Related papers: In praise of the referee
The importance of peer-review in the scientific process can not be overestimated. Yet, due to increasing pressures of research and exponentially growing number of publications the task faced by the referees becomes ever more difficult. We…
The number of scientific publications is constantly rising, increasing the strain on the review process. The number of submissions is actually higher, as each manuscript is often reviewed several times before publication. To face the deluge…
The advancement of various fields of science depends on the actions of individual scientists via the peer review process. The referees' work patterns and stochastic nature of decision making both relate to the particular features of…
Communicating new scientific discoveries is key to human progress. Yet, this endeavor is hindered by monetary restrictions for publishing one's findings and accessing other scientists' reports. This process is further exacerbated by a large…
Scientific research changed profoundly over the last 30 years, in all its aspects. Scientific publishing has changed as well, mainly because of the strong increased number of submitted papers and because of the appearance of Open Access…
One of the virtues of peer review is that it provides a self-regulating selection mechanism for scientific work, papers and projects. Peer review as a selection mechanism is hard to evaluate in terms of its efficiency. Serious efforts to…
Scientific publishing is in a transition between the old paper-bound, static forms and the new electronic media with its interactive, dynamic possibilities. This takes place in the context of imploding library budgets and exploding magazine…
Scholarly journals rely on peer review to identify the science most worthy of publication. Yet finding willing and qualified reviewers to evaluate manuscripts has become an increasingly challenging task, possibly even threatening the…
This article challenges the assumption that journals and peer review are essential for developing,evaluating and disseminating scientific and other academic knowledge. It suggests a more flexible ecosystem, and examines some of the…
This article offers a personal perspective on the current state of academic publishing, and posits that the scientific community is beset with journals that contribute little valuable knowledge, overload the community's capacity for…
Scientific publications enable results and ideas to be transmitted throughout the scientific community. The number and type of journal publications also have become the primary criteria used in evaluating career advancement. Our analysis…
Everyday, a vast stream of research documents is submitted to conferences, anthologies, journals, newsletters, annual reports, daily papers, and various periodicals. Many such publications use independent external specialists to review…
Scholars present their new research at seminars and conferences, and send drafts to peers, hoping to receive comments and suggestions that will improve the quality of their work. Using a dataset of papers published in economics journals,…
Scientometers and sociologists of science have spilled much ink on the topic of peer review over the past twenty years, given its primordial role in a context marked by the exponential growth of scientific production and the proliferation…
Peer review shapes which scientific claims enter the published record, but its internal dynamics are hard to measure at scale because reviewer criticism and author revision are usually embedded in long, unstructured correspondence. Here we…
Success in academia hinges on publishing in top tier journals. This requires innovative results. And this requires clear and convincing presentation of said results. Presentation can make the difference of one tier in journal level. A lot…
Review papers have traditionally enjoyed a high status in academic publishing because of the important role they can play in summarising and synthesising a field of research. They can also attract significantly more citations than primary…
Our system will initially provide readers, authors and reviewers with an alternative, thus having the potential to gain wider acceptance and gradually replace the old, incoherent publication process of our journals and of others in related…
Scientific writing builds upon already published papers. Manual identification of publications to read, cite or consider as related papers relies on a researcher's ability to identify fitting keywords or initial papers from which a…
Refereeing is a crucial component of publishing astronomical research, but few professional astronomers receive formal training on how to effectively referee a manuscript. In this article, we lay out considerations and best practices for…