1. Helene Brinken Bootcamp – Day 1
Open Peer Review
Helene Brinken Bootcamp – Day 1

2. Formal quality assurance of research
Experts review scholarly manuscripts
(e.g., journal articles, books, grant applications, conference papers)
improve work
make final decisions regarding publication
Traditional peer review
Anonymous (single – or double blind)
Closed (process & reviews)
Selective (editors select reviewers)

3. OPR - Definition
OPR can mean different things to different people & communities
Open peer review is an umbrella term for various alternative review methods that seek to make classical peer review more transparent & accountable (cf. Ross-Hellauer, 2016).

4. 2 main traits:
“open identities”: both authors & reviewers are aware of each other’s identities (i.e., non-blinded),
“open reports”: review reports are published alongside the relevant article.

5. FOSTER Toolkit
Now some content from our OS toolkit, which is a great resource to use to prepare your trainings

6. Aspects of OPR - Open Identities
Increase transparency & greater accountability amongst reviewers
Bias or conflicts of interest can be identified more easily
7 traits of OPR that add transparency to the process

7. Aspects of OPR – Open Reports
Higher review in terms of tone & quality
Review can be a research output itself (valuable context for readers + credit for reviewers)
Combining identities & reports  better reviews
name publicly connected to a work or seeing review published
questions & responses:
valuable context about methodologies employed & research processes
can be cited in other publications & in career development activities linked to promotion and tenure

8. Aspects of OPR – Open Participation
 Overcome problems of editorial selection (biases, closed-networks)  Opportunity for early career researchers (practice skills, build reputation)  Speeds up process by opening pool of reviewers able & willing to review
Main traits can be complemented by other innovations
overcome problems associated with editorial selection of reviewers
(e.g., biases, closed-networks, elitism).
Early career researchers who do not yet receive invitations to review
PR can take a long time - almost 1y between submission & final publication
access to research findings are delayed
Including community speeds up process

9. Aspects of OPR – Open Pre-Review Manuscripts
Get early feedback on work
Work is more visible to potential publishers
get early feedback on their work  it can be more of a dialogue and it’s not written in stone yet
Work more visible to potential publishers – can be approached directly by journals interested in publishing their work.

10. Aspects of OPR – Open Final-Version Commenting
Allows dialogue & remains open for future correction or retraction
Questions & answers can provide context

11. Aspects of OPR – Open Interaction
 Disagreements can be rather discussed than dismissed (in traditional PR only correspondence via editor)

12. Aspects of OPR – Open Platforms
Review is submitted to platform, independent or portable reviews can be used for different journals
Speeds up the process & no duplication of effort
Different models to solve different problems: some of duplication of effort, other of incentive by paying reviewers

13. Six good reasons for OPR
In Summary
Transparency: Reviewers accountable for evaluations:
higher review
 conflicts of interest can be identified by community
Reliable: number of papers listed by retractionwatch highlights that  current peer review system is not always a guarantee of quality.
Including wider community instead of 1-2 reviewers provides a better opportunity to identify methodological flaws or other inconsistencies in the research.
Initiatives such as For better science and Pubpeer support open discussion and constructive criticism about scientific papers.
Consistency:
It can often be unclear as to why a paper is rejected by one reviewer and not by another. 
OPR ensures that reviewers' views can be captured and compared. 
Motivation:
Peer review takes time and effort. Current peer review which hides the identity of reviewers does not allow those carrying out reviews to get credit for their work. By publishing their review reports and assigning them a DOI makes them citable research outputs in their own right. Linking these back to you by including your ORCiD ensures that you always have an up to date CV of all areas of your work.
Those authors making use of preprint servers to get early feedback on their work may also benefit from having their work made more visible to potential publishers. In some cases, authors who have shared early results via preprint servers have been approached directly by journals interested in publishing their work.

14. OPR is not a silver bullet
OPR removes anonymity, so some researchers worry
to risk their career
Or that criticism might not be objective & honest
Given these issues, reviewers may be more likely to decline, but there is no formal evidence to support these potential drawbacks
Not all bias will be eradicated & senior researchers will not retaliate if younger researchers criticize their work
However: such occurrences will be more open & reviewers' reputations will be damaged when they act inappropriately
 no formal evidence to support potential drawbacks
For training:
leave room for discussion & reflection,
This is what we will do now

15. reader author reviewer
Many aspects that contribute to Open Science
reader
author
reviewer
Let’s discuss this from different perspectives. Take a look underneath your chair…
In plenary, participants take role of reader, author, or reviewer (colour coded post-its under chairs)

16. Discussion
Which aspects of OPR are most valuable from your perspective?
What are benefits & what are potential drawbacks from your point of view?
reader
author
reviewer
The easiest is to focus on the two main traits: Open Identities & reports.
Identities, reports, participation, pre-review manuscript, final-version commenting, interaction, platforms
Reader: yellow
Authors: pink
Reviewer: green
At least two statements by every group

17. Include an Open Peer Review Oath

21. Your own workshop Show different options for adding transparency
Mention potential pitfalls, but focus on advantages of OPR
Leave room for discussion & reflection
Depending on audience: Point to publishers or platforms, where OPR is already in use
Use toolkit & handbook as resources for preparation
Usually long discussion here + collect different perspectives
organize it in different ways:
Either small groups (reader, author & reviewer)
larger groups (readers together, authors together and reviewers together)
let them prepare a nice poster afterwards or give small presentations or discussion with all participants.

22. Thank you! Questions? Helene Brinken brinken@sub.uni-goettingen.de