Blog

A Sneak Peek to Top 6 Types of Peer Review Processes

This entry was posted in Editor , on November 29 , 2019.

Peer review is a collaborative process where the academic authors obtain constructive feedback to proceed with their piece of writing. Peer reviewing, regarded as a quality measure tool for manuscript, evaluates manuscript for its suitability for specific publication.Despite its flaws and complexity, peer review is large relied upon in the field of research. According to a report, about 90% of respondents stated that the quality of their manuscript improved considerably through peer review process. 

Benefits of peer review process

  • The main advantage of peer review process is that it establishes the validity of the research and prevent fake works from being published within an area of study.
  • It provides valuable feedback and offers scope for further improvement of a section or entire manuscript.
  • Allows journals to choose relevant, precise and important findings for publication. 
  • Upholds the quality of the work and the scientific knowledgebase
Today, peer review is the best technique to measure the quality of the manuscript. When the manuscript is submitted to the journals, the reviewers scrutinise the piece of writing for originality and scientific reliability.
  • While performing peer review process, the reviewers ensure that the manuscript adds value to the existing knowledge base. The reviewers check if it adds new knowledge or expand the existing knowledge? Does the manuscript provide scope for scientists or policy makers? Is the manuscript submitted to the appropriate journal?
  • The reviewers also check if the research question is defined appropriately, the chosen study design is apt and has potential to obtain answers to the research question, and participants are adequately described. They also scrutinise if the results clearly mentioned, does the conclusion and interpretation focus on the data? Are the references relevant? and does the abstract and summary reflect the manuscript?
Peer review, forming the base of niche manuscript, are classified into 6 types. 

Single blind review 

This type of peer review is the most common process in the scientific journals. Here, the identity of the reviewer is not disclosed to the author, but the reviewer has information pertaining to the author. This enables reviewers to provide genuine feedback to the author. Also, by knowing who the author is, the reviewer can use the previous knowledge of the author. However, there are a few drawbacks of single blind review process such as gender or nationality discrimmination. Also, the knowledge of reviewer may overshadow the work leading to insufficient scrutiny.

Double blind review 

In double blind review, neither the reviewer has the author information nor the author has details regarding the reviewer. This will lead to fair and unbiased review results. Also, both author and reviewer can avoid criticism from each other. Some of the cons of this type of review is that the reviewer may not end up providing informed judgement. Also, the anonymity of the author isn’t guaranteed as the reviewer might discover the identity by looking at the writing style or topic of research. 

Open review

Here, the identity of the reviewer and author is known to all participants. This type of peer review is not used by many journals. In open peer review, the journals publish the reviews along with the final piece of writing to enable the readers to view the comments. The transparency of this peer review type enhances accountability and improves the quality of the work. However, some reviewers might disagree to provide feedback due to concern about being identified. They may also criticize the work of the senior researchers.  

Transferable review

This is relatively a new form of peer review. Here, the journals (subject-related) transfer the reviewed manuscripts between them. The author submits a manuscript to a journal, which is reviewed by the concerned authorities and then is transferred to the suitable journal (on author’s permission). This type of review provides the author with an alternate option for publication. The drawbacks of this type of review are: the reviewers at receiving journal might wouldn’t want to accept more submissions or might decide that the manuscript is not suitable to their journal. 

Collaborative review

As the name suggests, group of reviewers will work together on a manuscript. This is done through two approaches. In the first approaches two or more reviewers scrutinise the manuscript and offer unified feedback. Whereas, in the second approach, one or more reviewer discusses the scope of improvement with the author. This type of review is more constructive. However, the benefit of individual evaluation is obtained in this type of review. 

Post publication review 

In this type of peer review, the option for revision of manuscript continues even after the publication. It takes the form of comments or discussion page alongside the published manuscript. This approach give an opportunity to improve the writing even after publishing and reflects the evolution of the knowledge. However, if the topic is controversial, the manuscript might attract large number of comments which cannot be moderated many a time.Peer review is a lengthy process and involves many stages. To know more about the steps involved in this process, visit https://jscires.org/peer-review-process