Does anybody know of any initiatives, other than Publons that gives credit to peer-reviewers, that lobbies for free open access publishing? It would be great if peer-reviewers got publication discounts from open access publishers. Paid open access seems to discriminates against 'poor' universities & researchers who cannot pay out of their own pocket and for those researchers that publish a lot. It does not seem ethical to pay for own publications - the richest will publish the most, especially considering all the predatory journals that would publish any poor quality materials for money, Scholars are doing their peer-reviews for free and publishers get paid for publishing their work...
Unpaid peer review has long between a tradition in subscription-based journals, but it has become more controversial with journals that charge for submissions. Indeed, some of the journals that charge submission fees do offer discounts on those fees and other rewards for reviewing (for example, Elsevier offers temporary access to SCOPUS). If you want to be compensated for reviewing, then limit your reviewing to journals that offer those kinds of rewards.
Otherwise, consider the non-monetary rewards: a chance to read pre-publication work in your field, a chance to influence the direction of your field, a chance to build relationships with editors, and a chance to build your CV by showing that other professionals value your judgments. Plus, there is a chance to multiple all of those effects by being invited onto an editorial board, etc.
At least in the social sciences, we get the opportunity to read the other reviews, and to see how the editors used their suggestions along with our own to reach a decision. I personally feel like I have learned a lot from that process -- both as a reviewer and as an author.
Helen - I'm quite active on Publons and I'm a member of their mentor Academy - supporting 'emerging' reviewers. I think that it does the job quite well the you are asking for already. Also - many journals (open and otherwise) offer discount incentives already for reviewers. The point of paying peer reviewers has come up before. There are pros and cons to it. More people would probably review more often if there was a financial incentive. However, many of those may be it in 'purely for the money' and not the voluntary mentorship that accompanies the current system.
Unpaid peer review has long between a tradition in subscription-based journals, but it has become more controversial with journals that charge for submissions. Indeed, some of the journals that charge submission fees do offer discounts on those fees and other rewards for reviewing (for example, Elsevier offers temporary access to SCOPUS). If you want to be compensated for reviewing, then limit your reviewing to journals that offer those kinds of rewards.
Otherwise, consider the non-monetary rewards: a chance to read pre-publication work in your field, a chance to influence the direction of your field, a chance to build relationships with editors, and a chance to build your CV by showing that other professionals value your judgments. Plus, there is a chance to multiple all of those effects by being invited onto an editorial board, etc.
At least in the social sciences, we get the opportunity to read the other reviews, and to see how the editors used their suggestions along with our own to reach a decision. I personally feel like I have learned a lot from that process -- both as a reviewer and as an author.
Hi
No any payment, I review a few and anything
Sometimes a letter but no money
Ingrid
Some publishers such as Sage and Wiley offer 20-30% discount to the reviewers for open access publication and to buy any books from them.
Hi Helena,
I do agree with your statement. I do peer-review for some MDPI journals and I get back publication discounts (50 to 100 CHF).
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