Dear Dr Abdallah

Regarding the idea of paid peer review, i guess most scientists would reject it. Here are some of the reasons why:

1) Transforming science into business where reviewers receive money for their job. This also may open a door for blackmailing and bribery.

2) Who should be charged the cost of manuscript review? Journal or authors? and how this cost should be calculated?

3) We already have several alternatives. For example, Publons is a good platform for recognition. Some Elsevier journals give you a month free access to SCOPUS. Springer sometimes gives discounts on their books. Some journals like Science and Frontiers publish the names of reviewers along with the manuscript, giving them recognition.

I understand the trouble editors may go through finding the right reviewers for their submissions. But i believe there are many solution other than paid peer review.

Kind Regards

Dear Dr Abdallah

Regarding the idea of paid peer review, i guess most scientists would reject it. Here are some of the reasons why:

1) Transforming science into business where reviewers receive money for their job. This also may open a door for blackmailing and bribery.

2) Who should be charged the cost of manuscript review? Journal or authors? and how this cost should be calculated?

3) We already have several alternatives. For example, Publons is a good platform for recognition. Some Elsevier journals give you a month free access to SCOPUS. Springer sometimes gives discounts on their books. Some journals like Science and Frontiers publish the names of reviewers along with the manuscript, giving them recognition.

I understand the trouble editors may go through finding the right reviewers for their submissions. But i believe there are many solution other than paid peer review.

Kind Regards

Hi,

I think that paying a symbolic sum for reviewing a paper is O K. firstly, because this way more reviewers will be available, and secondly, the reviewer's time is worth something, and this payment is an incentive for the time spent on this function. The publishers and editors of journal X are getting paid for their work. The journal receives subscription fees or, if open access it receives processing fees. So, in this production chain only the referee is not paid for his time. Why ???

This is a subject of intense discussions in many places, so let me provide a few links:

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20930/are-there-any-journals-that-pay-reviewers

https://www.editage.com/insights/is-paid-peer-review-a-good-idea

This is quite an intriguing pieces of information from Dr. Farid O. Farid andAbdelrahman Ibrahim Abushouk on this issue. Personally, I think fince the journal publishers receive a lot of money from authors in the name of Article Processing Charge (APC), I don't see any reasons reviewers of such manuscript should not be rewarded/given incentives for performing such jobs.

Paying for reviewing shall compensate the time and efforts put by reviewers.

Certainly yes, since reviewing an article needs time and effort.

So why should it be without a charge?

After all the final output is being sold by the Publisher in approximately more than $30 per copy.

Many comments may be written here, but none of us are ready to do any tough works without any return.

As the young reviewers have some compulsion, so they perform such ' NOBLE' work of peer review FREE even for the article which require 1500 to 2500 USD for publication as Article Processing Charge etc.

But the senior Professors and Scientists generally do not perform such 'NOBLE' work mainly due to the reason that they have no such compulsion.

In this world, nothing can be got as actually ' free '.

In my own view peer review job is entirely a volunteering work. If you cannot do it you can reject it.

The present world is totally market oriented. How science and scientific society can be excluded from business? So there is no harm to pay money to get quality service from a reviewer. Paying money will make the reviewing process fast. Regards

I guess it is fair enough to get paid for serving as a reviewer, especially for open access journals that impose APC.

I think that such Journals are so good although you will pay. I am personally, prefer to go to less level Journals since I pay (not my university). I also think that the paper has its power from the work and results included.

Lets take for example the largest publishing group:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier

We read for 2016 economic results:

• operating profits=₤853 million
• published articles = 420,000 articles (approximately)
• profit per article = 853000000/420000 = ₤2030.95

So isn't it an irony that it does not give back to the authors of every published article neither ₤1?

@Demetris Christopoulos

Although, the accuracy of £ 2030.95 per article is questionable, it is an interesting value because the APC of new open access journals published by major publishers is very close to that value. Previously, I asked myself how do they set a specific APC?! Now, I get a reasonable answer.

Paid peer review system it does not affect the quality of reviewing but it rather encourage and support speedy reviewing and comments on scientific work.

Dear Mohamed EL-Shimy,

As you see life is more easy than we the scientists are used to believe!

Thank you for the observation, I hadn't thought it:

• mean profit per article = charge required per OA article

Dr. Demetris - thanks for information.l am surprised to know the fact - the profit per article. An author simply gets pleasure to see his article, but a publishing house earning lot from a researcher's contribution. Regards

Dear Asit,

An author sometimes gets pleasure during the whole submitting process (recall the often rejections and referee rounds...), while a publisher always gets profit from the published article, thus we see a strong bias here...

