The process of peer review is a cornerstone of scientific integrity. It guarantees the quality in a scientific research paper. When a researcher accomplishes something, the concluding step is to publish the results in the scientific literature. To get there, the paper must undergo peer review. The Scholarly Kitchen brought this information to us in their article, “Whither Portable Peer Review?”
The peer review process is the best way known to scientists to advance their professional disciplines. Without the checks and balances of such a process, the scientific literature would end up just another news outlet.
What about portable peer review, a model in which peer review is conducted outside the auspices of the journal? Portable peer review has had working models since 2012. Taken together, the number of manuscripts flowing through these services is tiny compared to the traditional model of managing peer review in-house. It does give authors the freedom of managing or porting their reviews but does it come at the expense of gathering good data?
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
