Quantitative Science Studies successfully completes transparent peer review pilot | International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics

"In August 2020 Quantitative Science Studies (QSS) started a transparent peer review pilot, in close collaboration with our publisher, MIT Press. For articles accepted for publication in QSS, the review reports, along with the responses of the authors and the decision letters of the editor, were published in Publons, provided that the authors agreed to participate in the pilot. Reviewer identities were not revealed, unless reviewers preferred to give up their anonymity.

By publishing review reports, QSS aims to provide insight into the strengths and weaknesses of an article and into unresolved disagreements among authors, reviewers, and editors. This information may provide helpful context for readers. It also increases the accountability of reviewers and editors.

We are pleased to announce the successful completion of the QSS transparent peer review pilot. An overwhelming majority of the authors who submitted their work to QSS decided to participate in the pilot. For 90% of the articles submitted to QSS during the pilot and accepted for publication in the journal, the authors agreed to publish the review reports. The review reports for these articles are openly available in Publons under a CC BY license. In a limited number of cases, reviewers decided to reveal their identity...."