Glossary

Glossary

Preprint Review Descriptors

The following terms are used to describe preprint review services listed on ReimagineReivew. Where applicable, these terms are also applied to journal review projects and trials.

    Name of Field

    Help text

    Options

    Review requested by

    Who submits or initiates the feedback process?

    Authors

    Non-authors

    Reviewer selected by

    Who selects the feedback providers?

    Authors

    Editor, service, or community

    Self-nominated

    Review coverage

    Does the feedback cover the entire paper or only a certain section or aspect?

    Complete paper

    Specific aspects

    Reviewer identity known to

    Are the identities of reviewers known to everyone (public), editors or service, or noone?

    Public

    Editor or service

    Noone

    Competing interests

    Is a declaration of competing interest required?

    Displayed 

    Checked

    Not included

    Public interaction

    Is there an opportunity for the public to engage as an integral part of the process?

    Included

    Not included

    Opportunity for author response

    Is the author’s response included as an integral part of the process?

    Included

    Not included

    Recommendation

    Does the service provide a binary decision (accept/reject or recommendation) or a scalar rating after the review process?

    Binary decision

    Other scale or rating

    None


    Below is a list of additional terms used to describe listings on ReimagineReview, some with descriptions and definitions.

    Types of project

    • Trials: Trials are time-limited experiments conducted by preexisting entities, such as journals and platforms.
    • Projects: Projects are platforms or services.
    • Observational studies: Observational studies are studies in which no intervention is made, but peer review is studied. Can include meta-analysis and modeling.

    Status

    • Proposed: Not yet under active development
    • In preparation: Under development, but not operating
    • Active: Currently operating
    • Complete: No longer active

    Types of outputs

    The type(s) of scientific product that is reviewed or evaluated by the project. For example, journals typically only evaluate manuscripts submitted directly (regardless of whether those manuscripts have been preprinted), so they should select “Privately shared manuscripts” unless preprints are specifically important to the evaluation process.
    • Journal accepted manuscripts: The evaluation occurs on papers that have already been published/accepted by a journal (post-publication evaluation).
    • Preprints
    • Other scholarly outputs: Data, protocol, code etc.
    • Privately shared manuscripts:  Note that a typically journal process operates on privately shared manuscripts. 

    Transparency

    • Double blind: Reviewers are unaware of the authors’ identities, and vice versa
    • Open interaction: Reviewers communicate with one another during the review process
    • Open reports: The content of peer review reports is published
    • Open identities: The identities of peer reviewers are published
    • Open participation: Anyone can participate in the peer review process
    • Single blind: Authors are unaware of reviewers’ identities, but NOT vice versa

    Format

    • Annotations
    • Free-form commenting
    • Structured review form

    Process

    • Automation: Filtering or evaluation of scientific output using automated technologies and programs. 
    • Comment moderation: Comments are screened or moderated before or after posting.
    • Journal integration: (For review happening outside the traditional journal format) editors at one or more journals integrate the content of the review into their own processes or the final presentation of the paper, or do journals send information to the project.
    • Pre-publication review: Review prior to public disclosure (of a preprint or other output).
    • Comment indexing: Comments are given a DOI or included in disciplinary databases
    • Comment rating (meta-evaluation): Comments can be up- or down-voted, highlighted, or reviewed themselves.
    • Post-publication review: Review after public disclosure (or a preprint or other output)
    • Professional editors
    • Preregistration: A proposed research plan that tests a predicted relationship, with a defined research timeline. De