Motivations for performing scholarly prepublication peer review: A scoping review

ABSTRACT

Prepublication peer review is a cornerstone of science. Overburdened reviewers invest millions of hours in this voluntary activity. In this scoping review, we aimed at identifying motivations for performing prepublication peer review of scholarly manuscripts. Original research studies investigating actual peer reviewers’ motivations were included. We excluded modeling studies, studies related to other types of peer review, guidelines, peer review processes in particular journals. Medline, WoS, and Scopus were searched in February 2016, with no language or time limitations, and the search was updated in July 2019. The search yielded 5,250 records, and 382 were chosen for full text analysis, out of which 10 were appropriate for synthesis. Reference snowballing identified one eligible study. Eleven studies were appropriate for synthesis: four qualitative, four mixed qualitative/quantitative, and three qualitative studies, published from 1998 to 2018, involving 6,667 respondents. Major internal incentive was “communal obligations and reciprocity.” Major external incentives were “career advancement,” “being recognized as an expert,” and “building relationships with journals and editors.” Major disincentive was the “lack of time.” Editors could incentivize peer review process by choosing highest quality articles, improving communication with peer reviewers, in order to make the process of peer review as short and efficient as possible. The gaps in research concern disincentives to review.

Author contributions

Ana Marušić gave the idea for the study, and all authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Mersiha Mahmić-Kaknjo, Ana Utrobičić, and Ana Marušić. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Mersiha Mahmić-Kaknjo, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Graphics program that was used to create the artwork was Adobe illustrator, CS6 (Figures 1–4) and MS Paint 3D (Figure 5).

Acknowledgments

This article was written within the framework of activities of the COST action TD 1306 “New frontiers of peer review”-–PEERE (www.peere.org). Preliminary findings of this research were presented at: PEERE Cost Action---Taking Stock of Peer Review (Valencia, Spain, March 2016); PEERE International Conference on Peer Review (Rome, Italy, March 2018); 8th International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication (Chicago, IL, USA, September 2017), and 14th European Association of Science Editors (EASE) Conference (Bucharest, Romania, June 2018).

Authors would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Wager, Dr. Mario Malički, and Dr. Dario Sambunjak for useful comments and help in designing research, and Amer Kaknjo for help with technical issues and useful comments for the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

All authors declare no conflict of interest and no financial interest. This research was a result of COST Action TD1306 New frontiers of peer review (PEERE) (http://www.peere.org/) activities. The supporter had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing up of the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology [TD 1306].