1. Maria Kowalczuk, PhD
Deputy Biology Editor, BioMed Central
Innovation in Peer Review
http://www.meta-activism.org/2011/05/fixing-peer-review-freeing-knowledge-creation/

2. Traditional peer review
• Peer review in the current form has been used
since 1960s.
• Traditionally scientific journals use single blind
peer review or double blind peer review models.
• Online publishing and open access have changed
the publishing landscape while peer review
process has remained the same.

3. Pitfalls of traditional
peer review
• Slow
• Expensive to manage
• Inconsistent
• Bias
• Favouritism
• Abuse
http://www.eusci.org.uk/articles/exploring-scientific-peer-review

4. Innovative peer review models
• Open peer review
• Minimal re-review
• Portable peer review
• Technical peer review
• Decoupled peer review
• Post publication peer review
http://www.bishop-
hill.net/blog/2011/3/20/peer-review-not-for-
the-short-sighted-josh-87.html

5. Open (non-anonymous) peer review
Randomised Controlled Trial (BMJ 1999; 318: 23 – 27):
- no effect on report quality, recommendation, or time taken to review
- increased likelihood of reviewers declining to review

10. Biology Direct PubMed record

11. Publishing peer review documents
- In all 4 EMBO publications, including EMBO J, EMBO Reports
-‘Peer Review Process File’ shows all referee reports , author responses and editorial
decision letters
- Referees remain anonymous; opt-out is possible
- 95% of take-up rate; willingness of referees to review unchanged

12. Authors can opt out of re-review; if the editors judge the revisions sufficient,
the article is published, often accompanied by a critical Commentary.
Discussed in Editorial: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/11/18.
Re-review opt-out – BMC Biology

14. Portable peer review
Flagships
Subject-specific
journals
BMC Research Notes
BMC series
BMC Neuroscience
BMC Public Health
BMC Independent
Journals

15. Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium

17. Technical peer review

23. Post publication peer review via comments
• PubMed Commons
• PubPeer.com
• Research Gate
• Frontiers
• BioMed Central and other publishers

24. Conclusions
 Peer review is under scrutiny
 Developments in peer review include:
 Open peer review
 Minimizing re-review
 Portable peer review
 Technical peer review
 Peer review decoupled from journal
 Post publication peer review

25. Thank you!
Maria Kowalczuk, PhD
Deputy Biology Editor, BioMed Central
Maria.Kowalczuk@biomedcentral.com
Any questions?