True Benefits of Peer Review

Abstract

Swedish libraries have established a national publishing collaboration thanks to excellent university collaboration. One outcome of the higher education collaboration is that most universities in Sweden are connected to the same digital publication repository for research publications. Now innovative quality control of Open Access monographs is on our shared national agenda. The opportunities to connect appropriate researchers for reviewing manuscripts are promising.As a continuation of the final report of the project, A National Consortium for Open Academic Books in Sweden, and the ongoing European collaboration Going for Gold, Stockholm University Press (SUP), is now focusing on an efficient exchange of reviewers. Together Swedish universities are now addressing the quality control question. One of the biggest challenges we see is the recognition of merit for those involved. The poster presents how Stockholm University Press editorial boards are creating a badging system to attract high quality reviewers with the True Benefits of Peer Review. The poster visualizes (for funders) each and everyone’s contribution to knowledge production and thus to scholarly communication as a whole. The system is being implemented today in collaboration with Ubiquity Press in the United Kingdom. When asked, younger reviewers tend to show stronger interest in the model than their more experienced colleagues. The feedback in general is characterized by positive curiosity by both new and senior faculty, which we intend to nurture and cultivate.Important issues on a national level in Sweden and perhaps also at American libraries include what is the value of reviewing scholarship, what will a badge visualize for an article reviewer versus a monograph reviewer, and how do citations and web metrics affect the badge credits? These issues are currently the biggest challenges and bring up the need for and importance of international quality and format standards.Possibilities with the peer review model and standards for recognition will be addressed and discussed in a series of forums and networks on a national level in May 2014. Incentives to succeeding with the peer review model mainly come from the belief that transparency increases the quality of reviews. Those reviewers who contribute to higher quality in all parts of scholarly communication should be recognized by a sustainable and widely embraced rewarding system.We hope to gain American perspectives on this peer review model and at the same time strengthen the collaboration between American and European university libraries.