Report from the Peer Review Workgroup

Authors/Initiative

Bev Acreman, Peter Berkery, Caroline Black, Chis Bourg, Becky Brasington Clark, Angela Cochran, Kevin Davies, Rachel Dresbeck, Catriona MacCallum, Paul Peters, Bobby Schnabel, Francisco Valdés Ugalde

Short Description

The  Open Scholarship Initiative 2016 (OSI2016) Peer Review workgroup focused on peer review in the context of open scholar­ship. The group agreed that greater openness and transparency would improve accounta­bility, minimize bias, and encourage collaboration, but did not underestimate the challenges of openness, nor the variation in readiness across disciplines and publishing mod­els. The group recommended facilitation of peer review outside the traditional publication process—for example, in the context of preprint servers and after publication—with incen­tives for broad participation. These incentives need to include a cultural shift in recognition of peer review as a valid activity contributing to career progression.

OSI2016 Workgroup Question

Managing the peer review process is one of the major attractions and benefits of the current publisher-driven publishing environment. Would it be possible to maintain peer review in different system — perhaps one where peer review happens at the institutional level, or in an online-review environment? How? What is really needed from peer review, what are the reform options (and what do we already know about the options that have been tried)?

Link

http://journals.gmu.edu/osi/article/view/1385/1173