blog

As we near the end of 2017’s Peer Review Week and the focus on transparency, we hope you have enjoyed our blogging activities. Earlier in the week we asked our Advisory Board about transparency and open peer review, and in today’s post we ask them, and some of our staff, to address training and credit for reviewers.

F1000Research operates a peer review model which allows co-referees to be equally acknowledged and credited. This is particularly important for early career researchers as they can receive credit for their work by being named on the peer review report alongside their PI’s. Is this a sufficient incentive for peer reviewers and if not, what better ways are there to incentivise and give credit to reviewers.

Philippe Saas, Director at the University of Franche-Comté, France

“As an author of F1000Research, I find that the involvement of, and the acknowledgements to, early career researchers are very important.

For reviewers in a medical field such as physicians, Continuing Medical Education credits could be provided for manuscript review to stimulate this kind of early career reviewers.”

Sabina Alam, Editorial Director, F1000

“Receiving recognition for peer review activity is important and deserved for all reviewers, and especially so for those at the earlier stages of their career. On our platform, the reports receive individual DOI’s and the reviewers can include their ORCID ID’s on their reports. This allows them to share their reports among their research community, and have their critique recognised as part of the scholarly discussion regarding a specific article.

As publishers, we can provide these kinds of incentives, but more formal recognition for peer review activity should come from within institutions, especially when assessments for promotions are being made. Also, senior researchers are usually the ones receiving invitations to review, and these are often co-written with their junior colleagues, but in many cases are not co-signed.

Journals which conduct blinded-review should make it easier for co-reviewers to be identified and acknowledged, and institutions should recognise this formally as part of the mentoring and training activity senior researchers provide.”

What is the biggest challenge faced by transparent/open peer review? How do you think we should overcome it?

Saravana Kumar, Senior Lecturer, University of South Australia

“Peer review is an important cornerstone of research and science. While there are a numerous advantages to open peer review, such as transparency, demystifying the process and use of reviews as learning opportunities for the next generation of peer reviewers, it also poses some unique challenges. It may also be unclear to an individual peer reviewer what the value of and impact from open peer review is.

Given many researchers and scientists are familiar with the historical model of peer review, there might be some reluctance to engage in open peer review due to beliefs about consequences of and repercussions from negative review. There is also a need to provide very high-quality peer review reports which may be time consuming and potentially challenging established authority in the field, especially if the peer reviewer is a junior researcher/scientist.

While these are not insurmountable challenges, and change does take time, the move towards open peer review should be underpinned by careful consideration of the opportunities and pitfalls, ongoing engagement with all members of the wider research and scientific community and multifaceted strategies to ensure buy-in from key stakeholders.”

The transparency provided by being able to read other peer review reports can act as a learning aid. What other ways do you think transparency in peer review can help train the next generation of peer reviewers?

Hollydawn Murray, Publishing Editor, F1000Research

“The secretive nature of peer review, combined with a lack of standardised training, makes it difficult for early career researchers to know what is expected of them when editors come knocking.

Opening up the peer review process affords the next generation of peer reviewers unique insight into their reviewing duties. Signed public reviews have the capacity to help familiarise the next generation of peer reviewers with the dialogue that takes place between authors and reviewers, as well as different styles of peer review.

I think this transparency will help us move away from a system where peer review is normally learned from a single research mentor, if at all, to one where the number of mentors are as endless as the number of peer review reports themselves – filling the current gaps in peer review training.”