Publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has announced the trial of an enhanced system of peer review, which will allow for the transfer of reviewer comments between journals. Peer review is an integral part of scientific publishing and the new pilot is being trialled in selected neuroscience journals.
Across the publishing industry traditional peer review reportedly takes an average of 80 days per paper. Research articles submitted to Wiley journals are reviewed by at least two suitably qualified experts before an editor makes a decision to publish based on the reviews provided.
If a paper is rejected from the author's first choice journal the entire process is repeated upon resubmission, sometimes with the same reviewers. To make this process more efficient, Wiley has developed a system to preserve and transfer the initial peer review, enabling the review to travel with the article between journals on its route to publication.
This enhanced system of transferable peer review will be piloted amongst nine of Wiley's high impact neuroscience titles. The journals will use their usual review format, with the addition of a standard scorecard that will be used by all other participating journals. If, following a rejection, a manuscript is submitted to a second journal, the author will have the option to transfer the review and the paper's scorecard. Authors will have the opportunity to revise their manuscript according to review comments prior to transfer and resubmission.
The pilot will run for at least six months and results will be used to develop a robust process which can be expanded across Wiley's journal portfolio. Wiley journals that also participate in the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium will continue to participate in that program.
