There are a lot of things to love about PeerJ, which of course is why we sent our neck-anatomy paper there. I’ll discuss another time how its pricing scheme changes everything for Gold OA in the sciences, and maybe another time write about how well its papers display on mobile devices, or about the quick turnaround or 21st-century graphical design of the PDFs.

But among the most interesting things about PeerJ is its use of open peer review: reviewers are encouraged (though not required) to disclose their identity, and authors are encouraged (but also not required) to make the review history publicly available along with the final papers.

Uptake of open peer-review

Uptake of this option on the initial batch of 30 papers has been OK: 12 papers (40%) have had reviews posted:

(Articles 4, 18, 20, 23, 24, 32 and 35 do not exist — presumably they didn’t make it through review, typesetting and proofing in time for the launch. Or maybe they were rejected after having been assigned numbers.)

It’s interesting to see that most of the earliest papers did elect to publish reviews, but few of the later ones. This may reflect that the “early adopters” — the people who were quickest to get their submissions in after PeerJ opened its doors — also tend to be the more open-oriented people in other respects. It would be great if the authors of some of those other 18 papers were to make their reviews open, too: I’m sure it’s not too late.

What’s the value of open peer-review?

First, it improves transparency. In standard peer-review, three people (and editor and two reviewers) make a decision on behalf of the entire community, and no-one else can see what was done or why. In our case, John Hutchinson was our handling editor. We’ve often said on this blog how much we like and respect him, and it would be easy for someone on the outside to suspect that he’d been tempted to give us an easy ride. Anyone who reads the review history can see for themselves that he didn’t.

Second, it gives credit where it’s due. Reviewers who do a good job often plough in many hours of time that they could be spending on their own work, and it’s right that they should be recognised. In this case, Heinrich Mallison did a careful line-by-line critique of the whole 50-page manuscript and sent up a marked-up copy which was invaluable in making revisions. That sort of work should be acknowledged. [At the moment, that marked-up manuscript is not on the PeerJ review-history page. I’ve been told they’re going to fix that.]

Third, it gives blame where it’s due. Some reviewers who are excessively critical, or criticise in a non-constructive way that can’t be addressed in a revision; others are positive about the manuscript but make no real contribution to improve it. It’s right that reviewers who don’t do their job properly should be called out on that. (Of course anonymity can go some way towards shielding bad reviewers, but even then it’s often quite obvious who’s responsible for a given review.)

Fourth, it encourages good behaviour from reviewers. When they know their good work will receive credit and their bad work will reflect on them, they will have more incentive to do their best. Too often, reviews are seen as a tax on researchers’ time. Making them visible helps to bring them into the mainstream.

Fifth, it avoids wasted effort. Sometimes a review is a serious piece of work in its own right — Matt tells me that for one manuscript we was refereeing, he wrote a detailed critical review that was longer than the  manuscript itself. Of course, no-one ever saw that work but the original author and his handling editor, which is a terrible waste. Publishing reviews fixes that.

Sixth, and this is crucial, open peer-review is a fantastic teaching tool. Matt has already explained how showing his Western students real reviews in a real process is going to help them much more than made up ones.

What are the drawbacks of open peer-review?

Search me. I sure as heck can’t think of any.

Changing peer-review culture

PeerJ didn’t invent open peer-review — far from it. It’s been around for a while, practiced by some BMC journals and also adopted more recently by eLIFE — another of the new breed of born-digital open-access journals. Another new publishing initiative, F1000 Research, is built entirely on the concept of open review.

The importance of PeerJ doing the same is that it helps to bring open peer-review into the mainstream. PeerJ’s going to be a big journal — its explicit goal is to be a PLOS ONE-scale megajournal. One of the many things it can achieve is to help shift the default reviewing culture to open.