Peer Review Week 2019 kicks off today!

Peer Review Week 2019 kicks off today with a host of events ranging from webinars, awards to social media “Ask me Anythings”. The annual awareness week is driven by over 29 organisations across the globe, and this years’ focus is on quality in peer review.

EASE Vice-President Duncan Nicholas has been heavily involved in curating the YouTube channel, as a resource for the scholarly community which focuses on the quality of peer review, including why quality matters, top tips for becoming a better reviewer, and an editors’ view of good peer review.




Events scheduled across the week include, but are not limited to:

Monday 16th September Celebrating Peer Review Week with ORCID (webinar)
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7542821691248697613
1030 to 1130EST/1630 to 1730CEST/ 1430 to 1530UTC
Free webinar featuring speakers from Clarivate Analytics (Publons), F1000, and PLOS. You’ll hear about how they are using peer review workflows, you'll also learn about how and why to use ORCID to help your own researchers get the recognition they deserve for their peer review activities and service.

Tuesday 17th SeptemberQuality in Peer Review: Digging Deeper (webinar)https://www.editage.com/insights/quality-in-peer-review-digging-deeper
1000 to 1100EST/ 1600 to 1700CEST/1400 to 1500UTC
Duncan Nicholas, Vice-President of the European Association of Science Editors, will talk to you about how “quality” manifests in all aspects of peer review and will address several important questions such as: Is peer review working? How can you define quality peer review and what does it look like? What are different stakeholders doing to make peer review better?

Wednesday 18th SeptemberPeer Review Week AMA Part 1: Integrity and Controversies (Reddit ama)
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/
0900 to 1000EST/1500 to 1600CEST/ 1300 to 1400UTC
James Heathers will be on hand to answer your questions about error detection, peer review, and general academic integrity/naughtiness. If you ever wanted to ask a related anonymous question, this would be a good venue.

Being a reviewee of Editor for Registered reports (webinar)
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hzatahctSOuyj5Gj967cCg
1000 to 1100EST/ 1600 to 1700CEST/14:00 to 15:00UTC
Experienced Registered Reports editors and reviewers discuss the format and best practices for handling submissions.

Engaging & Mentoring Reviewers to Support Quality Peer Review (webinar)https://www.ismte.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1270436&group=
1200 to 1300EST/1800 to 1900CEST/ 1600 to 1700UTC
Three speakers will discuss their experiences with establishing training and mentorship programs for new reviewers at their journals. Free for ISMTE members ($75 for non-members).

Friday 20th September
ReimagineReview community call: Revealing quality in peer review through increased transparency (webinar)https://asapbio.org/revealing-quality
1200 EST/ 1800CEST/ 1600UTC
How can those without a direct window into the peer review process be assured of its quality, both the entire body of peer review that a journal or project organises, and more specifically the reviews covering an individual article? Hear from Imperial College, MIT Press, Elsevier, The Graz University of Technology and editors from Cell Systems to find out how they demystify the process.


In addition, members are organising additional campaigns and activities:

Elsevier have developed a free online course which has been specifically designed to give those who have not yet reviewed – or who feel they would like additional training in this area – the skills and confidence to accept a request to review.

Publons, part of the Web of Science Group will release their Global Peer Review Awards, the only cross-publisher awards that celebrate the efforts of peer reviewers worldwide.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on our Twitter channel @PeerRevWeek to follow the conversations and engage in our online community chats where you can ask industry experts anything! You can also follow the wider conversation at #PeerRevWk19 and #QualityinPeerReview and check out the videos on our YouTube channel.

Speaking ahead of Peer Review Week 2019, Alice Meadows one of the founding members remarked:

“Peer review is here to stay. Despite all the headlines about peer review being broken, our community remains deeply committed to maintaining it as a central tenet of scholarly communications. Peer Review Week, now in its fifth year, has become an integral part of our community helping us to shine a spotlight on issues of debate, and pull the wider community together to talk about and share these challenges and ideas. I’m confident that together we will find ways to continue making those improvements and individually. As a committee, we are very much looking forward to being a part of the debates this year and supporting wider industry engagement and transparency on an integral part of peer review – quality – how to improve it, what quality means to you and what quality means in terms of process.”

As 2019 kicks off we are also looking forward to 2020 - what burning topics do you want discussed? What matters to you in Peer Review? Let us know either by tweeting us at @PeerRevWeek or emailing the event committee at peerreviewweek@outlook.com.