Discussion documents

Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills” Increasingly, across the research publishing landscape, publishers are seeing large scale manipulation of the publication process. The production of fraudulent papers at scale via alleged ‘paper mills’ is one such manipulation. Paper mills are profit oriented, unofficial and po…

…Editing of reviewer comments The topic for discussion at our March 2020 COPE Forum asked questions around the editing of reviewer comments. Peer reviewers are asked to contribute intellectual work to assess and improve scholarly publications. As with all work, the quality and characteristics of peer reviews vary. Editors responsibilities include support not only to the peer revi…

Introduction Two trends have recently come together within scholarly publication: open peer review and the desire to give recognition to the work peer reviewers do. At the convergence are organisations like Publons and Academic Karma who wish to openly acknowledge the work of peer reviewers by recording, not only the amount, but also, in some circumstances, the content o…

Two trends have recently come together within scholarly publication; open review, and the desire to give credit to reviewers. At the convergence are organizations like Publons and Academic Karma who wish to openly acknowledge the work of peer-reviewers by recording, not only the amount, but also, in some circumstances, the content of individuals’ peer-review activity. Academics may view service…