Peer review recognition e comunicazione scientifica: nuovi modelli di accountability

Peer review process is one of the cornerstones of scientific communication. The vast majority of scientific journals employs peer reviewers to select and prioritize innovative articles and to increase the quality and readability of manuscripts accepted for publication. Accordingly, performing a peer review is an essential job and carries its weight of responsibility, requires significant time and effort. Several metrics have been developed to appraise and quantify the work of authors, articles and journals. On the contrary, no attention has been given to peer-reviewers and their work. No metrics exist to recognize their performance. Still peer review is a crucial phase in the process of publication for journals and publishers. ReviewerCredits.com is a web-based platform, born from two scientists (Giacomo Bellani and Robert Fruscio, University of Milano-Bicocca) in order to address this problem. This platform keeps history of the reviews performed by a scientist over the last 12 months, assigning a Reviewer-Index accordingly. Through the website, researchers can declare completion of peer reviews in the previous 12 months. The system verifies that the review has been actually performed by asking a confirmation from the journal. This step is essential and underpins the entire process, allowing to create a solid and reliable history of reviews performed. Upon confirmation from the editor, the review is added to the personal account of the reviewer, hence building a Reviewer-Index. The evolution of the project foresees the automation of the process of data exchange among applications and interoperability through APIs, in collaboration with academic and scientific journals. The talk aims to present to the academic librarians and publishers as well, the RC project, its first year results and its future activities.