Elsevier

Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

Volume 125, September 2020, Pages 201-205
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

Commentary
We need to talk about peer-review—Experienced reviewers are not endangered species, but they need motivation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.02.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Background and Objectives

Reviewer refusal is a phenomenon associated with different causes, including reviewer fatigue, lack of time, dissatisfaction with the editorial system, among other reasons. This article discusses the main factors involved in the reviewer refusal and the “peer-review crisis” from a broad perspective. In addition, reasons that make a researcher accept or not a review invitation are also described.

Methods

This article is a narrative review.

Results

This article provides some alternatives that can help in the reversal of peer-review crisis and decrease high reviewer refusal rates, and which may also engage experienced reviewers in the peer-review process.

Conclusion

Carefully selecting reviewers, publicly acknowledging them, and offering nonmonetary rewards appear to be good strategies for engaging reviewers. In addition, highly productive reviewers should be recognized by the journals.

Introduction

Peer-review is the foundation of basically all scientific publishing because this process promotes a screening of the articles that will be published, and peer-reviewers are supposed to contribute with questioning that eventually will improve the quality of the publications. Nevertheless, we have increasingly experienced unpleasant situations following this model. For example, a manuscript was recently rejected, after half a year submitted to a journal since according to the Editor “…we have been unable to secure reviewers willing to review your manuscript and we must therefore reject it.” This happened even considering that the journal asked, along with the submission procedure, the name of several potential reviewers! In another case, a manuscript was rejected based on a weak comment from a single reviewer “…although fifteen outside expert peer-reviewers were invited to critique your manuscript…”. These are just two examples of the increasing difficulty that editors are faced in finding expert reviewers and how this directly affects science and scientists.

The scarcity of expert reviewers willing to spend their (also scarce) time in manuscript reviewing not only delays publishing per se but also can potentially affect the quality of the reports available to editors to help in their final decision. Of note, the difficulty in recruiting reviewers can also have consequences on such final decision. For example, editors who face difficulties in finding suitable reviewers have a greater tendency to reject the submitted article, as observed in a study that evaluated journals of ecology and evolution [1]. However, this association may be more specifically related to some particular areas because this same phenomenon was not observed in a study performed with data extracted from the editorial system of the journal Radiology [2].

If experienced scientists suggested by authors are becoming less likely to accept the “burden of peer-reviewing,” who will review our manuscripts? Recently, many journals incorporated on their Web pages an area for the registration of researchers interested in acting as reviewers. This may facilitate the entry of new actors to the peer-review scenario. In this sense, increasing the number of reviewers through the inclusion of young scientists in the manuscript evaluation process will increase the diversity of opinions received by editors and decrease the workload burden on experienced reviewers [3]. On the other hand, it can dilute even more the parcel of experienced experts acting in such laborious, and sometimes ungrateful, task.

Despite weaknesses and criticisms, the peer-review system will probably remain for a long time as an important pillar in science publishing. Thus, it is necessary to give more attention to the reviewers to assure the quality of the professionals who are helping the editors to sort out important information among the current tsunami of data. Therefore, this article discusses the factors associated with “reviewer refusal” from a broad perspective.

Section snippets

Reviewer fatigue—too many invitations

Although peer-review is considered as part of a scientist job, it is imperative to encourage reviewers if we want to avoid the “reviewer fatigue,” defined as the difficulty that an editor faces in recruiting reviewers, who may feel overwhelmed by receiving excessive invitations to evaluate manuscripts [[3], [4], [5]]. Of note, reviewer fatigue can be viewed as a definition of “peer-review crisis” from the Editors' point of view. However, this phenomenon is caused primarily by high refusal rates

Online platforms

Specific efforts should be done to decrease reviewer refusal rates. Also, we should make peer-review attractive for young scientists and bring back (and maintain) experienced reviewers in the system. The Publons platform (https://publons.com), for example, allows reviewers to register the journals for which they have evaluated manuscripts, tabulates several data related to the review procedure, and shares it publicly [7]. Therefore, in platforms like the one mentioned, editors and researchers

Final considerations

Reviewers should consider that the peer-review process, at least in some cases, does not add substantial new information to their knowledge or bring practical benefits. However, the reviewer's knowledge may be particularly important for improving the manuscript evaluated and this point must especially be taken into consideration by experienced reviewers. In other words, the peer-review activity should be seen as a way to improve the quality of science at the global level, overriding particular

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Joel Henrique Ellwanger: Writing - original draft. José Artur Bogo Chies: Writing - original draft.

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Cited by (0)

Funding: J.H.E. receives a postdoctoral fellowship from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Brazil). J.A.B.C. receives a research fellowship from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Brazil).

Ethics approval: Not required.

Conflicts of interest: J.A.B.C. is on the editorial board of Human Immunology. There are no other conflicts of interest to declare.

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