As publishers like Elsevier, Tylor and Francis, Springer, etc tend to extract a lot of money from authors, they asked reviewers to evaluate papers for no a single penny! Though referees put a great effort into reading critically the papers and writing comments based on which editor will decide to either accept or reject. Sometimes even the referees had to evaluate the manuscript twice if he/she recommended revsion. The question why not reviewers demand getting generously paid by these publishers for assessing manuscripts, these publishers experience no mercy in getting publication fees paid by authors.
You're right. Researchers need to take the time and make an extraordinary effort to make the review as good as possible, but they are not paid for it. I believe that we can ask the publisher to reflect on this. So that reviewers are paid and also the publication fee (which is a very high value) is reduced. Because, the author (s) are mostly acaemic and not businessmen.
Emad, Mehran - you're wrong. :-) I will explain.
1. If you do not wish to have your paper be visible (that is, if you do not want to have your paper be published in the open-access mode), then you have that option.
2. In all fairness, if YOU want to have your paper be published, then you also ask for help from the publishing house, the editors, and its other staff, and you also rely on having 1, 2, or 3 evaluators scrutinising your manuscript! They also have a job besides that - most often - and therefore we all rely on everyone in the chain to be able to help out. If no-one accepts to take on a refereeing assignment, then the publication ship will sink very, very fast!
You can be rest assure that I (from the perspective of both a part-time editor, a referee, and also an author) WE ALL need to take part in the chain of events. If the chain is broken, then the whole house of publishing will simply collapse!
You really need to re-think!
I hope they can pay the reviewers and in some Chinese journals they do.
I find it insane to pay reviewers. If you don't want to take on a refereeing assignment, you are free to decline.
Michael Patriksson Chuanyang Li
Thanks, Michael and Chuanyang, If the publishers are charging at least US$1800/- from authors and in fact, they fight for getting the full amount paid, then it's very fair to pay for reviewers who make the articles elegant!
Michael Patriksson your says are contradictory, you are worried about that the breakage of the publication chain if reviewers are to reject working for journals for free and at the same time saying it's up to reviewers to decline the editor's invitation !!
I once had such a bad experience: One of my papers was sent to review by a famous journal (X.X.Letters, AIP) and the editor spent 42 days trying to find a reviewer who can review my paper. But finally, he fails and he rejected my paper... To me, this seems ridiculous and I hope such things won't happy again...
Just don't publish in those money-making journals - plenty of them are lousy, and often don't even look at the manuscripts, but of course they take your money.
All though they do not pay money :
:
1. There are some journals, who also have a list of acknowledgements of reviewers.
2.The publishers also make some concessions on the papers of the reviewers .
3.The reviewers can add this assignment to their CV.
Most of the journals selects reviewers randomly and make huge compromise in quality. They do so becuse they don't want to pay the reviewers, and think that the responders happy with above incentives will do the job for them.
Dear Emad Konozy thank you for your interesting technical question of broad interest. In my personal opinion reviewers should not get paid. Peer-review is part of the job of every serious scientist and a service to the scientific community. If I were paid individually for reviews, our university would take the money anyway. Besides, you are absolutely free to publish in subscription-based journals at no cost. There are numerous such journals available in every disciplines. We published ca. 90% of all our research articles in free journals.
In this context please have a look at the following useful link:
The $450 question: Should journals pay peer reviewers?
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/450-question-should-journals-pay-peer-reviewers
Paying referees is a good idea, it should be the standard. When you review a textbook, you get an honorarium that is not much, but better then nothing. Why don't journals do this? Because free labor is so hard to decline. As long as reviewers don't complain, this same practice will continue. We don't get academic credit for peer reviews, either. There should be at least some sort of recognition of peer-reviews. Much like citations to your publications, reviews that you have done are also indications of your academic impact.
Dear Emad Konozy ,
Publication market is not a free market, and the publishers have almost the absolute say (whether our papers can be published or not). This give them the priority to use free labour to make profit. If the reviewers are paid for review, we the authors will be the end payers for such additional publication cost, either by APC increment or subscription increment, although we are publishing our findings for the benefit for the whole mankind.
There is a golden rule in life: the essentials of life are cheap, only the luxuries are expensive (the water-diamond paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value).
Air and water are priceless and essential to life, so they much be kept at the lowest price for the survival of everybody. Peer-review is essential for publication nowadays, so it is better to keep it free, although it is also priceless.
