As a minimum, the names of all peer reviewers who have submitted a peer review report or completed peer review checklist during the current calendar year will be published on the CRG website, unless the peer reviewer has not consented to this. Lists from previous years must be archived and publically accessible from the CRG website. See Acknowledgement and credit for peer reviewers for further details.
Identifying peer reviewers to acknowledge
To generate a list of peer reviewers who have submitted a peer review report or completed a peer review checklist during the current calendar year, the following actions can be taken
Prospectively - via workflows
A new custom task should be inserted parallel to task D1 ‘Send comments to Contact Editor’ in the current active workflow or added to the workflow template. The new task could be named 'Add names of peer reviewers to CRG website' and the following text could be added to the Description (for that task) ‘Names of peer reviewers who agreed to be acknowledged to CRG’s website should be added’.
Retrospectively - via an Archie search
The following advanced search could be run in Archie for a given calendar year.
The Tasks option should be selected at the top with the Match all rows (AND) option.
Group | Is | Name of CRG
Workflow Role | Is | Peer reviewer
Task Name | Is | Review and comment on draft protocol
Status | Is | Completed
Start | After | 01/01/2018
End or Due | Before | 30/04/2018
The list generated would then need to be checked as the above search still catches the ‘Review and comment on draft review’ task where it has been skipped or completed (but the peer reviewer has failed to send feedback and the decision 'No Response' was recorded against the Decision: Comments clear and complete?).
The above search will also capture Consumer peer reviewers and these are easily identifiable from the list generated provided the person is given the Group role of 'Referee' and in the current workflow, in the People’s tab, Referees, Type Consumer is selected.
Using 'Notes'
Another suggestion for managing this process is to use the 'Notes' tab for each peer reviewer that agrees to peer review and is happy to be acknowledged on the CRG website. Please ensure that the peer reviewer has been assigned a Group role of 'Referee'. A new Administrative note should be created in their Properties sheet with the title ‘2018 peer reviewed and agreed acknowledgement’. The name of the protocol/review that the person peer reviewed could be added to the Note text.
The following advanced search could then be run in Archie for a given calendar year:
The People option should be selected at the top with the Match all rows (AND) option.
Role in Group | Referee | Eyes and Vision Group | Active
Note Title | Contains | 2018 peer reviewed and agreed acknowledgement
Display on CRG website
To display the list of peer reviewers on the CRG website, add a page to your website titled "Peer reviewers 2018". The list of peer reviewers names can be a chronological list, an alphabetical list, separated by country or type of peer reviewer etc., as preferred by the CRG. See the following suggested wording:
We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of all peer reviewers. The Cochrane X Group aims to involve clinical peer and consumer reviewers in the assessment of all protocols and reviews before publication. The following people have contributed to the peer review process in YEAR:
Clinical reviewers:
XXXX
XXXX
Consumer reviewers:
XXXX
XXXX
Anonymous peer reviewers: If this has been agreed according to the linked policy (Exceptions to named peer review: special cases), the following wording can also be added: "We also wish to acknowledge peer reviewers who have chosen to remain anonymous, as an exceptional circumstance agreed with the Editor in Chief."
Example: See Cochrane Wounds for an example of how the annual lists of peer reviewers can be displayed on the CRG website.
Acknowledgement in the Cochrane Review
If the Cochrane Review authors agree and permission is granted by the peer reviewer (as requested in the peer review checklist), peer reviewers should be acknowledged in the published Cochrane Review; for example:
“The authors [or the CRG Editorial Team, if you prefer] are grateful to the following peer reviewers for their time and comments: [Insert peer reviewer names and affiliations]”.
Anonymous peer reviewers: If this has been agreed according to the linked policy (Exceptions to named peer review: special cases), use wording to ensure that it is clear how many peer reviewers were involved in the process, for example:
"The authors [or the CRG Editorial Team, if you prefer] are grateful to the following peer reviewers for their time and comments: [insert peer reviewer names and affiliations], and also to the [insert number of anonymous peer reviewers] who wish to remain anonymous, as an exceptional circumstance agreed with the Editor in Chief.
Other forms of acknowledgment
Peer reviewers may, in some circumstances, receive payment from the CRG; for example, for undertaking a rapid review or when specialist/expert input is needed. This is at the discretion of the CRG, who will fund this payment.
Certificates are appreciated by some peer reviewers, who are able to use the official recognition of peer review to count towards their continuing professional development (CPD), or continuing professional education (CPE). CRGs may wish to generate certificates for each completed peer review report, on an annual basis, or to highlight the contributions of particularly frequent peer reviewers (e.g. the top 5 peer reviewers in a calendar year). This is by no means mandatory.
Other avenues for acknowledging peer reviewer contributions that CRGs should be aware of are Publons and ORCID. In both instances the peer reviewer is responsible for registering with the relevant service and creating a profile. Peer reviewers can also earn Cochrane Membership through completing Peer review tasks.
Publons
Publons is a service that provides credits for peer review in a format that can be used in CVs and funding applications. See the Publons website for more information.
Cochrane peer reviewers can set up an account on Publons and then forward their peer review acknowledgement emails from Archie (received upon submission of a peer review report/completed checklist) to Publons so that their peer review activity can be recorded to their profile.
Note that Publons has the facility to upload full peer review reports. As peer reviewers of Cochrane Reviews are bound to confidentiality until the Cochrane Review is published (see the Committee on Publication Ethics’ Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers), peer review reports of Cochrane Reviews that have yet to be published should not be posted to Publons. Any confidential comments to the Editor should also not be posted on Publons.
ORCID
ORCID provides a unique, persistent digital identifier to all registered researchers to support automated links between the researcher and their professional activities to ensure that work is recognised and attributed correctly. Peer review activity can be recorded in an ORCID account, either via a service such as Publons, or it may be added manually.
ORCID identifiers can be recorded in peer reviewers' individual Archie accounts; see International editorial organizations: information for Cochrane Editors.