Transparent Peer Review

Transparent peer review shows the complete peer review process from initial review to final decision when both authors and reviewers opt-in. This means that alongside the published article, readers can see a full peer review history, including reviewer reports, editor decision letters and the authors’ responses.

IOP Publishing (IOPP) has moved all its open access (OA) journals to transparent peer review, making it the first physics publisher to adopt the approach portfolio-wide. Disclosing the peer review process to the community increases accountability and allows reviewers to be recognised more for their hard work. 

The launch follows a one-year trial in which authors and reviewers were given the choice to opt in or out of displaying their reviewer reports alongside the published article in three IOPP journals. Since then, IOPP has extended the initiative to more than 50% of all IOPP’s OA journals. About half of all authors publishing open access with IOPP choose to make their reviewer reports visible, showing a positive stance toward this relatively new way of disclosing scholarly information. 

Transparent peer review complements double anonymous peer review which IOPP also offers to reviewers and authors throughout its entire portfolio. The difference is that double anonymous review is applied during the peer review process, before publication, and transparent review is delivered post-publication. Together these two processes complement each other, allowing for maximum objectivity during the review process, and maximum transparency after publication. 

Read more.