Page 42 - Straive eBook: Redefining Your Peer Review Experience

42 Straive | Redefining Your Peer Review Experience

scientific disciplines. To do this, it ensures that publications accurately provide information
such as sample sizes, information regarding subject blinding, and baseline data. StatReviewer
can also detect indicators of fraudulent behaviour.

Earlier this year, open-access publisher Frontiers developed the state-of-the-art Artificial
Intelligence Review Assistant (AIRA) to help editors, reviewers and authors evaluate the
quality of manuscripts. AIRA examines each manuscript and can provide up to 20
recommendations in seconds, including assessing the quality of the language, the integrity
of the statistics, detecting plagiarism, and identifying potential conflicts of interest.

While these tools can ensure that a manuscript is of high quality, they are not meant to
replace the role of a reviewer in terms of evaluation. Concerns have been raised that
machine-learning algorithms trained on previously published papers may perpetuate existing
biases in peer review. Furthermore, because the algorithms are very domain specific, they are
only scalable in a few areas. Algorithms are not yet intelligent enough to allow an editor to
accept or reject a manuscript purely based on the data extracted. While the algorithms will
take some time to refine, it would make sense to automate a lot of things for the reason that a
lot of things in peer review remain standard.

AI certainly has the potential to enhance certain
elements of conventional peer review, and
publishers are already deploying it for some
fundamental jobs within the workflow. It will
necessitate specific standards and processes
for determining which parts of the review
process can or should be automated, and
when they must rely on human supervision. As
technology advances, more and more aspects
of the peer review process are expected to
benefit. However, for the near future, there will
always be a need for human involvement and
final decision-making.

Straive has invested technology and SMEs as part of its Innovation labs and deployed
solutions around reviewer search and transfer management. Our long-term engagements with
our partners clearly demonstrate our capabilities across the publishing value chain. Be it our
work with upstream solutions such as Transfer Desk, or Reviewer Search or downstream
solutions like our MARC distribution platform, we have a comprehensive portfolio that allows
us to drive change seamlessly.