From Opinion to Professional and Academic Reviews: A Focus on Editorial and PEEr Review Processes

Abstract

Reviews represent an integral part of academic work, an always up-to-date and significant contribution to scientific activities and their outputs. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to position and define academic reviews among other (professional versus opinion) reviews, and to focus on the review processes of academic publishers (and organsiations), by presenting theoretical knowledge, examples and practical advices. To this end, personal editorial (and related) experiences and literature sources were collected and processed. Academic reviews as specific types of professional reviews (opposite to opinion reviews) were found to ensure the validity of science and the dissemination of knowledge from research. Although to some extent these showed similarities to other (e.g. art) reviews, they had developed distinct processes in which editorial and peer reviews (usually) together resulted in the decision-making about the acceptance or rejection of manuscripts. While detailing the alike evaluation aspects/criteria of paper and thesis reviews, check lists and evaluation forms/sheets were introduced. Finally, the current challenges of editorial and peer review processes (i.e. preprints, open vs blind reviews, assigning reviewers, AI-assisted review process) were outlined.