Editorial/
Journal Paper Peer-Review: A Broken System? by Thomas Missimer∗
A few months ago a colleague working at a US federal agency asked me a pointed question: “Do professors at universities do any peer-reviews for journals anymore?” She serves as an associate editor for a scientific journal and has become increasingly frustrated with the many negative responses from academicians to her review requests. I really never considered the task of journal peerreview as a burden during my 35 years as a consultant when I was receiving only a few review requests per year. However, now being in academia for the past 4 years, I am receiving up to 15 review requests a month! Clearly, I cannot accept all those requests, but I do believe that it is my obligation as an academic to work within the peer-review system and accept and deliver, in a timely manner, a good number of quality reviews. I therefore review somewhere between 10 to 20 papers per year. Unfortunately, my colleagues do not always share this sense of service, particularly not the more senior researchers who are often the most-qualified reviewers. Serving as an Executive Editor for Groundwater, I have had to send out as many as 25 requests for review just to obtain three reviewers. In some cases I could recruit only two qualified reviewers and had to personally provide the third review. The two most common responses to my review requests are: (1) I am too busy or (2) no response at all. Also, many promised reviews are received late or not at all. The entire peer-review system appears to be in a state of crisis with a proliferation of new journals and a narrowing of the pool of qualified and willing reviewers. A considerable number of editorials have appeared in various journals questioning the process and how it is used (Rennie 1993; Smith 2006; The New Atlantis 2006). Most of these editorials have raised issues with the consistency of review, its definition, ethics, cost, and the speed of the process. However, few have addressed the issue of the inability to recruit qualified reviewers, which is leading to severe delays in the publishing process and perhaps ∗
Executive Editor © 2015, National Ground Water Association. doi: 10.1111/gwat.12333
NGWA.org
lessening the quality of the reviews. Some very highprofile water researchers have advised me that they will no longer provide reviews—please stop asking! So, how can this problem be resolved? As an Executive Editor, I have shifted away from inviting active (publishing) academicians and increased the recruitment of reviewers from the ranks of qualified consultants and retired academics, those who still have interest in the groundwater field. However, many complex papers require the review of researchers who specialize in the subject area of the manuscript and are current on the state of our science. Therefore, senior academic researchers must make themselves available for peer-review else the system will continue to decay. Two approaches could be used to encourage participation in the review process. Firstly, scholarly peer-review should play a more important role in the performance evaluation within the university system and become a more important part of its promotion criteria. Secondly, journal editors might approach authors who regularly submit papers for publication and stress the efforts made by volunteer reviewers on their behalf. It then becomes logical to ask them to reciprocate by accepting review assignments for the journal. It takes three reviewers to assess each manuscript submitted to Groundwater. Therefore, if an author would fully reciprocate these review efforts he or she should perform about three reviews for each paper they submit for publication. In practice, of course, a much more modest review effort would still go a long way to improve upon our peer-review system. A dwindling participation of academicians in the peer-review process will degrade its quality and could lead to their own papers being rejected due to unqualified reviews.
References Rennie, D. 1993. More peering into editorial peer review. Journal of the American Medical Association 270: 2856–2858. Smith, R. 2006. Peer review: A flawed process at the heart of science and journals. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 99, no. 4: 172–182. The New Atlantis. 2006. Rethinking peer review: How the internet is changing science journals. The New Atlantis Summer: 106–110.
Vol. 53, No. 3–Groundwater–May-June 2015
347
Journal Paper Peer-Review: A Broken System? by Thomas Missimer∗
A few months ago a colleague working at a US federal agency asked me a pointed question: “Do professors at universities do any peer-reviews for journals anymore?” She serves as an associate editor for a scientific journal and has become increasingly frustrated with the many negative responses from academicians to her review requests. I really never considered the task of journal peerreview as a burden during my 35 years as a consultant when I was receiving only a few review requests per year. However, now being in academia for the past 4 years, I am receiving up to 15 review requests a month! Clearly, I cannot accept all those requests, but I do believe that it is my obligation as an academic to work within the peer-review system and accept and deliver, in a timely manner, a good number of quality reviews. I therefore review somewhere between 10 to 20 papers per year. Unfortunately, my colleagues do not always share this sense of service, particularly not the more senior researchers who are often the most-qualified reviewers. Serving as an Executive Editor for Groundwater, I have had to send out as many as 25 requests for review just to obtain three reviewers. In some cases I could recruit only two qualified reviewers and had to personally provide the third review. The two most common responses to my review requests are: (1) I am too busy or (2) no response at all. Also, many promised reviews are received late or not at all. The entire peer-review system appears to be in a state of crisis with a proliferation of new journals and a narrowing of the pool of qualified and willing reviewers. A considerable number of editorials have appeared in various journals questioning the process and how it is used (Rennie 1993; Smith 2006; The New Atlantis 2006). Most of these editorials have raised issues with the consistency of review, its definition, ethics, cost, and the speed of the process. However, few have addressed the issue of the inability to recruit qualified reviewers, which is leading to severe delays in the publishing process and perhaps ∗
Executive Editor © 2015, National Ground Water Association. doi: 10.1111/gwat.12333
NGWA.org
lessening the quality of the reviews. Some very highprofile water researchers have advised me that they will no longer provide reviews—please stop asking! So, how can this problem be resolved? As an Executive Editor, I have shifted away from inviting active (publishing) academicians and increased the recruitment of reviewers from the ranks of qualified consultants and retired academics, those who still have interest in the groundwater field. However, many complex papers require the review of researchers who specialize in the subject area of the manuscript and are current on the state of our science. Therefore, senior academic researchers must make themselves available for peer-review else the system will continue to decay. Two approaches could be used to encourage participation in the review process. Firstly, scholarly peer-review should play a more important role in the performance evaluation within the university system and become a more important part of its promotion criteria. Secondly, journal editors might approach authors who regularly submit papers for publication and stress the efforts made by volunteer reviewers on their behalf. It then becomes logical to ask them to reciprocate by accepting review assignments for the journal. It takes three reviewers to assess each manuscript submitted to Groundwater. Therefore, if an author would fully reciprocate these review efforts he or she should perform about three reviews for each paper they submit for publication. In practice, of course, a much more modest review effort would still go a long way to improve upon our peer-review system. A dwindling participation of academicians in the peer-review process will degrade its quality and could lead to their own papers being rejected due to unqualified reviews.
References Rennie, D. 1993. More peering into editorial peer review. Journal of the American Medical Association 270: 2856–2858. Smith, R. 2006. Peer review: A flawed process at the heart of science and journals. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 99, no. 4: 172–182. The New Atlantis. 2006. Rethinking peer review: How the internet is changing science journals. The New Atlantis Summer: 106–110.
Vol. 53, No. 3–Groundwater–May-June 2015
347
