Trends in Peer Review: Preprints, Open, AI, and Professional Support
/by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
A central pillar of academic publishing, peer review has always been a hotly debated, highly politicized, and controversial subject in the industry, and with good reason. While trends frequently come and go, its central premise—the requirement to have scholarly research scrutinized by fellow academics—eternally prevails. But, so do many of the challenges associated with peer review, such as the slowing down of publication, a lack of resources, poor transparency, potential bias, and unfairness.
In the midst of the pandemic, the traditional peer review process was left looking tired and exposed, as a deluge of important scientific research required far more dynamic systems of approval to fast-track research and meet the needs of the global battle against COVID-19. As a result, we witnessed a rise of preprints, not to mention subsequent retractions, and an increase in paid peer reviews, as an already time-poor pool of academics found itself stretched more than ever before and demanding remuneration for the overtime.
As we come out the other side (potentially) of the pandemic, this is perhaps a good moment to take stock and reflect upon the state of the peer review landscape, looking at if and how it has changed and what are the current trends.
Show me the money
The academic publishing ecosystem has always been propped up by a certain amount of goodwill. Academics have traditionally been expected to participate in the peer review process for free, and on their own time—that’s always been the deal. But during the pandemic, when many in the community were confronted with growing time restraints, burnout, remote working challenges and other pressures, the motivation to collaborate on peer review—with very little or no reward at all—declined sharply.
Some academics began charging profit-making journals a consultancy fee for the time they were expected to spend reviewing articles. And paid-for peer review was further brought into the limelight when scientist James Heather launched “450 Movement”, a campaign demanding reviewers be paid a flat fee of $450 per article.
But this approach has many critics. Many publishers feel paid-for peer review is financially unsustainable, while others question whether financial incentives would really be enough to motivate an industry that has proven time and time again to be driven by professional recognition and kudos above all else.
Opening the gates
Open peer review, which takes the anonymity out of the process by revealing the identities of reviewers, is heralded by some in the community as one potential solution. But while this approach helps to promote a reviewer’s involvement, and certainly encourages a kinder, less brutal and more constructive reviewing environment, it also increases the risk of bias and, in many cases, dissuades academics who prefer to remain anonymous.
One study by University of Kentucky professor, Charles Fox, found that just 5.6% of academics would be prepared to identify themselves and eliminate confidentiality from the peer review process, if given the option.
Yet some of the more innovative journal publishers, such as Nature and PLOS, have boldly opened up their review processes, while journals such as PeerJ have started attributing DOIs to peer reviews so academics can add them to their ORCID profiles, thus providing a further incentive
Publish first, review later
One of the biggest challenges for journals publishing pre-prints prior to the pandemic was that the technology wasn’t quite advanced enough to enable much more than simple commenting functionality. However, the preprint peer review tools now available to journals, such as Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s TRiP system and Review Commons, are far more sophisticated and cater to more advanced journal and reviewer needs.
These new technologies are giving the industry confidence to do more than just dip their toes in the water with preprints and we are subsequently seeing a spate of journal publishers moving towards this progressive shift in culture.
AI to the rescue
It remains to be seen just how widespread preprints will become in the long term and whether turning the traditional peer review system on its head in this way will end up becoming the new normal in scholarly publishing. And while in many cases preprints may ease bottlenecks and accelerate publication, they still don’t resolve the issues around sourcing reviewers, a consistent bone of contention regardless of whether a journal is publishing prior or post peer review.
This is where, once again, technology could come to the rescue, most notably AI and machine learning. Some academics have been exploring how AI might be used to streamline peer review by screening manuscripts—looking at research novelty, language and formatting then potentially scoring papers for likelihood of acceptance—all before they even reach the human eyes of editors or reviewers. While there is always a danger that AI tools could replicate human biases, this is still an interesting area that is ripe for development and exploration.
Matchmaking and outsourcing
As submissions rise and the pool of academics expected to review manuscripts shrinks, another expanding use for AI is in locating potential reviewers, which has become increasingly difficult for journals, who tend to end up going to the same tried and tested reviewers. We are seeing journals start to use AI-driven algorithms to search for appropriate academics within certain disciplines who have published papers about similar subjects, thus enabling them to broaden and expand their reviewer pool.
A growing trend for stretched and overwhelmed editorial departments is to outsource the demanding task of locating, approaching, and enlisting reviewers to third parties who specialize in offering this as a dedicated service. As the strains increase on journals to sift through more submissions, source and then convince a demotivated, dwindling group of reviewers, and expedite research papers at a faster rate, this might just be the easiest option and fix.
KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL) is the industry leader in editorial, production, online hosting, and transformative services for every stage of the content lifecycle. We are your source for editorial solutions, peer review services, intelligent automation, digital delivery, and more. Email us at info@kwglobal.com.