Owning the peer review process: If we have to do this work, we should own it

Abstract

As a new reference librarian, one of the most common questions I’ve encountered over the past year is some variation of “How do I find a peer reviewed scholarly article?” While the goal of professors who’ve assigned this task is to educate students on the nature of academic research, students are usually unclear on what “peer review” means and how to find this information. Often it is quite literally just a check box item amongst the facets.

On its face, peer review as a means of authentication seems valid. Why not have a qualified scholar or two review a work to see if it is accurate and relevant for publication? Unfortunately, as we know from countless studies, peer review is subject to systemic and individual bias across multiple genres and forms that undermines the legitimacy of the process. Within the open access movement, this has led to calls for more transparency. Scholars see a move to open peer review, especially as part of the movement for open science, as a solution to the inefficiencies and inequities of a closed process. Certainly, the technologies of publishing on the open web now make this easier than ever, with annotation tools, commenting features, and automation, and this would presumably solve for bad actors who take advantage of the peer review process to enact academic theft, fraud,4 or private retaliation.