It's hard for me to talk about everyone, but I've never reviewed for money. Even not for the "certificate" (I don't collect certificates at all, nor do gum inserts and yogurt stickers ...). But to be honest, the reviewer should pay extra for the review. I do this job with pleasure. We mostly have to pay for the pleasure.
At the very least referees should be offered a free subscription, where applicable, or access to non-open-source articles.
Michael Patriksson
So you are recommending to go for free journals. The problem is that almost all free journals are slowly moving to be completely chargeable Open Access. A day will come where only rich institutes will be able to publish their work, and that's pitty!
Vadim S. Gorshkov
Thanks, Vadim for your participation in this important discussion. I had very recently reviewed two articles for Elsevier. I neither reject any editor's invitation nor expect any money in return. But I am a little concerned about the high publication fee these publishers asked when they request reviewers to do the assessment for free.
Dear Karl Pfeifer
They offer one month of free access, which, in my opinion, is nothing!
Emad Konozy I was not offered. Putting me in the bins for a month is very risky.
A very interesting discussion indeed. Some form of compensation for reviewers will not hurt. For instance, reviewers could be offered some discount on open access publication charges, 25%. They could review two manuscripts and allowed to publish one open access free. They could also be given free access to the article they reviewed. Any one of these could encourage reviewers. Not certificates not money.
I think that we should not focus overly on this issue of paying reviewers. Even if we were to succeed in getting some form of (just) pay, for-profit publishers would simply increase the cost of publishing by that much, which means that we would have even less money to do research. So we would gain on one side, but lose tremendously on the other. What needs to change is the publishing model, by which for-profit companies like Elsevier, MDPI, or Frontiers can take advantage of free-labor (by reviewers but also editors, who are either not paid or underpaid) to make huge profits. That amounts to basically a way for individual stockholders of these companies to appropriate public funds, without producing much in return. Universities and research institutions need to take back control over the publishing of the work of their employees. Under these conditions, many of us will be willing to contribute our time to review manuscripts, without thinking about a salary...
Willing to do the job for free 😂. The link below leads to my opinion paper about "the hamster wheel of academic life". I hope that you'll enjoy reading! https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338590277_The_Hamster_Wheel_of_Academic_Life
One very prestigious journal I know of makes people submitting an article for review commit to reviewing two articles for the journal as a quid quo pro. Not a bad idea, IMO.
Anna Geppert I indeed enjoyed reading your "hamster piece". Leisure also helps the thinking process, I find. The best ideas come when I'm hill-hiking with my dogs, even though my intention is always to not think about work. Your practical anti-hamster-wheel measures - one day for reading and answering email once a week - don't include what you do about review invitations though. One review per week? Per month?
Frank G.A. Verheijen many thanks for your question! Personally, I eagerly do reviews for journals that don't "Hamster" - in my discipline, European Spatial Research and Policy, or Transactions of AESOP. Otherwise, I accept reviews only when the paper is really linked to my research interests. How much will that be? One per month, I would say, but I don't make quotas. How about yourself?
Dear Dr. Emad Konozy ,
.... I consider that they are practices that should be discarded among University Researchers ...
There are may ways to "pay" reviewers. One possible is a free-of-charge publication after a certain number of reviews.
I've already reviewed for a journal that does it.
Paying reviewers would turn scientific researchers into research "mercenaries".
Some journals have started playing honorarium to the reviewers now.
B. Mohammed-Azizi
Thanks Mohammed for sharing your comment. Then how do you consider the publishers who charges thousands of US$? Its absolutely two sided case!
My dear colleague,
Nowadays, it is difficult to distinguish between research and "pure business".
If you pay the reviewers it can become a profession and pose major ethical issues.
Thanks for sharing your comment! As I know, some of them have started recently with honorarium to the reviewers!
Definition of a good author of a publication
1) The main author does all (or almost all) of the work of the publication
2) The author submits his article respecting all the rules imposed by the publisher.
3) he waits patiently for the answer.
4) He politely responds to the reviewer's remarks.
5) If accepted, he pays the publisher if the journal is open access and he is very happy when his work is cited.
Some journals provide credits to the reviewer for publishing in their "open-access journal". Seems a potentially useful incentive for reviewers working in environment of a low value currency.
My motivation for reviewing journals submission is to keep myself current on science and force myself to read a manuscript in my fields of interest thoughtfully and critically. A secondary aim is to help young scientist to better present their results.
