Open Research & Scholarly Publications

Happy Peer Review Week!

This week (21st-25th September 2020) is Peer Review Week. Its theme this year: Trust in Peer Review. 

So is there a problem in relation to trust in the peer review process, and if so what can be done about it? 

Peer review is the process academic journals use to evaluate the scientific rigour of a paper, and typically involves two or more academic experts assessing a submitted manuscript. Reviewers often make suggestions which could improve the manuscript and communicate to the journal editor a recommendation as to whether they support the manuscript moving forward to publication or not.

Traditionally peer review has been held up as the ‘Gold Standard’ around which academic publications derive their authority. However, there have been a number of criticisms as to the lack of transparency around how peer review is performed, and the fact that it doesn’t manage to weed out all bad scientific practice in the way it is intended. Please see our Blog Post from 11th June for more on these issues.

In terms of transparency, peer review traditionally is performed using ‘blinded’ methods. Either ‘single blind’ whereby the reviewers identities are anonymised to the authors, or ‘double blind’ where the identities of authors and reviewers are anonymised to one another. The anonymity provided by the ‘blinded’ peer review has led to accusations of reviewers abusing their power and leaving unprofessional feedback. Searching on Twitter under the hashtag #Reviewer2 will throw up various interesting allegations related to this!   

The practice of peer review does continue to evolve, albeit at a slower pace than some open science advocates would like. The practice of open peer review, a blanket term but generally meaning that the identities of both reviewers and authors are made known to one another, with comments and changes made through the peer review process being publicly available, has slowly been gaining traction and is seen as an antidote to some of the deficiencies of ‘blinded’ peer review methods. The journal PeerJ, which offers an open peer review option, records that 40% of their reviewers agree to be publicly identified and 80% of authors agree for the review history to be shared. To learn more about how Open Peer Review works, the FOSTER Open Science initiative provide a range of information online.

It should be noted that not everyone agrees with the premise that the authority of peer review is in a state of crisis. Rick Anderson, University Librarian at Brigham Young University in the USA, drew attention recently in a Scholarly Kitchen discussion piece to the fact that in a 2019 survey, 90% of researchers believe peer review improves the quality of academic publications and 85% view peer review as an essential component of the scientific quality control process. 

Whether you think peer review is in some form of crisis or not, the debate around how it might be better undertaken in the future remains a live one.   

If you should have any questions or comments in relation to this topic, please get in touch with us at: oa.lib@coventry.ac.uk. Please also consider following us on Twitter @CoventryRSP.