Reviewer guidelines

The peer review process is a vital component of scholarly publishing. To help ensure that peer review at Open Research Europe is constructive and beneficial to authors, readers, and other reviewers, reviewers are asked to:

• Read the article fully – please read the full text of the article and view all associated figures, tables, and data;
• Be thorough – a peer review report should discuss the article in full as well as individual points, and should demonstrate understanding of the article;
• Be specific – comments should contain as much detail as possible, with references where appropriate, so the authors are able to fully address the issue;
• Be constructive with criticism – reviews can include concerns or criticisms, however, they should be shared in a constructive and respectful manner;
• Avoid derogatory comments or tone – reviewers should be guided by the principle of ‘review as you wish to be reviewed’ and ensure that comments focus on the scientific content of the article in question rather than the authors themselves;
• Be objective and impartial – reviews should focus on the academic content of the article itself. Reviewers should avoid being influenced by their own personal opinions of either the article, the authors, or the opinions they might express.

If a reviewer identifies any conflict of interest they should alert ORE’s editorial team so eligibility can be checked. When submitting a review report, reviewers are also asked to declare any competing interests so they can be displayed alongside the review when published.

It is recommended that reviewers familiarise themselves with the Committee On Publication Ethics’ (COPE) ethical guidelines for peer reviewers. If ORE’s editorial team are concerned that a review does not meet the above standards, they will contact the reviewer before publishing their peer review report.

Approval status

Reviewers are asked to choose an approval status, which both helps directly determine whether an article is indexed with sites such as PubMed and Scopus, and provides readers with independent thoughts on the article.

The statuses to choose from are:

• Approved: No or only minor changes are required. This means that the aims and research methods are adequate; results are presented accurately; and the conclusions are justified and supported by the data or supporting material.
• Revisions requested: The reviewer believes the article has academic merit but asks for a number of small changes or sometimes more significant revisions.
• Not approved: The article has fundamental flaws that seriously undermine the findings and conclusions. It requires crucial substantial revisions for it to become academically valid.

Writing the review

Reviewers are asked to prepare a report that reflects their assessment of the article, including any constructive criticism they may have or suggestions for improvement.

All peer review reports on Open Research Europe are published alongside the reviewer’s full name and affiliation. For the benefit of the authors, readers, and other reviewers reports should meet the following standards:

• Reviews should be understandable and well written.
• Reviews should not be based on novelty but on the quality of the article under review.
• Reviews should be detailed, structured, constructive, and offer clear points for authors to address. This ORE blog provides advice on how to structure a review.
• Requests for citations of other articles should be justified and reviewers should explicitly state their reasoning when asking authors to cite their own work.

Please note that if reviews do not meet the above standards the editorial team may contact reviewers for further confirmation of clarification.

Reviewers should alert the ORE editorial team if they wish to make an allegation of publication or research misconduct for an article they are reviewing.

How to submit a peer review report

Once a reviewer has agreed to review, they should connected to ORE using existing account credentials. Reviewers in the ORE reviewer database will have received a username and password in a separate email from ORE upon registration.

Next, use the link in the review invitation email to access the article. Review the title and abstract before deciding whether to accept or decline the invitation. To accept the invitation, go to the ‘My Assignments’ tab and click ‘Accept review’. Once accepted, proceed to the review submission page, where the review can be added, review files uploaded, and comments sent to the editor. A review may be saved as a draft and finalised later if needed. Please note that once a report has been submitted, any further changes can only be made by ORE's editorial team.

Peer review progression

The peer review status of the article changes as the reports are published. The progress of peer review is clearly marked on each article and is part of the citation.

Immediately on publication, and while reviewers are assessing the work, the article is labelled as ‘Awaiting peer review’. This is shown beneath the title and in the Open Peer Review summary box within the article HTML and PDF. When a peer review report is received, the editorial team will ensure it meets the above guidelines and code of conduct. Reviewers may be contacted at this stage to clarify any issues. Once these checks are complete, reports are published alongside the article and the approval rating is displayed. As additional reports are received, the peer review status is updated. All articles remain fully published and available on Open Research Europe regardless of their peer review status.

Once an article receives two ‘Approved’ or two ‘Revisions requested’ statuses and one ‘Approved’ status, it will be indexed in PubMed and other bibliographic databases. All versions of the article, along with any associated data sets and peer review reports, will be deposited in PubMed Central.

Article revisions

At any time in the peer review process, the authors may choose to revise their article in response to reviewer comments – when this happens, a new version is published and the original reviewers are re-invited to review. Reviewers can then publish an updated report, taking the revisions into account.

All versions of the article, including all peer review reports, remain published so that anyone may see the history of the article. Updating a review to give feedback on the revised version is very important, as it allows the authors and readers to see whether concerns have been addressed satisfactorily. The peer review outcome of an article is directly determined by the peer reviewers, and therefore it is important that reviewers indicate if they believe concerns have been addressed in an updated peer review report.