Giangiacomo Bravo – InfoDoc MicroVeille

Authors : Giangiacomo Bravo, Francisco Grimaldo, Emilia López-Iñesta, Bahar Mehmani, Flaminio Squazzoni

To increase transparency in science, some scholarly journals are publishing peer review reports. But it is unclear how this practice affects the peer review process. Here, we examine the effect of publishing peer review reports on referee behavior in five scholarly journals involved in a pilot study at Elsevier.

By considering 9,220 submissions and 18,525 reviews from 2010 to 2017, we measured changes both before and during the pilot and found that publishing reports did not significantly compromise referees’ willingness to review, recommendations, or turn-around times.

Younger and non-academic scholars were more willing to accept to review and provided more positive and objective recommendations. Male referees tended to write more constructive reports during the pilot.

Only 8.1% of referees agreed to reveal their identity in the published report. These findings suggest that open peer review does not compromise the process, at least when referees are able to protect their anonymity.

URL : The effect of publishing peer review reports on referee behavior in five scholarly journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-08250-2

Authors : Ivana Drvenica, Giangiacomo Bravo, Lucija Vejmelka, Aleksandar Dekanski, Olgica Nedić

The aim of this study was to investigate the opinion of authors on the overall quality and effectiveness of reviewers’ contributions to reviewed papers. We employed an on-line survey of thirteen journals which publish articles in the field of life, social or technological sciences.

Responses received from 193 authors were analysed using a mixed-effects model in order to determine factors deemed the most important in the authors’ evaluation of the reviewers. Qualitative content analysis of the responses to open questions was performed as well.

The mixed-effects model revealed that the authors’ assessment of the competence of referees strongly depended on the final editorial decision and that the speed of the review process was influential as well.

In Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) analysis on seven questions detailing authors’ opinions, perception of review speed remained a significant predictor of the assessment. In addition, both the perceived competence and helpfulness of the reviewers significantly and positively affected the authors’ evaluation.

New models were used to re-check the value of these two factors and it was confirmed that the assessment of the competence of reviewers strongly depended on the final editorial decision.

URL : Peer Review of Reviewers: The Author’s Perspective

Alternative location : https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/7/1/1