Dear Emad Konozy , thanks for bringing that up for discussion. I absolutely agree with Frank T. Edelmann, but would also like to point out that paying reviewers will expose the process to bribes, as hinted at by B. Mohammed-Azizi
If we go further in this idea of remunerating reviewers, why not renumerate the authors whose articles are cited a lot, thus improving the impact factor and the prestige of this journal and contributing to its commercial aspect.
Dear Emad Konozy , thanks for bringing that up for discussion!
I consider that they are practices that should be discarded among University Researchers.
As long as there are others who are willing to do the same job for free, demanding a salary for your work as a reviewer will never happen. The question is that of "coordination" among the members of the scientific community to reach a unanimous decision on this matter.
They do not pay the reviewers and still they bleed the authours'.
There is an interesting formula for publications where everything is free and where articles are subject to review:
"PCI, a free recommendation process of scientific preprints based on peer reviews."
https://peercommunityin.org/#anchor_recommenders
Reviewers can always decline request for review else demand remuneration. Some journals provide free subscriptions for six months to the reviewers while some others offer waiver of publication charges.
Beyond bribes, if journals pay for reviewers, they may increase the publication fees, which will have impacts on the aouthors.
Nice question... obviously, they should pay some remuneration/honorarium to the reviewers, because all journals doing their business...
Definitely, they should pay some remuneration/honorarium to the reviewers
In the open access formula, the author pays increasingly expensive publication fees and services. In some journals, the prices charged are far higher than the real cost of the publication means and are therefore only justified by the lure of profit.
I just want to add that Elsevier journals have started a new model in the peer review process that rely on volunteers who will never ask for their rights, so even if reviewers will stand in the future for their rights and fight to get paid for their work, there will be others who just willingly will do the job for free. Publications houses like Elsevier have always been one step ahead of us.
This is really unfortunate
Publishing houses tend to maximize financial gains at the expense of freelance and selfless reviewers, which is tantamount to academic exploitation. Prolific and dutiful reviewers deserve some financial compensation and social accolades...
Good thought... certainly, they should pay the reviewers some compensation and benefits.
Quite right, dear dr.Seyi Festus. I agree with you completely.
Dear Emad Konozy . Because they want to collect more money and increase their profits.
Therefore, reviewers should not be too hard in their comments.
Report for
May 01, 2022
Report for
May 01, 2022
Increase your impact
3
Stats overview
+613
Reads
Show breakdown
+4
Citations
Show breakdown
+1,365
Recommendations
Show breakdown
+285.9
Research Interest
Show breakdown
A vital, and often overlooked, aspect of peer review is that in the current system, peer reviewers are normally not paid for their work. They are, instead, rewarded non-financially by means of acknowledgment in journals, positions on editorial boards, free journal access, discounts on author fees, etc.Sep 11, 2017
https://www.editage.com › insights
Is
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-open-access-science-journal-publishers-charge-a-lot-when-they-dont-even-pay-reviewers,kindly check this link.
https://www.editage.com/insights/is-paid-peer-review-a-good-idea,this link may be helpful.
If the pays fees to reviewers then the quality of reviewing and articles should eventually be decreased. Now journals, in general, request but are rejected by the many potential reviewers. When they will pay may not be disagreed for reviewing. It is better to keep reviewing as a voluntary service.
Strongly agreed. MDPI provide reviewers discount vouchers but these vouchers have many restrictions i.e. unable to transfer one time only voucher. The scientist community need to demand reviewers need to be paid. All are doing reviews currently only for a E certificate.
All of them are doing some reviews solely to enhance or build their CV resumes.
Now that everyone and every journal is making money, the world has shifted. Why is reviewer unable. The sum might be modest. No problem. This custom ought to be established.
If a journal is free, reviews can be done for that publication as well.
Need some minimum honororium for peer reviewer. It is ethically correct to pay some one who is deploying their time.
A vital, and often overlooked, aspect of peer review is that in the current system, peer reviewers are normally not paid for their work. They are, instead, rewarded non-financially by means of acknowledgment in journals, positions on editorial boards, free journal access, discounts on author fees, etc.
The prestige of reviewing does not cover the situation. Publishers are mostly predatory. But their prestige depends on the people they can get to review. I was once paid for my review by a free copy of the journal I reviewed for. ONCE. That would be better than nothing. One journal I published in gave me a few years free subscription. These little things would do more to enhance prestige of the publishers. But I will not review for Elsevier ever again.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Composition Studies
- Publication