Guidelines

It is important to understand that:

Our peer review process is open. Author and peer reviewer identities are known to everyone involved in the process. Peer review reports and comments on revisions are signed and publicly available.

The focus of the review should be on the rigour and validity of the research.

PeerRef does not make editorial decisions. Referee decisions on the manuscript are final.

Referees should hold a PhD (or equivalent) in the relevant area of research, or have sufficient expertise such as significant and demonstrable industry experience.

When receiving a review request we ask that potential referees respond within 3 days. This allows us to contact alternative potential referees as soon as possible.

Referees should not have any conflict of interest with the authors of the manuscript. Potential referees who are uncertain should contact us.

We will send referees a link to the preprint and a peer review form to complete. We ask that referees return the peer review report within 3 weeks. We appreciate this is not always possible, and if this is the case, referees can get an extended deadline.

We ask that referees:

• Read the whole manuscript.

• Give constructive, specific and unambiguous feedback to improve the manuscript,

• Judge the manuscript’s validity, not novelty or perceived impact.

• Be respectful to the author. Please ensure that any comments are focussed on the content of the manuscript, not on the authors themselves.

For guidance on conducting peer review we recommend ASAPbio’s FAST principles and PREreview’s Open Reviewers Reviewer Guide.

Our peer review report is divided into three sections. We have provided prompts for each section below.

General assessment

• What is your overall assessment of the manuscript?

• What are the main strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript?

• What did you learn from the manuscript?

Essential revisions that are required to verify the manuscript

• Are there any objective errors or fundamental flaws that make the research invalid?

• Are the conclusions supported by the data?

• Are there issues with the experimental design?

• Are sufficient methods, data, and analysis provided so that the study can be replicated?

• Is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?

Suggestions to improve the manuscript

• Are there specific experimental issues that can be addressed easily?

• Are text, figures and tables clear and accurate?

• Are the text and figures clear and accurate?

• Are there any missing references?

• Verified: The content is scientifically sound, only minor amendments (if any) are suggested.

• Verified with reservations: The content is scientifically sound but has shortcomings that could be improved by further studies and/or minor revisions.

• Requires revisions: The manuscript contains objective errors or fundamental flaws that must be addressed and/or major revisions are suggested.

Once referees have completed their review, the author will have the opportunity to address the revisions and write a response to the referees.

If the author responds to referee comments, we ask that the referee assesses the response/revisions and change their decision if appropriate.

Based on the referee’s decisions, preprints on the PeerRef platform are given a peer review status:

Partial peer review: One peer review report is complete

Refereed: Two peer review reports are complete with any decisio

Verified with reservations: Two peer review reports are complete with the decision ‘verified with reservations’.

Verified: Two peer review reports are complete with the decision ‘verified’

Our standard and recommended 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.

Manuscripts should be posted on a Preprint server or institutional repository prior to requesting peer review. This will ensure research is immediately open access.

We recommend using a Preprint server that will index a manuscript and create a digital object identifier (DOI). The DOI provides a persistent link to the manuscript and allows it to be cited. For information on individual Preprint servers, we recommend ASAPbio’s directory of Preprint servers.

Manuscripts are not rejected based on scope. To begin, authors should click request peer review and fill in the form. We will perform quality checks, then contact the author within the same day to acknowledge their request. If authors have any queries, they can contact us.

Manuscript format and structure is at the author’s discretion. There is no word count, or maximum number of figures. We recommend that you are concise to help reduce peer review time.

Manuscripts must be written in English. The language does not need to be of journal standard. We believe that if the research can be understood, English language editing should come after peer review. However, the manuscript must be of a sufficient standard, so that peer reviewers can understand the content.

Manuscripts that are submitted to journals after peer review will need to be reformatted to the journals standards.

• Title

• Full list of author names, institutions and corresponding author email

• Grant information (where applicable)

• Ethics approval by the authors’ institution or an ethics committee (where applicable)

• Conflict of interest statement (where applicable)

• Abstract

• Main body (i.e. hypothesis, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, etc.)

• List of references

With each review report, authors will receive one of the following initial decisions:

• Verified manuscript: The content is scientifically sound, only minor amendments (if any) are suggested.

• Verified with reservations: The content is scientifically sound but has shortcomings that could be improved by further studies and/or minor revisions.

• Requires revisions: The manuscript contains objective errors or fundamental flaws that must be addressed and/or major revisions are suggested.

Authors have the opportunity to address the revisions and write a response to the referees. Alternatively the author could end the process.

Once the author provides a response, we ask that the referees assesses the response/revisions and change their decision if appropriate.

PeerRef does not make editorial decisions.

Referees are responsible for making the final decisions on manuscripts.

Preprints on the PeerRef platform are given a peer review status:

Partial peer review: One peer review report is complete

Refereed: Two peer review reports are complete with any decision

Verified with reservations: Two peer review reports are complete with the decision ‘verified with reservations’.

Verified: Two peer review reports are complete with the decision ‘verified’

Once the peer review process is complete authors have multiple options.

• Share the verified preprint with their community.

• Authors can submit the manuscript to a partner journal for rapid publication. Editors at partner journals will consider PeerRef peer review reports in publication decisions.

  Our list of partner journals on our publisher partnerships page.

• Authors are welcome to submit their refereed preprint and associated peer reviews to any journal for consideration.

If authors believe that a referee has not followed the referee guidelines, the author should contact us. We will contact referees that do not follow the referee guidelines and, in some situations, withdraw their review report.