Open peer review 

A scientific review is an assessment of the scientific content of a writing. It involves submitting the manuscript to a researcher (or more than one researcher) specialised in the subject, who makes a qualitative assessment. A scientific review is usually written before a scientific work is released in print and is often decisive in determining whether it is accepted for publication.

 K. Włodarczyk, Czym jest recenzja naukowa? Dlaczego jest potrzebna? Rodzaje i problemy peer review, [accessed: 2023-09-27]

There are several types of scientific reviews:

  • double-blind review – the reviewer as well as the author have no information about each other;
  • single-blind review – the reviewer knows whose paper they are assessing;
  • more transparent peer review – review reports are publicly available;
  • open review – the complete history of the review is publicly available;
  • collaborative review – involving a joint review by several experts, and sometimes including collaboration with the author;
  • post publication review:
    – review by formally invited reviewers, following publication of a non-peer-reviewed article;
    – review by volunteer reviewers following publication of a non-peer-reviewed article;
    – comments on blogs or third party sites, regardless of any formal review that may have already been conducted on the article.

Open peer review can be defined as any scholarly review mechanism providing disclosure of the author and reviewer’s identities to one another at any point during the peer review or publication process. It provides a clear and transparent reviewing process. 

The reasoning behind open reviews:

  • Transparency  
  • Time (that type of reviewing process is quicker) 
  • Credibility (If there are more reviewers, it allows capturing more mistakes or incoherences. There are some initiative such a For better science and Pubpeer, which promote constructive criticism and open discussion) 
  • Non-biased 
  • Being cited (thanks to DOI identifier) 
  • Being open to new methods and research during a polemic/reviewing 

Authors who decided to preprint their articles with open peer review have more opportunities to publish them. In some cases publishers are looking for a new articles on preprint servis.