Independent Peer Review & Journal Matching

ISMTE North America Conference

August 2012

Keith Collier

Research

Square

Manuscript Services for International

Researchers

• English Language Editing

• Translation

• Content Review (Pre Peer Review)

• Journal Recommendation

• Manuscript & Image Formatting

Independent Peer Review & Journal

Matching for All Researchers

For Benefit Company

What is the problem?

1.5 million scholarly articles published annually in 25,000 journals

Traditional Journal: Inefficient process for matching papers to journals

(Journal Loops)

Mega OA Journal: No indication of initial quality/reception indicator of an article

(The Big Heap)

“I need to find the highest impact journal fit

as soon as possible”

Author

I want to be

published here

But I know this paper

will likely be accepted

in this range

Researcher Pain

• It takes too long to get

published

• Every journal has its own

guidelines and review

processes

• System is opaque

• Frequent requests to

review but little incentive to

accept or review quickly

• Redundancies

Journal Challenges

Brand Names

Mid-Tier

The Rest

(New/Regional/Niche)

• Too Many Submissions

• Reviewer Fatigue

• Costly Administration Processes

• Lengthy time to decision due to volume

• Competing for best authors/papers

• Time to first decision

• Dealing with mega-OA journals as competition

• Finding Reviewers

• Need to promote the journals existence

• Getting found by authors – they need

submissions to exist

• Establishing a reputation

Connecting in a Smarter Way

Authors(submit)

Journals(alerts)

Double-Blinded Not Blinded

Reviewers(claim)

Supplements Journal Peer ReviewTraditional Peer Review

Independent Peer Review & Journal Match

Pre-Submission to Journal

Journal Process

Authors(submit)

Journals(alerts)

Reviewers(claim)

• Expect Journals to continue to perform peer review

• No charge to journals or publishers

STEPS

1. Journals setup preferences in Rubriq to receive alerts

2. Receive alerts and scan matched papers

3. Access full reviews and reviewer information

4. Connect with authors to indicate interest

One Week

The Process

Step 1Classification &

Manuscript Report

Review paper for ethical issues,

plagiarism check, conflict of interest,

disclosure statements, etc.

Step 2Reviewer Report

(R-score)

3 ReviewersScored against the standardized rubric

(R-score)

Step 3Journal

Recommendations

Recommend journals based on R-score,

manuscript profile, Rubriq journal

database, and journal preferences

Step 4(Optional)

Journal Matching

Authors can make their R-score reports

searchable by journals (alerts)

One Week

Author Submits

ReviewersClaim

Rubriq Team

Automated Journal & Authors

The Rubriq Scorecard Vision

By creating a standardized scoring instrument for

peer review, we propose to streamline the review

and publication process for the benefit of authors,

journal editors and reviewers while maintaining

the highest standards of quality

Overall Improvements

• Speeds up the entire publishing cycle

• Massive reduction of time, cost and energy to

perform scientific validation

• Provides a standard approach to peer review

that can be studied and improved over time

• Provides as high (if not higher) quality of review

than currently used by journals

What’s Next

• Community Feedback and Discussion

• Finalization of Scorecard and Weighting

Algorithm

– Next test group: Editors-in-Chief

• Formation of Cross-Industry Advisory Group

– Researchers, Managing Editors, Publishers

• Website Launch in September

TIME & COST OF PEER REVIEW

6 hrs

68 hrs

$3 to 4.5BThe annual costs of the time spent by editors and

reviewers of scholarly journal articles globally 1

221 days

1 Research Information Network. Activities, costs, and funding flows in the scholarly communications system (2008). Retrieved March 22, 2012, from http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/activities-costs-and-funding-flows-scholarly-commu

2 Kravitz DJ and Baker CI (2011) Toward a new model of scientific publishing: discussion and a proposal. Front. Comput. Neurosci. 5:55. doi: 10.3389/fncom.2011.00055

Average time between first submission and acceptance,

including revisions (range 31-533 days) 2

Average time each reviewer spends reviewing a paper 2

Estimated time spend by authors on average on revisions

and resubmissions based on journal feedback during peer

review 2

PERCEPTIONS OF PEER REVIEW

69%of authors reported that on their most recent published paper,

it took up to 6 months for the paper to be accepted 1

69%of researchers thought that peer review was not transparent,

there wasn’t a standard, and they didn’t know what was

expected of them 1

69%of researchers are satisfied with the current system of peer

review 1

76% favor the double blind system of peer review 1

1 Sense about Science Peer Review Survey. (2009). Retrieved March 22, 2012, from http://www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/Peer_Review/Peer_Review_Survey_Final_3.pdf