As an author and a member of editorial boards of some scientific journals, I have observed the growing concern on the delay in manuscript review due the difficulty in finding suitable and willing reviewers. Publishing manuscripts/papers in reputable scientific journals takes an average of one calendar year. It could be higher in some well sought-after journals. It is noted that about 65-70 % of the time is spent getting the paper reviewed. Many of our colleaqgues are not willing to accept review request due to high workload while some who are willing may delay the review beyond tolerable time.
Also, there is geometric increase in the number of Journals with disproportionate increase in researchers willing to review manuscripts. The known and outstanding researchers/reviewers are over-requested or oversubscribed, while the green horn are seen to be inexperienced and not invited to review. Therefore, there is need to increase the number of reviewers, but how ....? Also, there is need to encourage researchers & academic professionals to accept review request and complete review within reasonable and acceptable time frame.
I am currently working on a review paper on how and ways to encourage timely review of manuscripts and how to reward manuscript reviewers.
I am inviting contributions form researchers/authors, in a form of answers to the question. Please contribute generously.
The following suggestions come to mind:
i.introduction of manuscript reviewer score cards
ii.issuance of certificate of credit to manuscript reviewers
iii. inclusion of manuscript review points as a criterial for the promotion of academic/research staff
iv.
v
Thank you. to be updated
Currently Publons maintains the review records of reviewers in their profile. Reviewers are receiving certificates such as top reviewer and excellent reviewer annually. In my opinion, free services of editors and reviewers should be discontinued in academic arena. They should be provided a honorarium per manuscript. Because, leading publishers are making huge profit. They can certainly afford to provide little honorarium.
introduction of manuscript reviewer score cards
ii.issuance of certificate of credit to manuscript reviewers
iii. inclusion of manuscript review points as a criterial for the promotion of academic/research staff
Currently Publons maintains the review records of reviewers in their profile. Reviewers are receiving certificates such as top reviewer and excellent reviewer annually. In my opinion, free services of editors and reviewers should be discontinued in academic arena. They should be provided a honorarium per manuscript. Because, leading publishers are making huge profit. They can certainly afford to provide little honorarium.
@ Isaac Dinaharan
Thank you for your response and brilliant suggestions. However, some of us are of the opinion that publication charges should be completely removed from manuscript processing and publication process because it is seen as a burden to authors, especially authors and researchers from the developing words where funding is limited and difficult to access. Many authors from developing countries pay for manuscript publication from their salaries -so its is burden. Publication charges has been identified as the key reason for the spring-up of predatory journals. Publication charges also influence the editor's decision in some non-predatory journals. etc., etc.
So, paying reviewers would mean paying for manuscript processing by authors.@isaac Dinaharan
Dear Wasiu O Raji , I was alerted by twitter about this platform.
Join the exclusive peer review platform: ReviewerCredits ensure trusted certifications, increased visibility and real rewards!
https://www.reviewercredits.com/
Ljubomir Jacić Thank you for the link. I will take a deep look at what is going on there. We are open to suggestions that will encourage and improve the willingness of academics/researchers to review manuscript without charging the authors.
We are still looking for more answers to this question. Please contribute generously.
There is a sizable portion of the academic community that is asking for credit, and it seems that the publishers are looking to provide credit. On the other hand, it is arbitrary whether institutions want to credit people for peer review activities. For quite some time there has been a clear understanding of the importance of the peer review process, and it is only a recent occurrence that there is a firm commitment to recognizing peer reviewers.
A number of publishers have already put together mechanisms by which they can recognize reviewers.
Here, we highlight several of those.
- Elsevier boasts its Reviewer Recognition platform
- Springer has instituted a reviewer reward program
- The Royal Society of Chemistry ...
https://www.enago.com/academy/peer-review-recognition-a-resume-booster/
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