«Peer Review Week
is an event that spotlights the importance of the peer review process
for scholarly publications. Predatory publishing has become a real
threat in the industry, diminishing credibility and putting nearly
everything into question. One of the main ways to combat the qualms with
predatory publishing and concerns with peer review is transparency. The
entire peer review process can be lengthy at times, but it’s imperative
to the credibility, reliability and validity of the journal.
“Transparency in the peer review process means to inform about what is
behind the editorial decision-making,” says Carlos Nunes Silva. “In
other words, to make clear, namely for authors but also for reviewers
and ultimately also to readers, how a decision was taken, what exactly
was decided and why was the paper accepted or rejected.”
IGI Global follows a strict double-blind peer review process that features many steps along the way, as explained in this peer review video.
From the initial assessment by the Editor-in-Chief to the final
assessment after the author’s revisions, IGI Global’s eEditorial
Discovery online submissions system makes the entire peer review process
transparent for authors and reviewers.
The International Journal of E-Planning Research (IJEPR) follows the guidelines below:
“After a preliminary assessment by the editor-in-chief, all manuscripts
are subject to at least two rounds of reviews by at least three
reviewers in each round. These reviewers, members of the editorial board
or/and ad-hoc reviewers, are all highly qualified professionals in the
respective field. Only a very exceptional manuscript can expect an
editorial decision based on just one round of the three review report.
The author of a research paper is expected to submit the revised
version(s) of the paper along with a list of detailed responses to each
point raised by the reviewers. The return of a manuscript to the
author(s) for revision does not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript
for publication. A decision of acceptance or rejection requires
unanimity of the 3 reviewers. If no unanimity is reached after the
second round of reviews, an associated editor will produce an additional
review report. Based on all these reports, seven or more, a final
editorial decision is then taken.”
To further prioritize the importance of transparency, Carlos Nunes Silva
and the International Journal of E-Planning Research take it a step
further than most journals.
“The application of the IJEPR current peer review policy, which is
clearly transparent, is an important condition to keep confidence in the
journal. The IJEPR publishes, since its first volume, a list of
reviewers in the last issue of each volume (with the name, institutional
affiliation, and country of each reviewer). This is indeed an important
practice towards opening the editorial decision process by making clear
to everyone who took part in the decision-making.”
The publishing industry is at risk of becoming extremely saturated and
less credible because of the influx of predatory publishers that will
publish anything with a transaction of some monetary value. To continue
fighting this, Peer Review week attempts to emphasize the featured role
that transparency and peer review play in scholarly literature. IGI
Global will continue to enforce a double-blind and transparent peer
review process and establish itself as a reputable, credible publisher
in the scholarly industry.
You can join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #PeerRevWk17.
IGI Global would like to thank Dr. Carlos Nunes Silva for contributing
his thoughts on the importance of transparency in peer review.
»
