Tag: Publons

As Good as Gold: Publishing platform ARPHA is proud supporter of Peer Review Week 2016 and Gold star sponsor of Publons’ Sentinels of Science

In the heat of this year’s Peer Review Week, themed “Recognition for Review”, we would like to express how and why we are so proud to be part of it and Publons’ initiative Sentinels of Science, meant to recognize the true guardians of quality science, or in other words, the peer reviewers.

Being a high-tech and modern publishing solution, developed by Pensoft with the mindset that to adapt to the future, means to innovate, ARPHA itself was set to take the quite stagnant current peer review practice forward from day one.

This is why and how we provide a range of peer review options for every author submitting their work to any journal, published on the ARPHA platform. For example, here are the four-stages of the open peer review process operating in our flagship Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) Journal:

Author-organised, pre-submission review, available to all journals that make use of our ARPHA Writing Tool, which is our way to take the common get-a-friend-to-proofread-your-work practice to a whole new, transparent and technologically facilitated level. The review happens in real time with the author and the reviewers being able to work together in the ARPHA online environment. It is not mandatory, but we encourage it strongly. All pre-submission reviews provided on authors’ request in RIO can be published along with the article, bearing DOI and citation details.
Pre-submission technical and editorial check is another benefit, provided by the journal’s editorial office to those who are using the ARPHA Writing Tool. If necessary, it can take up several rounds, until the manuscript is improved to the level appropriate for direct submission to the journal.
The community-sourced, post-publication, open peer review is the next review stage provided to all articles published in RIO and all other ARPHA journals.
In addition, RIO also provides journal-organised, post-publication open peer review upon author’s request. In all other ARPHA journals this review stage happens mandatory before publication.

To facilitate peer review in any journal published on the platform, ARPHA consolidates every review automatically into a single online file, which makes it possible for reviewers to comment in real time, even during the authoring process. Once posted, the whole peer review history is archived along with the associated files.

To recognize peer review even further, ARPHA registers automatically each of our peer reviewers, along with their work, on Publons, thanks to the integration of all Pensoft journals with the platform, created to credit reviewers and their contributions.

With this vision of peer review, we simply could not stay clear of the aspiring Sentinels of Science initiative, started by Publons. It only made sense for us to step in, which logically led to the ARPHA logo appearing in the Gold star sponsors list.

On Friday, 23rd September, Publons will announce the recipients of the inaugural Sentinels of Science Award – the top reviewers and editors for the past year. So, tune in this Friday at 4:00 P.M. (BST) and do not forget to join the Twitter conversation via hashtags #PeerRevWk16 and #RecognizeReview.

All Pensoft journals now integrated with Peerage of Science

Collaboration is a major driver of scientific advancement. Pensoft recognises this and has now integrated all of its journals with Peerage of Science — a platform with a mission to foster new levels of collaboration between scientists.

This integration between two innovative platforms, striving to modernize the publishing industry, provides authors with the possibility not only to receive fast-track high-quality peer review of their manuscripts, but also to have a choice between a pool of journals, when it comes to publication.

“Pensoft is a special partner for us, because they were the first publisher to start an official collaboration with Peerage of Science years ago, when we had just launched. Also, Pensoft is in many ways a pioneering publisher seeking to make the world a better place for scientists, with initiatives like the ARPHA writing tool and the RIO Journal,” explains Janne-Tuomas Seppänen, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Peerage of Science.

“I am particularly happy that Pensoft is continuing and expanding its support for our solutions for peer review, and brings more journals to the author’s destination menu in Peerage of Science. We warmly welcome the 10 new titles and their editors, and look forward to a long and productive partnership.” he adds.

The idea behind Peerage of Science was inspired by the real-world struggles a young scientist is bound to face in the traditional peer-review system. The average peer review process takes more than 160 days and could easily conclude with the paper being rejected.

The initiative applies an out-of-the-box approach to the problem, providing a collaborative platform, where peer review takes place before the actual submission to a journal. Thus the process is significantly shortened, while at the same time it secures high quality manuscripts at the end.

Similarly, Pensoft journals provide open access, new generation publishing to scientists with an emphasis of online dissemination, data re-use and semantic linking of contents. With its latest projects — RIO Journal and the ARPHA writing tool — the publisher has introduced a new generation of pre-submission and post publication peer review possibilities.

Additional benefit for the reviewers is that their reviews will be registered at Publons automatically by Pensoft, if the manuscript is published in a Pensoft journal. Reviewers will be asked for approval of the review registration before it appears in their Publons profiles.

“This collaboration works well both for us and for Peerage of Science, but most of all, it empowers the authors to set the deadlines for peer review and choose between publication offers. From the very inception of Pensoft we have striven to provide a fast, reliable and innovative service to our authors, and this new move is yet another building block in this vision.” comments Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Founder and Managing Director at Pensoft.

All Pensoft journals integrated with Publons to recognize your contribution as a reviewer

With both Pensoft and Publons aiming to facilitate scientific research and its introduction to the wide world, it only makes sense for the two to join efforts in a campaign to speed up publications, while giving the rightful credit to reviewers. From now on, anyone who makes this contribution to any of the 15 Pensoft journals will be able to opt-in to get credit for their peer reviews on Publons.

As for the moment, there are already 32 Pensoft reviewers who have added a total of 58 reviews to their Publons personal accounts and already started to receive recognition for their peer input – a kind of contribution that traditionally tends to be largely overlooked in academia. However, you can get a head start by signing-up to Publons and joining the 50,000 peer reviewers that are getting credit for their peer reviews.

Moreover, it is just as incredibly easy to add records of your Pensoft peer reviews to Publons thanks to the presently announced integration. It is while you are compiling your peer review for either Biodiversity Data Journal, BioRisk, Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, Journal of Comparative Cytogenetics, Journal of Hymenoptera Research, MycoKeys, Nature Conservation, NeoBiota, Nota Lepidopterologica, One Ecosystem, PhytoKeys, Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), Subterranean Biology, ZooKeys or Zoosystematics and Evolution journal, that you are asked whether you want to opt-in for the service. Then, once you have completed it, you are sent an email with a link to claim your review. To protect your anonymity, it is only the journal’s name and the year of the review that will be visible on your Publons profile.

The only exception to this rule is Pensoft’s next generation Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal, where the policy of ultimate transparency and openness requires all peer reviews and their authors to be made public. It is also the only Pensoft journal whose article titles will be available on a Publons profile by default. Another distinctive feature of RIO’s – an assigned DOI for each peer review, is also supported in Publons to ensure reviewers get the most out of their contribution.

“Pensoft has a strong history of innovation and we’re excited to be working together to reward the efforts of peer reviewers,” comments the new partnership Publons co-founder Andrew Preston. “It’s also great to see that many Pensoft editors are already Publons users.”

“Crediting reviewers’ voluntary contributions to the quality of scientific publications has always been a problem, especially with the current tremendous increase in the volume of published research outputs. We are happy that Publons has found such a solution and that we can credit our reviewers through recording their activity in an entirely automated way,” added founder and CEO of Pensoft Prof. Lyubomir Penev.