Peer review and its contribution to manuscript quality: an Australian perspective

Abstract

Journal reviewers' understanding and expectations of peer review, their incentives to take on the task, and the reasons why they sometimes declined were explored through a questionnaire survey, with particular attention to potential differences between education, physics, and chemistry. Eighty-four senior researchers from 27 Australian universities, who had served as reviewers in education, physics, and chemistry, returned a completed questionnaire. There were significant variations in reviewers' expectations and understanding of reviewing, mostly related to seniority rather than discipline. They valued peer review as a way of maintaining the quality of science publications, and were generally satisfied with the current system; their impression of peer review's effectiveness was significantly correlated with their own experience. They saw reviewing as a professional obligation and part of their personal professional development. The most frequently mentioned reasons for declining to review were lack of expertise and lack of time.

The Problems and Solutions of Archaized Architectures in Chengdu Tourist Areas

“…But now, all for business lead to an empty street at night. The solutions: the plans and layout of new antique building should combine with environment, site, regional characteristics,city image, building style and features and cultural spirits to the "Unity of Man and Nature" [9]. Function of archaized architecture and and courtyard should be respected.…”

Aggregating post-publication peer reviews and ratings

“…It is also possible that in many cases reviewers for papers currently submitted for publication receive and accept for review papers that are not in their core field of research, hence the possible need for an extra documentation requiring reading some of the publications cited in the reviewed paper. As already mentioned above, the lack of expertise in the paper's domain is an often mentioned reason for refusing a review (Lu, 2008 ; Sense About Science, 2009 ), which means that receiving for review papers that are not in the reviewer's core field of research is common. In the case of reviews of papers that scientists read anyhow, these papers are guaranteed to be from their core field, and thus, reading extra publications cited in the reviewed papers is not an additional burden.…”

The ‘peer reviewer as collaborator’ model for publishing

“…A large percentage of peer reviewers say that they are driven by altruistic motives such as 'professional obligation', 'playing their part in the academic community', and 'maintaining the quality of publications'. 26,35,36 However, a significant percentage of them agree that other motives also exist, such as enhancing their reputation, increasing chances of promotion at work or a place in the editorial team. 35% of Anglophone and 44% of non-Anglophone reviewers in the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) survey said that payment would increase their inclination to take up the review process.…”