Publons - the scholarly peer review platform - has launched Publons Reviewer Connect, a reviewer search and matchmaking tool to enable journal editors to confidently and reliably find, screen, and connect with reviewers. The AI-powered technology combines Publons' cross-publisher peer review platform of more than 400k reviewers with Web of Science - the world’s largest curated author and citation database to deliver a high number of precise recommendations from more than seven million authors.
Participation in peer review is a cornerstone of science and academic research; it plays a critical role in ensuring the accuracy, quality, and credibility of research papers. Refereeing can be both a heavy responsibility and an honour; members of the scholarly research community willingly take part without remuneration. As such, the entire peer-review system depends on the goodwill and availability of suitable referees.
Using Publons Reviewer Connect journal editors will be able to source expert, motivated reviewers with relevant expertise and experience. It can also provide editors with a view as to whether a candidate is available to review via a unique 'availability tool.' This means reviewers will have more control over when they receive peer review invitations and subsequently editors will have more confidence in reviewers' cross-publisher availability to participate.
The 2018 Publons' Global Reviewer Survey showed that editors often struggle to find the right candidates to participate in peer review - 71% of respondents stated that the most common reason they decline peer review invitations is because they are invited to review papers outside of their area of expertise. This is not surprising, given that Publons' 2016 Editor Survey, demonstrated that finding and recruiting peer reviewers was the most challenging part of the job for 75% of journal editors.
Publons Reviewer Connect will provide precise reviewer suggestions to journal editors to deliver comprehensive, accurate, and suitable information, to approach the right reviewers; dramatically improve productivity, save time and costs. As a result, reviewers will receive invitations to review more of the papers they care about and fewer invitations to review papers ill-suited to their expertise. Publons unique ability to work across publishers and understand reviewer workloads globally, has resulted in a tool that will speed up publisher workflows and reduce inefficiencies, ultimately accelerating the pace of research.
Publons reviewer connect is available as a standalone web interface on Publons.com and via an API immediately. Further integrations to deliver reviewer suggestions into existing workflows will be available later this year.
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