How to Become an Open Peer Reviewer
Table of Contents
Open Peer Review
Becoming an open peer reviewer is a fulfilling and impactful way to engage with the research community and help authors refine their work. Reviewing manuscripts or preprints can help you develop your peer review skills, build your public profile, and gain recognition as an open peer reviewer, especially if you’re an early-career researcher (ECR).
Understanding Open Peer Review
Open peer review is considered a transformative approach to the traditional peer review process, characterized by its transparency. Open peer review promotes openness in several aspects:
How to Become an Open Peer Reviewer
To become proficient in open peer review, start by engaging with preprint platforms, journals and communities that embrace open peer review practices. Here’s how to get started:
Review Preprints
Begin by reviewing preprints on platforms like PREreview where you can provide feedback in a structured format. This will not only help you build your reviewing skills but also contribute to improving the quality of the study before it reaches formal publication.
Follow Guidelines
Familiarize yourself with the specific guidelines of the platform or journal you are reviewing for. Understanding the criteria for evaluation, the expected format of feedback, and the timeline for review will help you provide actionable reviews.
Participate in Training
Take advantage of online workshops, webinars and online or training courses that offer training in peer review. They cover key areas in open peer review from best practices to ethical considerations that can significantly enhance your reviewing capabilities.
Collaborate with Peers
Consider co-reviewing with more experienced reviewers and your colleagues. This can be a great way to learn and improve your reviewing skills.
Join Open Science and Peer Review Communities
Engage with communities like FORM, PREreview, Peer Community In, eLife, and ASAPbio. Joining these communities will provide support, resources, and opportunities to connect with active researchers and reviewers. Being part of such communities can also open doors to collaborative reviewing and learning from more experienced reviewers.
Issues and Challenges
Open peer review addresses several challenges inherent in the traditional peer review process:
Accountability
By revealing reviewer identities and making reports public, open peer review promotes accountability on the part of the reviewers.
Bias Reduction
While open identities can introduce some bias, the transparency of open reports allows the community to scrutinize and mitigate these biases.
Transparency and Access
Open peer review makes the review process visible, building trust in the review process.
Quality
Open reports can lead to more constructive and quality reviews, as reviewers know their feedback will be publicly accessible.
Incentivization
The public nature of open peer review give reviewers the opportunity to gain recognition for their work.
Innovative Review
Open peer review allows more stakeholders to participate in the review process through various innovative approaches.
Writing a Review: A Step-by-Step Guide
Writing an effective review involves several key steps:
More Resources
Learn more about pre-prints and their role in the open research ecosystem through these selected Open Access resources:
