free article reviews

free article reviews

The Importance of Free Article Reviews in Academic Research

1. Introduction to Article Reviews

In this article, the case is made for maintaining and enhancing the involvement of free open reviewers in academic research and how it remains an integral part of what higher education institutions do. Guiding the reader through the process from why reviews are conducted in the first place, the article examines the nature of the conversations between faculty and authors, and how faculty can provide authors with feedback on poor-quality research, writing, and debate needs, before also discussing the challenges surrounding poor protection of faculty members who have conducted the review activity to improve its quality and how these challenges can nonetheless weaken open reviews within the international academic quality assurance system if left unresolved. In a bid to assess many of these key elements, and to explore the impact and implications of open reviews for academic debate, the article includes supplementary digitized views of the data and provides more information on the subject than that commonly available, so that a more informed approach can be taken when answering the key questions we pose, namely the challenges to the emphasis on focus in academic publishing and pedagogy and a determination of how open reviews are conducted, if at all. Furthermore, we suggest areas in which the open reviews system can be developed to improve its effectiveness. Specifically, on what points do open reviews enhance or detract from the potential contribution of a research effort, how do they operate, are they generally favorable, accurate in their assessments of the core qualities of academic research, clear themselves, forthright while at the same time discreet in reporting, work to high standards, and are they ultimately effective?

Educators, publishers, and editorial boards agree that free and open article reviews are important in the scrutiny of articles by researchers, especially in academic research, and its application helps to achieve and implement a wide range of the essential qualities of academic publishers regarding fairness, independence, accountability, factual accuracy, transparency, timeliness, and clarity in reporting. Despite this dominant position within the academic community, the current opaque nature of how and why open reviews are conducted, their potential defects, and the general lack of research on open reviews reduce its quality and effectiveness and result in a lack of confidence in the process. Furthermore, dealing with free open reviews in their institutions has resulted in an additional resource burden for many faculty members.

2. Benefits of Free Article Reviews

The efforts saved in submission and the prevention of editorial detours would consign many useful comments to cyberspace and avoid some of the delays intrinsic to traditional publication. The author would know where the article stands in its intended readership and receive help with write-up and future research. In turn, that intended readership would update its list of known articles and be spared submitting and reviewing similar or related research. Similarly, publishers could plan publication with interested readers; combined with an open-preprint submission, this could markedly reduce the waste associated with “mandatory deadlines” and produce timely reports. The longer-term response could provide more security for everybody and eliminate the latent conflict-of-interest sometimes implicit in the review process.

Most work might be discarded, and the potential for obstruction and delay reduced. But in this case, the cost might be minimal, the selection process proclaims more or less rapidly, and removal from the system (if that is to happen) is rapid and satisfactory for both parties. In the better of all worlds – and most distant – the reader’s review becomes an official prepublication evaluation that helps validate the investment made by interested readers. It helps with page selection for journals.

Academic research is important, difficult, and often quite expensive. From time to time, and all too infrequently, the process is also quite frustrating. Before sending articles for publication in scientific peer-reviewed journals, which usually entails costs and can be done only a few times, it would be beneficial to have a sketch of how the paper is read by an interested, easygoing, and meticulously selective reader.

3. Challenges and Limitations of Free Article Reviews

While not directly involved in the process of free article review assignments, some authors might feel demotivated by what they perceive as a growing number of predatory publishers pressuring them to publish a paper with their journal. These unjust practices from predatory journals make authors doubt the value of their research output in quality journals. Another set of authors might perceive that the quality of the reviews assigned to their articles might be mediocre or produce biased evaluations. They might believe that the peer review process of the journal they submitted their article to is of inferior quality and not systematically curating those services with peer review networks. Therefore, we would like to support our article review assignment with simple verifications of article credibility to prevent and cease unintentional and even suspicious practices in academic research.

4. Best Practices for Conducting Free Article Reviews

Just as it is important to provide good feedback when reviewing a paper, there is also an art and methodology to receiving good feedback on your paper. This document aims to highlight important practices authors should strive to adhere to when submitting their work for peer review. The ideal approach in the first draft is to lay the paper out as a roadmap, succinctly summarizing your major findings and your results so that the reader can get ready up front to read and understand the ragged, hairy detail of a working paper in the body. We are interested in helping you come up with a good idea for a paper and figure out a way to execute it. In addition to the comments that we have provided you in this guide, you can utilize the notes of the peer feedback letter that must accompany the paper and discuss with the letter writer on the phone or teleconference, or in person when possible.

5. Conclusion and Future Trends

Future work is needed to make the currently relied-upon intuition about what constitutes a good article review explicit. Are unbiased opinion articles the same as neutral ones? Should other non-assessable statements be rewarded too? Questions such as these not only need to be clarified, both in the guidelines for article review writing editorials and in the instructions that are sent to article referees. Additionally, they need to be verified empirically in natural research contexts to examine which policy options work best. One avenue would be to relate the authors’ decisions to article review content, weighted by review quality, and compare user guidelines that variably reward assessable and non-assessable statements in article reviews.

Free article reviews incentivize researchers to submit high-quality work to scientific conferences and journals. This makes them useful tools that lead to better research and mitigate the risk of editors and fellow researchers having to deal with poor research quality. However, although these article review processes work fairly well in practice, they are not without problems, and their rules and procedures are not always clear. Even when they are clearly stated, how to follow these rules is not always intuitive. This has negative consequences for young and experienced researchers alike who happen to read the written advice rather carefully. We, therefore, propose that referees are incentivized to do their best job too. In terms of free article review processes, junior researchers would be extra motivated to write very high-quality article reviews, as a larger number of strong reviews would boost their decision records and credibility.