PeerRef offers anonymous peer review with PREreview
PeerRef has teamed up with PREreview to offer anonymous peer review.
We want all researchers to be able to participate in journal-independent open peer review. Our standard approach is for referees to sign their peer review reports with their name and institution. We believe an open dialogue between an author and referee can provide referees with recognition, increase accountability, and create a collegial interaction. However, we understand that expert researchers that belong to vulnerable communities may not feel comfortable signing review reports due to concerns of retribution or judgment.
We are working with PREreview to enable referees that do not want to sign their review reports to use PREreview’s “Pseudonym” on the PeerRef platform. This enables referees to publish anonymous open reviews with a consistent, private identifier.
What is a Pseudonym on PREreview? (adapted from PREreview)
On PREreview.org, a Pseudonym is a user profile that PREreview creates for users at the time of signup combining a random colour with a random animal (e.g., Grey Platypus). The Pseudonym is linked to a user's Public persona on the back end, but to the public, it appears as a separate user profile that can be used to publish reviews.
The website display of a user's Pseudonym profile will only list a user's Pseudonym and the contributions to PREreview using this persona. It will NEVER show any activity or information about a user's identity or contributions made with the Public persona.
How it works
PeerRef Referees that want to publish a review but do not wish to tie their public identity to it, should sign up for PREreview (all you need is an ORCID iD, https://prereview.org/login). Once signed in, referees will have access to two profiles or personas: a Pseudonym and a Public persona. Referees can then follow the review publication workflow on PREreview and select which persona they wish to use to publish their preprint review.
Once the referee clicks on "Publish PREreview,” the preprint review is assigned a digital object identifier (DOI) and published on Zenodo under CC BY 4.0 licence. Referees should then send the DOI to PeerRef. The review report will be reposted on the PeerRef platform with attribution to the same DOI and signed by the anonymous persona.
We’re excited to begin this collaboration with PREreview. We hope that it helps more researchers to participate in open peer review.
About PREreview
PREreview is an open project fiscally sponsored by the non-profit organization Code for Science and Society. Our mission is to bring more equity and transparency to the scholarly peer-review process. We design and develop open-source infrastructure to enable constructive feedback to preprints, we run peer review mentoring and training programs, and we partner with like-minded organizations to organize events that provide opportunities for researchers to create meaningful collaborations and connections, defeating cultural and geographical barriers. Learn more about PREreview at https://prereview.org.