Open Research Conversation: Rethinking Peer Review: An Exploration of Changing Peer Review Processes

Recording of the following session, part of the 'Open Research Conversations' seminar series at the University of Sheffield (organised by the University Library, Scholarly Communications Team):

Rethinking Peer Review: An Exploration of Changing Peer Review Processes

Thursday 10 November 2022, 12 noon to 1pm

Peer review is an integral part of the academic publishing landscape, but is not without its flaws as a mechanism of quality control.

This session, which features Stephen Pinfield (Information School and Research on Research Institute), explores different approaches to innovation around peer review that have been enabled by the changing landscape of academic publishing.

Abstract:

Peer review plays an essential role as one of the cornerstones of the scholarly publishing system. There are many initiatives that aim to improve the way in which peer review is organised, resulting in a highly complex landscape of innovation in peer review. Different initiatives are based on different views on the most urgent challenges faced by the peer review system, leading to a diversity of perspectives on how the system can be improved. This sessions will present a study designed to provide a more systematic understanding of the landscape of innovation in peer review, which suggests that the landscape is shaped by four schools of thought: the Quality & Reproducibility school, the Democracy & Transparency school, the Equity & Inclusion school, and the Efficiency & Incentives school. Each school has a different view on the key problems of the peer review system and the innovations necessary to address these problems. The schools partly complement each other, but there are also important tensions between them. This analysis of the four schools of thought is designed to offer a useful framework to facilitate conversations about the future development of the peer review system.