Dear @Abdallah, there were some related research questions about paid peer review! Fine answers and resources were given.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_you_think_reviewing_scientific_articles_should_remain_voluntary_or_should_the_reviewers_be_paid_by_the_publishers

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_reviewers_of_scientific_papers_be_paid_for_their_work

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_tell_a_paid_peer-reviewed_proposal_for_a_foreign_country

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Peer_review_tax_its_a_scam

Better to reward reviewer indirectly rather than cash like access of journals free of cost for certain period of time, waiver in publication charge.

I reviewed some papers for different international Journals without any money receiving. The reviewer in generally is fair in work although the journal itself may aim to profits. For example, I tried to download my papers in international Journals but I cannot. It is for money and so, I could not. Also, I think that the work in the paper is the mark not the journal except we compare between Journals.

Peer review is a voluntary work. However, I would accept to do a peer review job for the sake of promotion.

It is unethical because reviewing academic papers is an honorable duty. Introducing monetary issues may rub this honorable duty into the mud (bribery and corruption), lowering the belt of scientific development.

Reviewing academic papers is a:

• voluntary work (no reimbursement at all)
• not a honorable duty (where does the honor be printed? it is total anonymous)

In a few words there exists next not signed in a contract agreement:

• Do the review and do believe that you are doing something for the scientific society, leave the profit for me!

Everywhere give and take process is being followed. If journal is earning then what's the problem in paying to the reviewers?

I reviewed a lot of papers for different international journals and conferences but I have not receive any money because I agree with Dr Vipan Kakkar. All things now is taken as trading in many cases in different fields around the world.

Peer review is a voluntary work. However, I would accept to do a peer review job for the sake of promotion.

I am reviewing paper for high rank Journal as a volunteer where I do my best for all (author and Journal).

I have just refused a request to referee a paper for Springer, even though I am probably the best suited person to do so. As a retiree I cannot live on anonymous fame alone.

Should academics be paid for peer review?

As the number of papers needing review increases, journals are thinking of replacing a voluntary system with cash reward...

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/should-academics-be-paid-for-peer-review

I agree with Ian Kennedy

Yes. I think so. If the journal wants the best out of a reviewer they should pay. The reviewer gives a lot to the manuscript and should be rewarded fo his/her deligence

"If the "commerce" can accommodate "ethics" then paid review services can be recommended" (comment of Dr. Bharat) - Yes, there should be no deviation from "ethics"'. Regards

In case of blind review, there is no harm to pay a reviewer, if he/she is free in decision. The reviewer may accept or reject a part, but h/she should be paid.

If the reviewer(s) and author(s) know each other, there is no need to put the paper in review process.

I will never review for free.

I agree with Dr Nafees because it is a judging process.

Why aren’t publishers expected to pay for the production of the products that they profit greatly from? What if academics started charging publishers for their expert peer reviews? And what if the funds raised were used to help subsidize the costs of research and of building an open access system – run not by for-profit companies, but by our postsecondary institutions?

Research is not free. It is paid for with taxpayer dollars through both academics’ salaries and government research grants; it is paid for a third time through outrageous subscription fees paid by university libraries. Depending on the institution, academic libraries pay $350,000 to $9-million annually in subscription fees. It is also paid for by academics, who spend their lives honing these skills at a great cost both financially and personally. ...

Lack of access to research is a moral issue, creating an inequitable system of knowledge distribution. Scholars at institutions both locally and globally that can’t afford these fees are impoverished in more ways than one, not to mention the taxpayers who don’t have access to the research they’ve helped fund. That publishers are making huge profits using the free labour of scholars, while libraries struggle to fund the subscriptions essential to scholars’ research activities, is absurd...

https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/time-stand-academic-publishing-industry/

I believe that the journals on which authors publish for free do not have to pay the referees. While the journals on which authors publish for a fee must pay the referees at least 10% of the fare paid for the pubblication.

1- The author should get royalty from the published articles

2- The peer reviewers should be paid. Quality can be ensured by double blind peer review.

No problem in paying the reviewers but no compromise with ethics and standard of the paper.

