Reviewers

The Evolution of Peer Review and the Role of Editors: Thoughts from Nature Communications’ Editor in Chief

Peer Review

To help us understand more about peer review, the role that editors play, and how accountability and transparency promote ethics and integrity in the process, we invited Nature Communications’ Editor in Chief, Elisa De Ranieri, to share her thoughts with us. How has the peer review process evolved over time? Peer review as the main vehicle for assessing the integrity of research output is a less established practice than commonly thought – for example, it was only in the 1970’s that it became the norm at Nature. In any case, it is now a cornerstone of scientific publishing and as … Read more…

What Partnering With Publons Will Mean for Peer Review at Springer Nature

The burden on the peer review community is increasing as the volume of published research articles grows. To help address this, Springer Nature and Publons, part of Clarivate Analytics, have announced a partnership to improve the peer review process and enable peer reviewers to receive recognition for their contribution. Find out more from Alison Mitchell, Managing Director, Journals, Springer Nature.  1. What are the benefits to researchers from this new partnership? Finding reviewers is one of the slowest parts of the publication workflow and this is reflected in authors’ satisfaction over journals’ time to publish their work – the Publons partnership … Read more…

The Best Researcher Resource Posts of 2018

As the year comes to a close, we’re taking a look back at some of the most popular posts this year. If you haven’t read them yet be sure to check them out before taking a bit of time to recharge. We’ll be back in 2019 to help you embark on another successful year with informative content for every researcher, author, reviewer, and/or editor.The Best Researcher Resource Posts of 2018

… Read more…

The Springer Nature Review Experience

Peer review is a necessary and sometimes time-consuming job that is essential to the research process. As a peer reviewer, you take time away from your own research, daily workload, and personal life to provide feedback on papers written by your peers. At Springer Nature we are constantly working towards creating a better review process, and the best way to do that is to hear what our authors think about the review process we offer. Read on below for insights from our author satisfaction survey on peer review, including some of the many insightful comments we receive from authors. View … Read more…

Researching Peer Review with Springer Nature

We’re sharing articles from research published in Springer Nature journals that explore the topic of peer review. Read articles below for free thanks to the SharedIt links provided. In this two part paper from the Journal of Digital Imaging, Bruce I. Reiner examines how to redefine the practice of peer review through intelligent automation. If properly implemented, this peer review model could result in creation of a standardized referenceable peer review database which could further assist in customizable education, technology refinement, and implementation of real-time context and user-specific decision support. Read more from: Redefining the Practice of Peer Review Through … Read more…

How Publishers Can Help Drive Diversity & Inclusion in Peer Review

If journal editors often rely on their own networks of contacts to recruit peer reviewers, then could diversity in editorial boards help improve diversity and inclusion in peer reviewers? As the pool of researchers becomes more diverse (in all dimensions, including in race, gender, geography, culture), there is a pressing need for a more varied pool of peers to review their work. Journal editors and editorial board members often begin their search for reviewers from their own contacts—their own personal networks. Following from this—could increasing diversity in editors and editorial boards help drive diversity in peer review? How can a … Read more…

Service Spotlight: In Review

In Review is a new way to open up the submissions and peer review process. Learn more about this new service, which will allow you more insight than ever before into your manuscript’s editorial progress. Amye Kenall, Global Head of Life Sciences, Open Research at Springer Nature shares more. What exactly is In Review? Powered by Research Square, In Review offers authors a personal dashboard to easily track the status of their manuscript, and the opportunity to share it with the wider community earlier in the submission and peer review process. Who can utilize In Review? In the first instance, … Read more…

Patient peer review in academic journals: Next steps in the journey

By: Ella Flemyng, Journal Development Manager of BMC For science to be truly open, research must go beyond simply being available to all, and actively engage the patients and the public who both fund and benefit from it. In this blog marking Peer Review Week, Ella Flemyng, Journal Development Manager for BMC’s applied-methodology journals, tells us about the novel structure of the co-produced Research Involvement and Engagement, highlighting recent developments for patient peer review and discussing what the future might hold for patient involvement in academic journals. Open science is one of the most important driving forces helping to develop … Read more…

What’s Next for Impact Factors?

 By: Steven Inchcoombe, Chief Publishing Officer at Springer Nature The announcement of the latest Journal Impact Factors has prompted the expected heated discussion around their value, importance and relevance to authors, funders and the rest of academia. Despite all of these challenges and reservations, the Impact Factor is still noted by authors as one of the top elements they take into account when deciding which journal to submit their work to, and this got me thinking about the criticism publishers face for referring to Impact Factors when talking about the performance of their journals and making comparisons. I recently had … Read more…

2017’s Source Highlights

Thank you for being a reader in 2017! As we embark on a new year we’re excited to bring more engaging content and a fresh look that represents our Springer Nature family of brands. Before we kick off the new year, we’re sharing the must-read posts of the year based on our readers that you should be sure to check out if you’ve missed them. The most read post this year was Researching September’s News With SharedIt, featuring a round-up of the month’s top headlines paired with research articles that provide more information on the topic. Thanks to SharedIt all … Read more…