In many ways, the peer review process is the single most important element of the academic publishing process.
It is the mechanism by which you ensure the validity of research. It is how you protect your reputation (though this is a multi-front battle always) against accusations of publishing research without due diligence. And, importantly, having a strong peer review process is a promise that you are making to potential authors. You are promising that their work will be vetted and published in a reputable journal with clear expectations and standards.
Information about peer review
But, what is peer review? What is it for? Who does it?
Generally, the process is when scientific, academic, or professional work is checked by others working in the same field. Drawing on the expertise of others in the field can help to identify flaws or merits in any given paper. Once the review is completed, information is often provided to the authors in the form of a peer review report.
This peer review report(s) (almost always, multiple reports are required) is then used as a guide to help improve the work. While how to write a report is something that takes a bit of practice, giving your reviewers a clear set of guidelines/expectations can help to make the process much easier in general.
There is some nuance in the idea of the “purpose” of the peer-review process, but it is generally to “make research better”. That isn’t the only reason though. It is critically important for many journals around the world, and for many different reasons.
Why is it important?
In a nutshell,
Peer review helps maintain the quality of manuscripts
The quality of the manuscripts you publish directly reflect on your journal’s standards. If you don’t have clear standards and the quality level of manuscripts is low, this can negatively impact your journal. A negative reputation can be the death of a journal. At the very least, it can lead to months (if not years) of hard work to change public perception. High-quality manuscripts will result in a more positive reputation for your journal. However, a weaker quality can damage public perception and impact your bottom line. Remember, your journal’s success depends on its reputation.
Different types of peer review
Another thing worth noting is that “peer review” is not a single thing. Different types of journals might use different forms of peer review. For example, here are three types of peer review that we explain in our article on what peer review actually is:
- Open peer review
- Single blind peer review
- Double blind peer review
We encourage further reading to learn more about the different ways that these types of peer review can be used. Depending on the kind of journal you have, you might find one to be more effective than others for your needs.
Finding and choosing good peer reviewers
Ensuring that a manuscript receives a good peer review is important. On the one hand, authors use this feedback from peer reviewers to improve their work. On the other hand, though, properly peer-reviewed manuscripts are also helpful for journals. Carefully reviewed and well written research can lead to more citations, a better reputation for the journal, and all of this translates to a better overall result.
In particular, having a solid reputation can help your journal in many ways—from getting paid more money to drawing more potential authors to your journal.
As such, the entire process is critical in many ways to your survival.
So, how do you select a proper candidate for peer review?
Peer review management tools are a great place to start. These can eliminate a lot of the time spent trying to develop a list of potential peer review candidates on your own. In a nutshell, however, you need to have a list of experts in the field that you can reach out to and invite to do the peer review. (Later in this article we’ll touch on tools that can also help that process as well.)
If you’re not using tools to help, you’ll need to develop this database yourself. Careful research and analysis of a potential reviewer’s work is a great way to start. If someone is in the right field, but is not able to help at the moment, ask if you can reach out in the future. Another thing you can do is ask for recommendations.
Why getting it right matters
Selecting good peer reviewers might seem like it can be handled easily. Search a keyword + “academic”, start copying and pasting emails, flood the internet with email invitations and then wait. But the truth is that this can actually be very damaging to your reputation. Academics talk to each other, and if you start spamming poorly researched invitations, word will get out that you don’t do research.
Conversely, when you do your research, academics appreciate that you’ve made the effort to ensure you’re contacting the right person.
Remember that having a clear understanding of why and how you approach specific academics matters.
How a peer review pipeline can help
The process is famously a bit of a long and arduous process. As noted above, using peer review reports and a clear process can help to ensure that the experience is as smooth as possible. For both the authors and the team. Why these peer review tools matter is clear: In order to ensure that things go smoothly, identifying the root causes for slow-downs is important.
While it’s easy to say that “the whole process is slow”, that’s not always the case. Often, there are specific parts of the process which can cause delays. This might be, for example, not being able to find an appropriate peer reviewer. Another example of a potential delay might be poor communication. Whatever the case may be, ensuring that the pipeline is clear, easy to understand, and that your team can navigate it effectively can help.
For example, powerful tools like those in journal management suites can help to identify potential peer reviewers. Using powerful tools are one of, but not the only options, available to you and your team to improve the peer review process. Developing strategies is crucial to success.
General strategies for the process
Because the peer-review process is a process, there is usually a great deal of tweaking that can be made to affect the flow of the experience. In some cases, changes made to improve the author’s experience can cause problems for your team. In other cases, improving things for your team can cause a worse experience for authors. The key is to strike a good balance to ensure that both groups have favorable experiences.
One of the easiest ways to standardize the process for both parties is to use a peer review report that is clear and easy to understand.
Generally speaking, peer review reports are a journal’s most effective way to clearly communicate feedback to authors. This feedback, originally from peer reviewers, can help to improve the work of the authors, leading to a better overall paper in the end.
Making sure that your processes are up to a high standard
With all this information, we hope that you feel empowered to make sure that your processes are clearly defined and make sense. Your team can be (and should be) empowered to be able to effectively participate in the peer review process to help authors improve their work.
Do you need tools to help you organize your team? Or do you have your own method or organize this process?
Whatever tools you have, and however you approach it, there is no denying the importance of peer review. Make sure that you’re ready!