Peer Review of Manuscripts: A Valuable yet Neglected Educational Tool for Early-Career Researchers

Robert Mcnair,Hai Anh Le Phuong,Gyorgy Szekely,Levente Cseri

doi:10.1155/2019/1359362

Abstract

With the number of publications being all-time high, academic peer review is imperative to ensure high-quality research content. The wider involvement of postgraduate, early-career researchers (ECRs) has been proposed on several platforms to address the unsustainability of the peer review process caused by a lack of peer reviewers. A survey involving 1203 academics and ECRs in ten countries revealed their attitudes towards the involvement of ECRs in the peer review process. The trends and motives were identified, with emphasis on the peer review being an oft-neglected tool in the skill development of ECRs. In light of the survey results, the transferrable skills that ECRs acquire from performing peer reviews at a crucial stage in their career development are systematically explored. The findings call for further engagement of ECRs in the peer review process under supervisory mentoring.

Highlights

Peer review can be defined as a process where a person reads, checks, and gives their opinion about a piece of work that was written by another scientist or expert working in their same subject area
Current Attitudes towards the Involvement of EarlyCareer Researchers in Peer Review. e surveys revealed that the average number of peer review invitations accepted per month ranged from 2.7 (Germany) to 4.9 (China and Hong Kong), with a mean value of 3.5 accepted reviews per month across all of the surveyed countries (Figure 3). e percentage of academics who were assisted in their peer reviews by early-career researchers (ECRs) ranged from 27% (China and Hong Kong) to 67% (UK)
Similar results were obtained from the student survey; 42% of all ECRs had never been invited to peer review manuscripts (Figure S8). ese initial findings suggest significant room for growth in the involvement of ECRs in the peer review process

Summary

Introduction

Peer review can be defined as a process where a person reads, checks, and gives their opinion about a piece of work that was written by another scientist or expert working in their same subject area. Two types of peer review can be distinguished: “in-class peer review” for undergraduate students and “academic peer review” for research scholars. During the in-class peer review, undergraduate students read articles written by fellow classmates and give feedback on their work as part of the taught aspects of the curricula. Academic peer review (hereafter “peer review”), on the contrary, is a more complex process. Ese reviewers play an understated yet crucial role in the process, utilising their expertise to constructively critique a piece of work for the benefit of the wider scientific community The scientific publication process consists of three main participants: the authors submitting a manuscript describing their research, the editors determining whether the manuscript will be sent out for the peer review and eventually accepted for publication, and the peer reviewers performing evaluations, which enable the editor to make a better informed decision about the suitability of the manuscript for publication. ese reviewers play an understated yet crucial role in the process, utilising their expertise to constructively critique a piece of work for the benefit of the wider scientific community

Methods

Results

Conclusion