Reviewing the peer review process?

I received the following email:

Dear Colleague,

Recently we informed you about SciRev, our new website where researchers can share their experiences with the peer review process and select an efficient journal for submitting their work.

Since our start, we already received over 500 reviews and many positive reactions, which reveal a great need for comparable information on duration and quality of the review process. All reviews are publicly available on our website, both at the pages of the journals and in an overview at www.scirev.sc/reviews

To make this venture a success, many reviews are needed. We therefore would appreciate it very much if you could take a few minutes to visit our website www.SciRev.sc and share your recent review experiences with your colleagues.

SciRev also offers you the possibility to create a free account where you can administer your manuscripts under review and create a personal journal list.

Thanks on behalf of the research community,
Janine Huisman & Jeroen Smits
SciRev.sc

I know nothing about this but I thought I’d pass it on in case it interests any of you.

2 thoughts on “Reviewing the peer review process?

  1. I checked it out: http://scirev.sc/

    It’s mostly unpopulated so far (tried JACS and Nature and no reviews). But on the right hand panel, you can see recent reviews and get some info.

    I think it’s an OK idea, sort of like ratemyteacher. I’ve seen something similar for instance in free lance fiction, where people give information about the average time for review of submissions. The simplest and most objective part is just the time to decision.

    Comments about review quality by those who got articles rejected obviously have to be taken with a grain of salt. Adding a feature to say if the article was accepted/rejected (and allowing to filter) would be helpful. Have seen this on the freelancer writing sites. (e.g. a lot of rejections may be fast, etc.)

  2. You may take a look at http://www.scirev.sc/reviews to get an overview of all reviews received until now.

    Especially the ‘motivations’ given by many reviewers to explain their overall rating are interesting to read. They sketch a recognizable and sometimes even shocking picture of what researchers experience in their attempts to publish their work.

    Jeroen Smits
    SciRev.sc

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