Archives des mots-clés : Peer Review

Investigation of potential gender bias in the peer review system at Reproduction

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Authors : Marie Biolková, Tom Moore, Karen Schindler, Karl Swann, Andy Vail, Lindsay Flook, Helen Dick, Greg Fitzharris, Christopher A. Price, Norah Spears

This study examined whether publication outcome was affected by the gender of author, handling associate editor (AE), or reviewer, and whether there was gender bias in reviewer selection, in the journal Reproduction.

Analyses were carried out on 4289 original research manuscripts submitted to the journal between 2007 and 2019. Both female and male AEs appointed more male reviewers than female reviewers, but female AEs were significantly more likely to appoint female reviewers than male AEs were (p < 0.001).

When examining the gender of either first or last author manuscripts, those with female authors that were reviewed by female reviewers received better scores than those with male authors that were reviewed by female reviewers (p < 0.05): where the reviewer was male, no such effect was observed.

Acceptance rates of manuscripts were similar for both female and male authors, whether first or last, regardless of AE gender. Overall, there was no significant correlation between gender of first or last author, or of AE, on the likelihood of acceptance of a research paper.

These data suggest no bias against female authors during the peer review process in this reproductive biology journal.

URL : Investigation of potential gender bias in the peer review system at Reproduction

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1537

Scholarly publishing and peer review in the Global South: the role of the reviewer

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Author : Peter Lor

Peer review is an integral part of contemporary scholarly publishing, especially journal publishing. Work submitted by scholars from all parts of the world is subjected to it. This includes submissions by scholars from the Global South, who wish to publish in “international” journals or in local journals which follow the same model.

These authors may not be native English speakers and may be unfamiliar with the conventions of Western scholarship. Many of them conduct research and write their manuscripts under challenging circumstances.

They may find it difficult to comply with the requirements of the journals to which they submit their articles. Their manuscripts quite often pose challenges to the peer reviewers.

The purpose of this article is to provide some background on scholarly publishing in the Global South and the challenges those colleagues face, and to outline what this may mean for the role of the reviewer.

URL : Scholarly publishing and peer review in the Global South: the role of the reviewer

DOI : https://doi.org/10.36253/jlis.it-512

Global Trends in Knowledge Production and the Evolving Peer Review Process

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Author : Steven Witt

This essay thus seeks to provide further critique and clarity to the peer review process and the ways in which management of peer review is evolving. These changes occur within a context of massive growth in the knowledge production process: global trends, information technologies, and policies that encourage more people globally to take part in the research process.

Associated with these global changes are stressors on the peer review process and particularly questions about who gets to be a peer reviewer and who has the right to produce knowledge under these processes.

Less a formal review and analysis of peer review across LIS, this essay takes the form of an autoethnographic narrative that that seeks to draw upon the researcher’s personal observations, experience, and reflections to critically examine changes to the peer review system that are taking place.

URL : Global Trends in Knowledge Production and the Evolving Peer Review Process

DOI : https://doi.org/10.36253/jlis.it-515

Champions of Transparency in Education: What Journal Reviewers Can Do to Encourage Open Science Practices

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Authors : Rachel Renbarger, Jill L. Adelson, Joshua Rosenberg, Sondra M Stegenga, Olivia Lowrey, Pamela Rose Buckley, Qiyang Zhang

As the field of education and especially gifted education gradually moves towards open science, our research community increasingly values transparency and openness brought by open science practices.

Yet, individual researchers may be reluctant to adopt open science practices due to low incentives, barriers of extra workload, or lack of support to apply these in certain areas, such as qualitative research.

We encourage and give guidelines to reviewers to champion open science practices by warmly influencing authors to consider applying open science practices to quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research and providing ample support to produce higher-quality publications.

Instead of imposing open science practices on authors, we advocate reviewers suggest small, non-threatening, specific steps to support authors without making them feel overwhelmed, judged, or punished.

We believe that these small steps taken by reviewers will make a difference to create a more supportive environment for researchers to adopt better practices.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.35542/osf.io/xqfwb

Analysing Elsevier Journal Metadata with a New Specialized Workbench inside ICSR Lab

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Authors : Ramadurai Petchiappan, Kristy James, Andrew Plume, Efthymios Tsakonas, Ana Marušić, Mario Malicki, Francisco Grimaldo, Bahar Mehmani

In this white paper we introduce Elsevier’s Peer Review Workbench which will be available via the computational platform ICSR Lab. The workbench offers a unique dataset to interested researchers who want to run research on journal evaluation and peer review processes.

We describe its properties, advantages, and limitations as well as the process of proposal application. This is a living document and will be updated on a regular basis.

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4211833

Reading Peer Review : PLOS ONE and Institutional Change in Academia

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Authors : Martin Paul Eve, Cameron Neylon, Daniel Paul O’Donnell, Samuel Moore, Robert Gadie, Victoria Odeniyi, Shahina Parvin

This Element describes for the first time the database of peer review reports at PLOS ONE, the largest scientific journal in the world, to which the authors had unique access.

Specifically, this Element presents the background contexts and histories of peer review, the data-handling sensitivities of this type of research, the typical properties of reports in the journal to which the authors had access, a taxonomy of the reports, and their sentiment arcs.

This unique work thereby yields a compelling and unprecedented set of insights into the evolving state of peer review in the twenty-first century, at a crucial political moment for the transformation of science.

It also, though, presents a study in radicalism and the ways in which PLOS’s vision for science can be said to have effected change in the ultra-conservative contemporary university.

URL : Reading Peer Review : PLOS ONE and Institutional Change in Academia

Original location : https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/reading-peer-review/42F027E4C67D246DD8C3AC440A68C7A7

Attitudes, behaviours and experiences of authors of COVID-19 preprints

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Authors : Narmin Rzayeva, Susana Oliveira Henriques, Stephen Pinfield, Ludo Waltman

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a rise in preprinting, apparently triggered by the need for open and rapid dissemination of research outputs. We surveyed authors of COVID-19 preprints to learn about their experience of preprinting as well as publishing in a peer-reviewed journal.

A key aim was to consider preprints in terms of their effectiveness for authors to receive feedback on their work. We also aimed to compare the impact of feedback on preprints with the impact of comments of editors and reviewers on papers submitted to journals. We observed a high rate of new adopters of preprinting who reported positive intentions regarding preprinting their future work.

This allows us to posit that the boost in preprinting may have a structural effect that will last after the pandemic. We also saw a high rate of feedback on preprints but mainly through “closed” channels – directly to the authors.

This means that preprinting was a useful way to receive feedback on research, but the value of feedback could be increased further by facilitating and promoting “open” channels for preprint feedback. At the same time, almost a quarter of the preprints that received feedback received comments resembling journal peer review.

This shows the potential of preprint feedback to provide valuable detailed comments on research. However, journal peer review resulted in a higher rate of major changes in the papers surveyed, suggesting that the journal peer review process has significant added value compared to preprint feedback.

URL : Attitudes, behaviours and experiences of authors of COVID-19 preprints

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/d96yj