A publisher’s view: three years later

Authors: Lucy Threadgold and Scheherazade Khan

With Peer Review Week upon us once again, we embrace the chance to look more closely at what peer review looks like at Emerald Publishing.

On the surface, it looks quite similar to that of many other companies. Peer review is performed in one of our two submission systems, ReView or ScholarOne, and most of our journals follow a double-anonymous peer review process.

If we look a little closer though, we can see that the systems have been fined tuned to improve the author, reviewer, and editor experiences. We began by trying to improve the feedback  provided to authors so that they knew exactly what to work on and how to develop their work. Resultantly, we developed customisable reviewer scorecards that allow reviewers to provide subject-specific feedback to authors. With clearer and consistent feedback, authors are better able to develop their work for a quicker decision on their manuscript. In addition, we have been engagaging more directly with our reviewers and editors to hear from them on what they like or dislike about our systems, and what they would like to see changed. To achieve this, we ran a series of focus groups to hear thoughts on the reviewer experience, reviewer recognition, and the reality of peer review in various parts of the world.

We also continue to work closely with our journal editors on ensuring the usability and efficacy of the reviewer pools for their journals. To reduce the number of time it takes the editorial team to find a suitable reviewer and for the authors to receive feedback in a timely manner, Emerald’s Peer Review Editor team have been meticulously going through and updating the reviewer pools of all Emerald journals to ensure that they are relevant and aligned to the current research environment and the journal’s aims and scopes.

This means that all authors who submit to an Emerald journal and are set to be peer reviewed, are guaranteed a review from a current expert in the field. Moreover, for reviewers, this ensures that their time is not occupied responding to review requests for journals they were active in a decade.

As part of reinvigorating journals’ reviewer pools, Emerald’s Peer Review Editor team are providing more insights than ever to editors on their reviewer pools. With this comes more opportunity to recognise reviewers who are standing out and reward them for their time and expertise.

Lastly, we recognise that a researcher’s time is precious. As such, we embrace actions taken by others to help the publishing industry flourish and that includes highlighting the tools created by other companies that make the author, reviewer, and editor experience better. For example, we encourage our users to take advantage of Clarivate’s new Web of Science login tool, as it allows for users to login to all their ScholarOne accounts with a single login. Goodbye 45 different passwords, hello easy reviewing!

So, what is next for peer review at Emerald Publishing?

In the spirit of this year’s Peer Review Week, Innovation and Technology, three years ago, Emerald asked the question of what benefits there are of having more identities in the peer review process. Moreover, we queried how we, as a publisher, could encourage more identities to be represented in the peer review process.

The article highlights the importance of increasing diversity in peer review processes, emphasizing that diverse editorial boards and reviewers improve the quality and inclusiveness of published research. It suggests strategies like open peer review, format-free submissions, and mentorship for early-career researchers to reduce barriers and promote inclusion. Additionally, it discusses ways to incentivize reviewers and address discrimination, while ensuring accessibility for all stakeholders in the publication process.

What we have come to realise is that the peer review experience and identity that we questioned three years ago, depends on the innovation we have been thinking about since. Some of those innovations include a series of pilots across certain subject collections that revolve around research and reviewer communities. Emerald wants to provide a welcoming, educational, and supportive environment to reviewers, from mentoring first-time reviewers to recognition for each journal’s active and expert reviewers. You can hear from one of our Emerald Reviewers of the Year.

However, we have also continued to look at questions from previous Peer Review Weeks. Indeed, when we have previously spoken about support for reviewers, we do not just mean system support or mentoring. Rather, we also mean supporting and championing a diverse reviewer base. We are currently researching and planning how to make peer review more accessible to neurodiverse researchers, as well as those from different regions or reviewers whose first language is not English.

There is still so much that we as a company need to and want to accomplish for the reviewer community. From our team of Peer Review Editors to all the editors who work with us to improve the reviewer industry, we are all invested in progress and a chance to make academic publishing less daunting for all.
 

This blog is a follow on from ‘A publishers view’ written in 2021.