I used to think that the answer to this question was a definite and resounding "NO" and that reviewing was an important public service to the scientific community. However, over the past 10-15 years much of the scientific endeavor has become highly monetized, particularly in the realm of publishing where costs to produce and disseminate publications have decreased while revenue streams appear to have become large and common. This is true even for some “Society” journals. It seems that the only individuals not benefiting from their expertise in this new money-making system are the scientists that perform the reviews. When scientists perform a review and provide their expert opinion, they are performing the work of a scientific consultant. I know of no other type of consultant work that is not compensated at significant rates. Why should scientists performing this valuable service not be paid as consultants? I can’t find an acceptable answer to this question, except where scientific publishing is “non-profit” and serves only to benefit the scientific community. Not only is paid peer-review a good idea in the current climate, experts performing reviews as consultants should perhaps begin insisting upon being appropriately compensated.

I think that, review either peer or not must be free because there are a great difference between scientific honest work and others. If the money goes to the publisher, the reviewer are away from. Abdallah Hussien Fathy

I think it should be paid, if we want quick peer review process.

Because nowadays the review process is unpaid, the review automatically becomes the last priority of a reviewer. Most reviewers want to do it when they are free of other daily responsibilities. Therefore, procrastination kicks in and the publication gets delayed.

Had it been a paid process, the peer review process would have been a scientists’ priority.

When jury can be paid by the courts of law, then why not a reviewer? Do we want good qualiy review or not?

Quality of review will go up if the reviewers are paid.

"When jury can be paid by the courts of law, then why not a reviewer?" (Hassan Tohid)

Yes, it is so.The only issue, no compromise with the quality and standard of the paper.

It would seem that as long as there are peer reviewers willing to work for the personal fulfillment or perceived privilege of the role, there is no reason to rock the boat. Individual reviewers that express their frustrations over the lack of compensation are easy to ignore as long as there are more new reviewers in line waiting to take their places if their disgruntled colleagues choose to make it a question of principle.

However, the proud tradition of peer review is starting to suffer from this lack of perceived value. Online open access journal publishers now promote their peer reviews as only checking that the underlying methodology of the study is sound, leaving any further review to occur post-publication...

https://www.enago.com/academy/should-a-peer-reviewer-be-paid/

No harm. Reviewers are scientific consultants.

I think it is ok to get money for peer review. It is an extra work and deserve to be paid .

Let me approach this from a different angle.

If you asking if reviewers should be paid for reviewing a paper sent to them by a journal editor, you have already received a lot of opinions that cover everything.

But did you know that you can already pay someone to review your article, independent of the journal. There is a service called Rubriq, I am not associated with them but it was an interesting concept.

I work for The Science Editorium and we provide a manuscript health check, which is also a kind of review of your manuscript to help you get it ready for publication.

In my opinion, it is not fair to publish low quality papers in fee-based journals. In addition, quit a lot of this journals have not proper scientific level.

As I have frequently argued (cf. e.g. the attached papers), "peer"-reviewing system - whether paid or not - is inherently bad and should be abandoned

I think what must be bettered is the exchange between peer reviewers, because it's how it works (well, when it works). I review yours, you review mine, it should be taken as a mind training, just as jogging for the body. But selfishness and laziness, with the eternal economical argument, seems to win, by now. That's not the way we're going to change an unfair stupid lazy society.

Yes it is! Performing a good and fair revision requires considerable time, effort, deep understanding, etc.

Journals should, however, maintain high standards on their choices for reviewers with great expertise in the area of the submitted paper.

Peer reviewing is a hugely rewarding contribution to the community but sometimes feels like a thankless task with many asking for more recognition from commercial publishers whether rewards like APC’s waived for their next papers, monetary payment, etc or promotion and recognition from their employers. Some researchers are required to take on peer reviewing duties as part of their role and/or to help advance their career. That doesn’t mean it should be a difficult process. I know from my own explorations that publishers are supporting authors and peer reviewers to address these issues that are having a such negative impact – but some are clearly doing a much better job than others...

https://www.researchinformation.info/analysis-opinion/rogue-peer-review-polysemy-making?utm_source=adestra&utm_medium=RINewsline&utm_campaign=March%20RI%20newsline

If the money is enough and more, the payment will not affect your life. On the other side, the published good work will play a great role even the journal is free or paid review. Also, the reaction to the work is the important factor although it is peer reviewed or not.

Paid peer review is good. 1. It helps to complete the review process in stipulated time frame. 2. A small amount of money received gives a good feel as a reward for the work done.

