What is open peer review? A systematic review

“” (Suber, 2012) Page 4 of 32 Within just these two examples, there are already a multitude of factors at play, including the removal of anonymity, the publishing of review reports, interaction between participants, crowdsourcing of reviews, and making manuscripts public pre-review, amongst others.”

“Reviewers often fail to detect major methodological failings (Schroter et al., 2004), with eminent journals (whose higher rejection rates might suggest more stringent peer review processes) seeming to perform no better than others (Fang et al., 2012).”

“Nickerson et al. (2013) advise that the development of a taxonomy should begin by identifying the appropriate meta-characteristic – in this case distinct individual innovations to the traditional peer review system.”

“Published reports can enable readers to consider these criticisms themselves, and “have a chance to examine and appraise this process of ”creative disagreement” and form their own opinions” (Peters & Ceci, 1982).”

“Next, “confirmatory bias” is theorized to lead to conservatism, biasing reviewers against innovative methods or results contrary to dominant theoretical perspectives (Chubin & Hackett, 1990; Garcia et al., 2016; Mahoney, 1977).”

“, 2017) mean that editors and reviewers seem primed to prefer positive results over negative or neutral ones (Bardy, 1998; Dickersin et al., 1992; Fanelli, 2010; Ioannidis, 1998), and to disfavour replication studies (Campanario, 1998; Kerr et al.”

“Smith, an experienced editor, for example, reports reviewers stealing ideas and passing them off as their own, or intentional blocking or delaying publication of competitors’ ideas through harsh reviews (Smith, 2006).”

“, 2017) mean that editors and reviewers seem primed to prefer positive results over negative or neutral ones (Bardy, 1998; Dickersin et al., 1992; Fanelli, 2010; Ioannidis, 1998), and to disfavour replication studies (Campanario, 1998; Kerr et al.”

“…of “impact” and “excellence” (Moore et al., 2017) mean that editors and reviewers seem primed to prefer positive results over negative or neutral ones (Bardy, 1998; Dickersin et al., 1992; Fanelli, 2010; Ioannidis, 1998), and to disfavour replication studies (Campanario, 1998; Kerr et al., 1977).”

“Within this framework, open peer review models can be understood as a set of practices aimed at making a journal’s evaluative system visible and expanding the available information on their reviews, arguments, and decisions (Ross-Hellauer, 2017; Tennant et al., 2017).”

“Open-review models have been tried and tested [26], with varying levels of disclosure.”

“Open interaction, the facilitation of direct, reciprocal exchange among authors, editors, and reviewers, is positioned as a mechanism for moving peer review beyond isolated, one-directional evaluation toward a multi-party conversation in which knowledge is collectively negotiated [15].”

“The progress of transparency initiatives in areas such as data sharing and open peer review (Ross-Hellauer 2017; Nature Communications 2022; Knoepfler 2015; Taichman et al. 2017; Zarin et al. 2011; Pulverer and Lemberger 2019) illustrates the broader commitment to openness in publishing.”

“To address these concerns, various peer review models that fall under the label of ‘open peer review’ have emerged [10], aiming to introduce greater transparency by making review reports publicly available [11–15].”

“…thus far been only limited enquiry into how traditional peer-review practices for scholarly applications might interact with a growing body of interdisciplinary research [11, 12] and systematic reviews of open peer review practices have not ventured outside of disciplinary categories [10, 13, 14].”

“In parallel, measures such as reviewer name disclosure, post-publication peer review, and formal recognition of reviewer contributions are increasingly seen as effective ways to enhance transparency in the peer review process (Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”

“Open review, preregistration, reproducibility checklists, and artifact badges all try to reduce information asymmetry between authors, reviewers, and readers [8, 10, 14].”

“Structured review templates, visible rationale histories, and recognition of substantive review labour would reduce redundancy, lower reviewer fatigue, and make revision pathways more legible across iterations (Ross-Hellauer 2017).”

“Emerging models such as open peer review and postpublication commentary reflect this shift toward a more transparent and interactive evaluation system (Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”

“Peer review remains a backbone of scholarly publishing, though often criticized for being ineffective, unfair, and unreliable [1–6].”

“15 Regardless of the specific definition, the central objective of open peer review is to strengthen the evaluation process by improving integrity, trust, and the quality of scientific communication while facilitating constructive dialogue among researchers and reviewers and promoting more…”

“Open peer review initiatives—such as those at eLife (Eisen et al., 2022) and journals adopting the Publons framework—have demonstrated that publishing reviewer reports alongside articles can improve review quality and accountability (Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”

“While there have been ongoing discussions for years on the pros and cons of such a new peer review dynamics (Ross-Hellauer, 2017), all Open Science practices and norms released in the past years strongly support the open peer review process as the primary alternative to enable a broader setting of…”

“Scopus publication data shows that 900 out of 1,136 publications (79 Another trend in recent years is open peer review, in which the identities of both reviewers and authors are disclosed and greater participation in the peer review process is enabled (Ross-Hellauer, 2017; Tennant et al., 2017).”

