The peer review process is used in research and academic conferences (as well as academic journals), and is essentially the evaluation of an abstract or paper - by qualified individuals (peers) to assess if it’s worthy of being published in a journal, or presented at an academic conference.
The three most common types of peer review, based on the visibility of the names of submitters and reviewers, are the following:
Open peer review
Submitters’ and reviewers’ names are visible to each other
Single blind peer review (the most common)
Submitters’ names are visible to the reviewer.
Reviewers’ names are hidden to the submitter.
Double blind peer review
Submitters’ names are hidden to the reviewer.
Reviewers’ names are hidden to the submitter.
Although requirements will vary from event to event (or publisher to publisher), there are essentially 3 stages of the peer review process, which we explain below.
(NB: Depending on the requirements, the term ‘abstracts’ is interchangeable with papers or manuscripts.)
1. Call for abstracts and submission
The call for abstracts will have been opened, and promoted on the institution’s chosen platforms, eg, by email, through a journal, website or social media. Prospective submitters will have responded to the call by drafting an abstract in the format specified by the conference organiser, and submitting it, along with supplementary information, usually through an online platform.
2. Abstracts are reviewed
The conference organiser will have appointed reviewers and assigned them with the submissions they would like them to review. It is entirely down to the event’s requirements how many reviewers will be assigned to a submission, and vice versa. It’s also worth noting that papers may go through an initial assessment to see if they meet the standard requirements before they go through the more rigorous reviewing process.
Reviewers will have been presented with guidelines that dictate whether they offer just a general appraisal, or a list of specific criteria to assess while completing the review - for instance originality, or advancement of field. They are usually asked to enter a grade, and often to leave comments. The criteria would have been shared with the submitters in the submission guidelines, so they are aware of what the reviewers are looking for.
3. The committee make decisions
When all the reviews are in, they are then returned to the committee or panel (in the case of a journal, an editor).The committee will take into account the reviewers’ opinions to make a decision on the fate of the abstract. In the simplest of cases, this will be accept or reject, but often the process will involve the abstract being marked for revision, which will give the submitter a chance to rework and improve their abstract using the feedback and comments from reviewers. The revised paper would then go back to stage 2.
Those whose abstracts have been accepted can then attend the conference to present their paper, or get to see their work in a well-respected journal.
Get in touch to find out more about managing your peer review process.