I don't dislike it totally, but this sacred affairs of publishing should be fair and transparent.

Getting paid for a review is not as easy as it sounds. There are several points which need to be considered

1. First, there is no sound methodology or model to calculate the way in which a reviewer will be paid for the service. Would they get paid higher if a paper is published after multiple rounds of revision than if the paper is rejected after the first revision? Several factors like seniority and experience of the reviewer, actual time spent on the review, quality of the review done, time taken to finish and submit the review, etc would need to be taken into account. If reviewers are paid by the number of hours spent on a review, there will be differences as different people have different levels of productivity. If the journal pays by an hourly rate, the journal would only pay the work for the minimum number of hours. Some reviewers are also strict and would recommend a reject easily and might offer a major revision while others can be a bit lenient. All these factors need to be taken into account.

For example, the seniority and experience of the reviewer would matter a lot. A single paper is sometimes reviewed by 2 or 3 different reviewers with different levels of seniority. A senior Professor with vast expertise in an area would charge higher fees for his time to review a paper while a junior researcher or a doctoral scholar cannot charge a higher fee for the same service. In such a scenario, would a journal editor send a review to a very senior Professor as he/ she will charge very high fees? Another layer of complexity is added if a journal decides to use a bidding process and give the review to the lowest price bidder among multiple reviewers who are fit to review the paper.

2. Second, for the journal, it will be difficult to ensure the quality of a review from a reviewer before sending the review. Should the reviewers be paid a specific general amount (e.g. USD 100 per paper) before accepting a review or get paid according to the performance criteria when they actually perform the task? What would an editor do if a reviewer misinterprets the paper and does not do a good job or writes mean comments for the authors? In such a scenario, journals would always play safe and never send a paper to new reviewers as they do not want to ask a new reviewer again and pay again for the service.

3. Third, getting paid for reviews will also make life difficult for reviewers as journal editor will become more demanding in terms of time taken for the review and would expect them to finish a review in a week. As the service becomes paid, the journals can be become extremely demanding on the reviewers who are already very busy with research, teaching, and administration. In a voluntary system, journals are more relaxed and can give extensions to busy reviewers.

Many such ideas like payment for reviews look very promising initially but we need to look at them very carefully.

Peer review should be treated as any other academic work, such as writing a paper. With this in mind, it is essential that credit is given to the true authors. This will help to build confidence in the peer review process...

The interesting article that you should read is linked.

https://www.enago.com/academy/are-peer-reviews-reports-being-written-by-early-career-researchers/?utm_source=academy_weekly_global_newsletter_12112019

Everyone says that peer reviewers should be paid but no one comes with a methodology or a mathematical model for payment. How is the process going to actually work? Please come up with a methodology.

It is not as easy as paying to an academic for 40 hours of work depending upon the seniority level. There are many variables at play in the peer review process which need to be taken into account.

Peer review should be paid.

Old people (not all) are against it because it challenges their hegemony.

Publishers make them editors & reviewers and in turn, take their "services" to force the goverments to buy the subscriptions.

Peer review means simply, that the paper is analyzed by a domain expert. If somebody has written a paper about biochemstry, an expert phd student from that subject is reading the paper and gives feedback. The price for a combination of copy editing and peer review is around 400 US$ per paper and has to be paid by the author.

Now we can discuss, if this service make sense or not. I think, it’s up to the individual to decide if he needs the service or not. What we can say in general is, that peer review is equal that a paid agency with domain experts is reading a paper and gives recommendations for improvement. This improves the quality of a document and increases the acceptance chance in a journal submission.100% of all academic journals are peer reviewed. That means, the described services is used frequently by all authors who are submitting something to Nature, Elsevier and other companies. The most fascinating aspect of the https://www.enago.com/ website is, that the company doesn’t publish a paper and doesn’t provide a journal, but they are focussed on the paid peer review only...

https://trollheaven.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/example-for-paid-peer-review/

Peer review consume efforts and time. To start with, we are paying back to the academic and research community the effort of decades of peer that others contributed during our own publishing and scholarly and academic progress. It is therefore, an honorable task to all peer reviewers. However, rewarding could be done in many ways, either by a recognition letter or sponsoring of an attendance of a conference, as well as a gesture financial reward Depending on the budgets allocated for each journal. All such rewarding methods should be regulated and recognized in advance. The industry could contribute to financial support of peer reviewing process. Such contribution should be recognized by listing donors names on main pages of the journal.