 24, 2:00-3:30pm, University of Victoria McPherson Library, Room 210

OR

Tuesday, October 25, 9:00-10:30am, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Campus, Room 7000  (with Live Webcast starting at 9:30am)

How to Register:

  • to attend the Oct. 24 event in Victoria, please register by emailing Scott Johnston scjo@uvic.ca OR
  • to attend the Oct. 25 event in Vancouver, please register hereSpace limited, so register early!


ABSTRACT:  
Reforming scholarly communication is a tough job, made tougher by factors that include the lack of unanimity among stakeholders as to what reform should look like (or whether it’s needed at all);  the wide variety of needs and interests among the system’s stakeholders; the structural complexity of the system itself; the lack of unanimity as to what “open access” means; the heavy weight of tradition in academic practice; and the high level of emotion that inevitably accompanies discussion of these issues.  The difficulty and complexity of the reform project suggest that analysis is needed, but the moral and emotional weight of the issues involved naturally lead us in the direction of advocacy instead—and advocacy and analysis are, unfortunately, natural enemies.  In this session we will review salient aspects of the scholarly-communication landscape that make reform particularly challenging, some principles for addressing those challenges, and some possible mechanisms for applying these principles to bridge perspectives, including strategies for including the all-important authors’ voice.

 

ABOUT RICK ANDERSON:   Over the past decade, Rick Anderson has distinguished himself as one of the most creative thinkers and provocative speakers on libraries, library collections, and scholarly publishing.  Named a Library Journal “Mover & Shaker” in 2005, Rick currently serves as Associate Dean for Collections and Scholarly Communication at the University of Utah, J. Willard Marriott Library, as President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, and member of several editorial boards, but is best known as a popular conference speaker, writer and contributor to Library Journal’s Academic Newswire and the Scholarly Kitchen. His experience spanning the worlds of libraries, publishing, and as a writer and bookseller uniquely qualifies him to address the current challenges and future of open access and scholarly publishing. Rick has authored several books including the recent Libraries, Leadership and Scholarly Communication: Essays by Rick Anderson, published by ALA Editions in 2016.

 

To view the Oct. 25 live webcast, please watch this site for details: http://www.sfu.ca/webcast/index.html

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Sent on behalf of the BC Research Libraries Group
Webcast support provided by the Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL)