Signature March/April 2015 - 28


TABLE 1

RECOGNITION INITIATIVES TO
ENCOURAGE REVIEWERS TO ACCEPT
INVITATIONS TO PEER REVIEW
Acknowledgements
n■ Acknowledgement in the journal
n■ Acknowledgement on the journal's website
n■ A personal thank-you note from the editor
n■ Name being published alongside the paper as one of the reviewers
n■ Signed report being publicized with the paper
Accreditations
A certificate from the journal to acknowledge review effort
n■ Credit automatically awarded on a third-party site
n■ CME Accreditation/CPD points
n■

Rewards
n■ Personal access to journal content
n■ Discount/waiver on open-access fees
n■ Access to papers reviewed, if accepted and published
n■ Discount/waiver on color or other publication charges
n■ Cash payment by the journal
n■ Reviewer web badges to include on reviewer's LinkedIn site, online
resume, etc.
n■ Book discount
n■ Payment in-kind by the journal
n■ Payment or credits by independent/portable peer review services
Performance-based rewards
n■ Reviewer of the Year awards from the journal
n■ Top Reviewer badges for reviewer's LinkedIn site, online resume, etc.
Feedback
n■ Feedback from the journal on the usefulness/quality of the review
n■ Information from the journal on the decision outcome of the paper
reviewed
n■ Visibility of other reviewers comments/reviewer reports
n■ Metrics related to the reviewer's review history
n■ Post-publication metrics related to articles
reviewed by the reviewer

or by vendors such as DataSalon or SalesForce - may offer opportunities to more
easily identify potential reviewers.
Formal recognition from research assessment bodies of review activity as a
measurable research output - facilitated by a taxonomy of contributor roles,
such as project CreDit (http://casrai.org/
CRediT), and unique identifiers for reviewers, such as ORCID (http://orcid.
org/) - could help alleviate some of the
time-allocation issues. Reviewing would
be seen as part of researchers' activity
rather than an additional commitment.
With specific reference to Chinese reviewers, further research is needed to
assess the extent to which the imbalance is
due to any or all of the following factors:
a lack of recognition for reviewing activity, which may be causing fewer Chinese
researchers to undertake reviews; a skills
deficit, which may mean that Chinese
reviewers are less confident at reviewing
for international journals; a possible reluctance of international journal editors
to use Chinese reviewers (due to either
real or perceived skills gap); and/or difficulties in identifying potential reviewers
from China.
The survey findings suggested that
journal rank plays an important role in
the decision of researchers to accept a
review invitation. This could imply a
tiered reviewer market, where researchers are more willing to review for higher-impact journals. If this is indeed the
case, lower-ranking journals may need to
work harder or employ different tactics to
attract and motivate reviewers, perhaps
through reviewer mentoring or reward.

Industry-wide
agreement on core
competencies may
facilitate the reward
and recognition of
reviewers.
28

MARCH/APRIL 2016

signature
http://www.casrai.org/CRediT http://www.casrai.org/CRediT http://orcid.org/ http://orcid.org/
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Signature March/April 2015
