Shared publisher data can probe the efficacy of peer review
Bahar Mehmani (Reviewer Experience Lead at Elsevier) joined Elsevier with goals of improving the peer review process from within the publishing company. Around the same time, she participated in PEERE, an organization of researchers who study peer review. Peer review data is needed to enable this research, but are often not available to publishers and society journals. Bahar established the protocols between various publishing stakeholders with submission systems to obtain the data. Together with PEERE, they analyzed an Elsevier pilot of five journals that switched to publishing peer review reports and the impact of this change on peer review performance. They found that reviewers’ acceptance rate and review time didn’t significantly change. However, the changes are not even across all demographics: Professors are more likely to decline, where early stage researchers (ESRs) are more likely to accept. A small group—young male ESRs write review reports with more objective language after the switch. These results should reassure those who are concerned that publishing peer review reports will damage peer review, in exchange for an increase in transparency.
Who really cares about review credit?
Credit for peer review is often brought up as a potential benefit to increased transparency. Whether published or not, review activity can be tracked systematically with Publons and ORCID and included in a CV. However, during the webinar, Rich Abdill (PhD student at the University of Minnesota and a creator of Rxivist) raised a question:who truly values reviewer credit?. Currently, few if any funders and institutions track peer review activity, so tangible benefits for researchers are scant. Do reviewers care about getting credited as a way to document their scholarship? Is recognition by the community sufficient incentive to change reviewer motivation? We encourage you to weigh in with the polls below.