Category Archives: oa.publons

The growth of open peer review – Leiden Madtrics

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“To what extent have ideas on open peer review developed by Godlee and others been realized over the past two decades? There is no straightforward answer to this question, since the availability of systematic data on peer review practices is limited. In this blog post, we use data from Crossref to offer some partial insights into the growing popularity of open peer review…..

As shown in Figure 2, Publons is by far the largest contributor of peer review records in Crossref, accounting for two-third of all records. A large majority of these records are linked to journal articles published by Wiley. Indeed, Wiley has made a considerable effort to promote open peer review (referred to as transparent peer review by Wiley). Other important contributors of peer review records in Crossref are PeerJ and eLife….

Copernicus and F1000 are special cases. Copernicus offers an integrated platform that publishes both journal articles and preprints as well as the associated review reports. Likewise, F1000 provides a platform that publishes multiple versions of an article, including the review reports for each version. Because of their special nature, we present statistics for Copernicus and F1000 separately from the statistics reported above. Peer review records for Copernicus and F1000 aren’t included in Figures 1, 2, and 3….”

Quantitative Science Studies successfully completes transparent peer review pilot | International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics

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“In August 2020 Quantitative Science Studies (QSS) started a transparent peer review pilot, in close collaboration with our publisher, MIT Press. For articles accepted for publication in QSS, the review reports, along with the responses of the authors and the decision letters of the editor, were published in Publons, provided that the authors agreed to participate in the pilot. Reviewer identities were not revealed, unless reviewers preferred to give up their anonymity.

By publishing review reports, QSS aims to provide insight into the strengths and weaknesses of an article and into unresolved disagreements among authors, reviewers, and editors. This information may provide helpful context for readers. It also increases the accountability of reviewers and editors.

We are pleased to announce the successful completion of the QSS transparent peer review pilot. An overwhelming majority of the authors who submitted their work to QSS decided to participate in the pilot. For 90% of the articles submitted to QSS during the pilot and accepted for publication in the journal, the authors agreed to publish the review reports. The review reports for these articles are openly available in Publons under a CC BY license. In a limited number of cases, reviewers decided to reveal their identity….”

Characteristics of ‘mega’ peer-reviewers | Research Integrity and Peer Review | Full Text

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Abstract

Background

The demand for peer reviewers is often perceived as disproportionate to the supply and availability of reviewers. Considering characteristics associated with peer review behaviour can allow for the development of solutions to manage the growing demand for peer reviewers. The objective of this research was to compare characteristics among two groups of reviewers registered in Publons.

Methods

A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used to compare characteristics between (1) individuals completing at least 100 peer reviews (‘mega peer reviewers’) from January 2018 to December 2018 as and (2) a control group of peer reviewers completing between 1 and 18 peer reviews over the same time period. Data was provided by Publons, which offers a repository of peer reviewer activities in addition to tracking peer reviewer publications and research metrics. Mann Whitney tests and chi-square tests were conducted comparing characteristics (e.g., number of publications, number of citations, word count of peer review) of mega peer reviewers to the control group of reviewers.

Results

A total of 1596 peer reviewers had data provided by Publons. A total of 396?M peer reviewers and a random sample of 1200 control group reviewers were included. A greater proportion of mega peer reviews were male (92%) as compared to the control reviewers (70% male). Mega peer reviewers demonstrated a significantly greater average number of total publications, citations, receipt of Publons awards, and a higher average h index as compared to the control group of reviewers (all p?<?.001). We found no statistically significant differences in the number of words between the groups (p?>?.428).

Conclusions

Mega peer reviewers registered in the Publons database also had a higher number of publications and citations as compared to a control group of reviewers. Additional research that considers motivations associated with peer review behaviour should be conducted to help inform peer reviewing activity.

 

Characteristics of scholars who review for predatory and legitimate journals: linkage study of Cabells Scholarly Analytics and Publons data | BMJ Open

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Abstract

Objectives To describe and compare the characteristics of scholars who reviewed for predatory or legitimate journals in terms of their sociodemographic characteristics and reviewing and publishing behaviour.

Design Linkage of random samples of predatory journals and legitimate journals of the Cabells Scholarly Analytics’ journal lists with the Publons database, employing the Jaro-Winkler string metric. Descriptive analysis of sociodemographic characteristics and reviewing and publishing behaviour of scholars for whom reviews were found in the Publons database.

Setting Peer review of journal articles.

Participants Reviewers who submitted peer review reports to Publons.

Measurements Numbers of reviews for predatory journals and legitimate journals per reviewer. Academic age of reviewers, the total number of reviews, number of publications and number of reviews and publications per year.

Results Analyses included 183 743 unique reviews submitted to Publons by 19 598 reviewers. Six thousand and seventy-seven reviews were for 1160 predatory journals (3.31% of all reviews) and 177 666 reviews for 6403 legitimate journals (96.69%). Most scholars never submitted reviews for predatory journals (90.0% of all scholars); few scholars (7.6%) reviewed occasionally or rarely (1.9%) for predatory journals. Very few scholars submitted reviews predominantly or exclusively for predatory journals (0.26% and 0.35%, respectively). The latter groups of scholars were of younger academic age and had fewer publications and reviews than the first groups. Regions with the highest shares of predatory reviews were sub-Saharan Africa (21.8% reviews for predatory journals), Middle East and North Africa (13.9%) and South Asia (7.0%), followed by North America (2.1%), Latin America and the Caribbean (2.1%), Europe and Central Asia (1.9%) and East Asia and the Pacific (1.5%).

Conclusion To tackle predatory journals, universities, funders and publishers need to consider the entire research workflow and educate reviewers on concepts of quality and legitimacy in scholarly publishing.

Emerald Publishing joins Web of Science Group Initiative to Open Up Peer Review

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“The Web of Science Group (a Clarivate Analytics company) has entered into a new partnership with Emerald Publishing, to pilot the industry’s first cross-publisher, scalable and transparent peer review workflow from Publons and ScholarOne across three of Emerald’s leading journals. 

Transparent peer review shows the complete peer review process from initial review to final decision, and has gained popularity with authors, reviewers and editors alike in recent years.

The new transparent peer review service will be rolled out across Online Information Review, Industrial Lubrication and Tribology and International Journal of Social Economics. The workflows ensure that alongside the published article, readers can access a comprehensive peer review history, including reviewer reports, editor decision letters and authors’ responses. Each of these elements is assigned its own digital object identified (DOI), which helps readers easily reference and cite the peer review content. Transparency can also aid teaching of best practice in peer review. The transparent peer review workflow complies with best-practice data privacy regulation, ensuring the individual preferences of authors, peer reviewers and journals are met….”

Emerald Publishing joins Web of Science Group Initiative to Open Up Peer Review

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“The Web of Science Group (a Clarivate Analytics company) has entered into a new partnership with Emerald Publishing, to pilot the industry’s first cross-publisher, scalable and transparent peer review workflow from Publons and ScholarOne across three of Emerald’s leading journals. 

Transparent peer review shows the complete peer review process from initial review to final decision, and has gained popularity with authors, reviewers and editors alike in recent years.

The new transparent peer review service will be rolled out across Online Information Review, Industrial Lubrication and Tribology and International Journal of Social Economics. The workflows ensure that alongside the published article, readers can access a comprehensive peer review history, including reviewer reports, editor decision letters and authors’ responses. Each of these elements is assigned its own digital object identified (DOI), which helps readers easily reference and cite the peer review content. Transparency can also aid teaching of best practice in peer review. The transparent peer review workflow complies with best-practice data privacy regulation, ensuring the individual preferences of authors, peer reviewers and journals are met….”