Imbalance in individual researcher's peer review activities quantified for four British Ecological Society journals, 2003-2010.

ABSTRACT: Researchers contribute to the scientific peer review system by providing reviews, and "withdraw" from it by submitting manuscripts that are subsequently reviewed. So far as we are aware, there has been no quantification of the balance of individual's contributions and withdrawals. We compared the number of reviews provided by individual researchers (i.e., their contribution) to the number required by their submissions (i.e. their withdrawals) in a large and anonymised database provided by the British Ecological Society. The database covered the Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology, Journal of Applied Ecology, and Functional Ecology from 2003-2010. The majority of researchers (64%) did not have balanced contributions and withdrawals. Depending on assumptions, 12% to 44% contributed

SUBMITTER: Petchey OL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3962470 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature