Preprints are a development underway in science communication and publishing. For journals, this has consequences. They may adopt a passive role, an opposing stance, or an encouraging, stimulating role, and see it as an opportunity, placing their journal in the midst of the preprint development. These are issues to be discussed in detail at the SciELO 20 Years Conference in September 2018. … Read More →
eLife tests out an innovative approach in peer review
The journal eLife is conducting an innovative experiment by accepting all articles sent to peer review after initial screening. To test the feasibility of an even more participative peer review process, authors will be able to control the decision whether to publish (or not) their articles and how they will respond to reviewers’ comments. By breaking with the paradigms of the author-editor-reviewer relationship, eLife aims to promote a constructive dialogue between the parties and reduce the burden of the journals’ prestige in research evaluation. … Read More →
Peer review – on structures and content
Peer review is a constituent part of scholarly communication. It has many modalities: simple blind, double blind, open, and now, also partial reviews. Partial reviews, which only validates the technical soundness of a document, is a feature of open access mega-journals such as PLoS ONE and several others. … Read More →
Communication and peer review should be universally separated
The SciELO 20 Years Week will promote an ample and open forum on the future of scientific communication and journals. There is a discussion group for each topic of the SciELO 20 Years Conference. The discussion starts with this comment by Jan Velterop on the separation between communication and peer review posted in the discussion group of the Panel 3.1 that deals with fast communication via preprints and other means to accelerate the availability of research results. … Read More →
Open peer review perspectives: a thought-provoking question mark
Research analyzes the feasibility of adopting Open Peer Review by Information Science journals. This post presents the first step already completed focusing on the editors. The second stage, already underway, is focused on referees in order to reach a comprehensive view on the adoption of Open Peer Review by Information Science journals. … Read More →
SciELO 20 Years Conference – an innovative and participative forum on the future of scholarly communication
The celebration of the 20 years of SciELO in 2018 will culminate with the Meeting of the SciELO Network and the SciELO 20 Years Conference, in the week of September 24th-28th. The Network Meeting will address the updates of the SciELO Publishing Model and the priority lines of action for the coming years. The SciELO 20 Years Conference will discuss 12 contemporary scientific communication themes. Each of these themes will be developed under the coordination of a scientific committee that will gather bibliographies, interviews, posts and articles that will guide the debates in the 20 Years Conference. … Read More →
We have the technology to save peer review – now it is up to our communities to implement it [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in September/2017]
There has been an explosion in innovation and experimentation in peer review in the last five years. While the ideal of peer review is still needed, it is its implementation, and the present lack of any viable alternative, that must be looked at for improvement, based on three core traits that underpin any viable peer-review system: quality control and moderation, performance and engagement incentives, and certification and reputation. … Read More →
Peer review: journal recommendation to reviewers
Despite undergoing transformations to become more sustainable, fast, and efficient, peer review is the process that contributes to increasing the quality and reliability of scholarly communication. Few journals, however, provide their reviewers with detailed instructions on how to carry out this assessment in accordance with their editorial policy, which reduces the effectiveness and efficiency of the process. … Read More →
What will peer review be like in 2030?
Although the scientific literature has always been reviewed before it was published, current forms of peer review are only a few decades old and from the outset have been subjected to criticism and limitations. Open review and preprints servers have emerged in recent years as possible solutions in a world of growing communication in scientific research. Open reviews, artificial intelligence, collaborative and “cloud” reviews… what will peer review be like in 2030? … Read More →
The editors’ role on peer review: how to identify bad referees
A theoretical peer-review model assesses the effects of referees’ unethical conduct on approving and rejecting articles and how journal editors can mitigate this behavior. What is at stake is the reliability, transparency and efficiency of pre-publication peer review. … Read More →
Adoption of open peer review is increasing
In analyzing how the ‘peer review’ institution has emerged and evolved, it is possible to understand the current transition the assessment process is going through towards greater openness, transparency and accountability. … Read More →
Is the reproducibility crisis exacerbated by pre-publication peer review?
A lack of scrutiny of articles published in peer-reviewed journals on the basis of a belief that pre-publication peer-review provides sufficient scrutiny, may well add to the relatively high number of articles in which results are presented that cannot be replicated. … Read More →
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