"Some Experiments in Peer Review" - the PeerJ presentation to the ITHAKA Sustainable Scholarship 2012 meeting (http://www.ithaka.org/conference/ithaka-sustainable-scholarship-2012). Video of the presentation is at http://vimeo.com/53343232

1. Academic Publishing is Evolving…
Some Experiments
in Peer Review
Pete Binfield
Co-Founder and Publisher, PeerJ
@p_binfield
pete@peerj.com
https://peerj.com

2. Academic Publishing is Evolving…

3. • Covers all of science
• Considers Research Articles only
• ~ 4,000 submissions / month & ~2,500 publications / month
• Peer reviews for scientific validity only
• All submissions go through stringent submission checks
– All submissions that pass those checks are peer reviewed
• ~ 4,000 Academic Editors
– Editors can accept with no external peer reviewers
– ~2.8 peer reviewers/article (1.8 + the Academic Editor)
– 1st
decision in approx. 33 days
– Avg of 1.1 revision rounds
• Includes post publication user comments and article level metrics
• APC: $1,350 / paper

4. • Hosted on a Wordpress platform (Annotum)
• Submissions made through an online xml authoring tool
• Covers discrete subject areas
• Accepts any article type (or parts of articles)
• Rapid decisions via Editorial Board / Reviewers
• ‘Instant’ publication
• Submissions can be revised
• DOIs and PubMed IDs are assigned
• Includes post publication user comments and article level metrics
• Free to publish, free to read

5. • In Beta right now. Launching in late 2012
• Accepts all article types, and data papers
• Effectively a cross between a preprint server and a journal
– Articles go online immediately
– Reviews are then solicited
• Reviewers get 3 options
– “Approved”; “Approved with Reservations”; “Not Approved”
– All reviews are open and credited
• As soon as 2 positive reviews are received, the article is ‘indexed’
– Uses CrossMark
• Authors can subsequently revise articles
• Includes post publication user comments
– Only from ‘verified’ academics
• APC: $500 / ‘short’ paper , $1,000 / ‘long’ paper

6. • Launching in late 2012
• ‘Independent’ Peer Review outside of a journal
– To improve an article pre-submission
– Or to pre-qualify an article to journals
• Employing a standard peer review scorecard
– With numerical scores
• Charging authors and paying reviewers
– Double blind peer review
– 3 reviewers
• Rapid review turnaround
– “The one week review that can save months of waiting”
• Pays reviewers $100 / review, charges authors ~$600 / paper

7. Academic Publishing is Evolving…

8. • Launching in late 2012
• A broad, inclusive journal
• Encouraging of Open Peer Review
– Reviewers have option to be named / credited
– Authors have option to publish peer review ‘audit’ trail with the article
• Peer review is a condition of Membership
• Includes post publication user comments and article level metrics
• Coupled to a preprint Server (“PeerJ PrePrints”)
– Which can accept a wide range of content
– With a range of privacy and access controls
• Membership model starting at $99 for life

9. Academic Publishing is Evolving…
The PeerJ Membership Model
Unlimited
publications/yr
Great for
principal
investigators
Basic Plan
$99
Lifetime
One publication/yr
Great for
graduate students
* All contributing authors need a plan membership

10. Academic Publishing is Evolving…

11. Academic Publishing is Evolving…
The Reception

12. Academic Publishing is Evolving…
Current Status
• Staff of 5 (London & San Francisco)
– Alf Eaton (ex Mendeley & Nature)
– Patrick McAndrew (ex clipDO.com)
– Jackie Thai (ex PLoS ONE)
• ~ 700 Academic Editors & Advisors
– 5 Nobel Laureates
• Public Submissions to PeerJ ~ Late 2012
• Public Launch of PeerJPrePrints ~ Late 2012
• 1st
PeerJ Publications ~ Jan 2013

13. Academic Publishing is Evolving…
Late 2012
Late 2012
Late 2012
2006
2009
2011
2010

14. Academic Publishing is Evolving…
Annual Output of ‘thebig 3’ OA Publishers
PLOS + BioMedCentral + Hindawi
Mark Patterson’, COASP Sep 2012

15. Academic Publishing is Evolving…
Late 2012
Late 2012
Late 2012
2006
2009
2011
2010

16. Academic Publishing is Evolving…
Thank You
Pete Binfield
Co-Founder and Publisher
@p_binfield
pete@peerj.com
@ThePeerJ
https://peerj.com