“Studies highlight that, while open review can increase accountability and the argumentative quality of opinions, it can also inhibit more forceful criticism, especially when power imbalances, hierarchical relationships, or prior institutional ties exist 7,19 .”

“Another concern is the rise of predatory OA journals that exploit authors through fees without legitimate peer review (Frank et al., 2023; Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”

“Transparency represents a core element of open science and supports open access to publications, research data, open-source software, peer review processes, and related practices [2,3].”

“Contrary to initial concerns, studies indicate that transparency does not compromise review quality, and may actually enhance accountability and constructive feedback [17].”

“Protocol publishing can therefore be interpreted as an infrastructural response to a governance challenge: accelerating knowledge circulation while maintaining trust through clearer methods, stronger quality controls, and more transparent evaluation (Ross-Hellauer, 2017; Wang et al ., 2025).”

“Conference organisers should adopt transparent peer-review systems where abstracts are evaluated by at least two independent reviewers using clear criteria such as originality, methodological soundness, ethical concerns and relevance [12,13].”

“Ross-Hellauer (2017) argues that open peer review reduces bias; Bender and Friedman (2018) note that post-publication feedback enhances rigour.”

“Another limitation lies in the absence of large-scale empirical validation across diverse datasets, which would provide stronger evidence of the framework’s generalizability and effectiveness (Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”

“The essence of peer review is judgment—a blend of experience, context, ethics, and clinical insight (5).”

“Many journals now publish re-viewers’ comments and authors’ responses alongside articles, and platforms have emerged that enable scholars to track their peer review activities and receive recognition for their contributions [26, 27].”

“Lebih jauh lagi, proses peer review dapat ditelusuri yang memungkinkan pembaca melihat jejak perkembangan artikel mulai dari awal hingga versi akhir (Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”

“We hypothesized that incorporating peer review, a process commonly used in scientific research for critical evaluation [13], into medication reconciliation could both optimize pharmacist time and maintain high-quality practices.”

“(Ross-Hellauer 2017, n.p.).”

“En cualquier caso, antes de hacer pública esta información, es útil evaluar si alguien que no conoce los detalles del procedi-miento analítico puede entenderlo y seguirlo sin dificultades. d. Revisión por pares abierta (Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”

“…inviting a broader group from the scientific community to provide feedback to the authors (participatory review or open participation peer review) (Ross-Hellauer, 2017; Walker & Rocha da Silva, 2015), using random gatekeepers instead of editors (Tennant et al., 2017), or trying out shared…”

“JoVI also has open reviews [27, 31] which are published along with the article and can optionally be signed by reviewers.”

“This school of thought assumes that science must be made accessible to the public, engaging them in research through collaborative efforts (i.e., citizen science) and promoting understanding through lay summaries and less formal science communication (Ross-Hellauer 2017) .”

“Um dos pila-res da CA ´e o processo de Open Peer Review (OPR), derivado do Peer Review (PR) [Ross-Hellauer 2017].”

“According to [53], this is a quality control system.”

“Examinando a literatura em detalhe, o Ross-Hellauer (2017) encontra 22 configurações distintas dessas sete características, concluindo que efetivamente há 22 diferentes definições sobre esse tema na literatura.”

“O termo Open Peer Review (OPR) ainda é incipiente, não tem uma definição consensual ou cabal, pois se dá, de maneira sobreposta como um “guarda-chuva” que pode ser adaptado conforme os atores ou objetivos da Ciência Aberta (Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”

“In this Special Issue, the Open Review Reports were optional.”

“Despite its importance, traditional peer review is said to lack sufficient transparency, accountability, and consistency (Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”

“As synthesized by Ross-Hellauer (2017), some critiques of the current peer review system include unreliable feedback across reviewers; inconsistent error and fraud detection; prolonged evaluation periods; and biases against non-dominant identities, perspectives, and methods.”

“This is particularly the case through citation, commenting, sharing, and examining, which have existed for a long time but are now being more and more treated as integral technologies of open peer review, through new arrangements between dissemination and validation.(13)”

“[2] The open peer‐reviewing system is also an interesting new idea for transparent peer‐reviewing process.[3]”

“Por último, hemos establecido contacto con referentes del movimiento de la Ciencia Abierta para gestionar adecuadamente la transición hacia un modelo voluntario de revisión por pares abierta [open peer-review] (Ross-Hellauer, 2017; Ross-Hellauer, Deppe y Schmidt, 2017).”

“(Ross-Hellauer, 2017).”