Page 11 - Straive eBook: Redefining Your Peer Review Experience

Straive | Redefining Your Peer Review Experience 11

Reviewer invitation cycle

Anyone who has been involved in peer review administration – as an editor or a publisher –
knows it is critical to identify a long-list of reviewers, as many invitees will decline to review.

Typically, an editor will identify individuals and send out an initial round of invitations,
hoping that two researchers will agree to review. Where the publisher has a JEO, they will
monitor responses and continue to send invitations to the remainder of the initial list as
original invitees decline. This is one area where the peer review systems have implemented
automation to facilitate peer review: instead of relying on a person to trigger new invitations,
the systems now allow editors and the JEO to list reviewers in order of preference, with fresh
invitations being automatically triggered as researchers decline.

Whether an invitee will respond to an invitation at all is always at question. As researchers
are keen for the peer review process to move as quickly as possible, most publishers have
implemented a set of reminder messages for invited reviewers — for example, two days and
seven days after the initial invitation is sent.

Reviewers who do not respond to the initial invitation or to the reminders are deemed to have
declined, and the next suitable reviewer invited in their stead (Figure 5). Peer review systems
now automate both the reminders and the fresh invitations. However, there is a flaw in this
automation: the systems do not yet take account of automated replies indicating the invitee is
out of office.

Review invitations usually ask invitees to click a link to respond, with different links presented
for accept and decline. Clicking the accept link often triggers a series of automated actions
resulting in a new email arriving with the review instructions, as well as taking the researcher
to a screen presenting the review information.

Agreeing to review may also incorporate an option for the researcher to delegate the review.
Delegation mechanisms allow publishers and editors to effectively track something that has
been happening for almost as long as peer review itself: senior researchers passing on their
reviews to junior colleagues and PhD students. Particularly as the publishing industry
becomes better equipped to recognize peer review efforts, tracking delegation allows us to
recognize the right individuals.

Agree to review Send link to review Delegate review

Invitation
sent
Figure 5.
Decline to review Suggest alternates A simplified reviewer invitation
cycle, without the reminder
messages. Dashed lines
indicate where invitees
Trigger new invitations Consider alternates may make a decision.