Motivating the Best Referees Moderator: Lynne Honigmann Scribe: Dennis Shasha

Preliminaries Great journals (e.g. Lancet) have little problem getting best referees, because of prestige. Less good journals may have problems.

Metrics on Referees Percentage of requests to review that referee takes. Time to review. Number of papers reviewed per year. Subject area for the referees.

Seniority vs. Quality Senior scholar: “This paper says something that has never been seen.” Junior scholar can give much more detail on specifics of paper. Want both.

Incentives Publish a list of the referees once per year. (Definition: referee here is someone who is not on the editorial board.) Thank the referees by phone.

Incentives 2 CDs of best papers go to reviewers who have done lots of reviews. Elsevier-published book. Give access to Science Direct for the most active reviewers (suggestion for Elsevier).

Incentives 3 Desk rejection by editor-in-chief or a board member. Then the referees get only good papers. Good referees appreciate this.

Incentives 4 Send paper cold to a referee and request response in X weeks. Very impolite. Better to send abstract + link. Only get link if you agree.

Incentives 5 Invite the best referees to the editorial board. Year’s subscription.

Recruitment Database Any accepted author has his/her name associated with keywords of his article, so can be used as a referee in the future. Could Elsevier maintains such a database?

Editorial Board Structure/Use Editor-in-chiefs + undifferentiated editorial board. Editorial board member can either review themselves or pass it on to referees. Editor-in-chief(s) + Area Editors + Editorial Advisory board (known referees) + unknown referees.

Interaction with Editorial Board For the editors (area or board), one can be more direct but then if out of editor’s area, allow editor to pass it on.