Email info@brookfieldacademic.com

Review an Article and Share Your Expertise With the World.

We believe peer review and publishing processes should be as efficient and robust as possible.

About Peer Review

Review by academic peers is an essential part of the scholarly publishing and communication process. By sharing their expert opinion, researchers evaluate and improve the research of their peers. Even if an article has been published and ‘passed’ peer review, you can still comment on it, as research is a continuous process.

To perform a peer review, all you need are 5 records associated with your ORCID to demonstrate that you are an active and professional researcher.

Checklist for Reviewers

  • Did you have an account in the relevant journal? If not, create an account and select the role of a reviewer.
  • Do you have a record of 5 publications? Reviewers are required to have published at least five scientific manuscripts. Share your ORCID profile to reflect your prior publications.
  • Did you do your best to minimize bias? When writing a review, you must officially declare that you have no “competing interests” that might compromise your independent assessment. Please read our statement on competing interests.
  • Are you aware that your review and/or comments are not sent to the authors under your full name? We adhere to double-blind peer review.
  • Are you aware of the following aims and objectives of the peer review process?

 

Aims and Objectives of Reviews

  • Reviews should result from an in-depth and thorough evaluation of a research manuscript.
  • Reviews should aim to help readers decide if an article is scientifically sound, meets academic standards and is worth reading in its present form. They can either encompass the entire paper or just a single aspect.
  • We do not expect reviewers to decide if a manuscript is “worthy of publication”. The expert review comments should mainly aim to assist both authors and readers and improve the value of the associated research.
  • Reviewers should guide authors and encourage them to further improve their skills and research.

Reviews consist of two parts:

General Factors Ratings

Please provide a rating from one star (poor) to five stars (excellent)

Level of importance:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Is the publication of relevance for the academic community and does it provide important insights? Does the work represent a novel approach or new findings in comparison with other publications in the field?

Level of validity:

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Is the hypothesis clearly formulated? Is the argumentation stringent? Are the data sound, well-controlled and statistically significant? Is the interpretation balanced and supported by the data? Are appropriate and state-of-the-art methods used?

Level of completeness:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Do the authors reference the appropriate scholarly context? Do the authors provide or cite all information to follow their findings or argumentation? Do they cite all relevant publications in the field?

Level of comprehensibility:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Is the language correct and easy to understand for an academic in the field? Are the figures well displayed and captions properly described? Is the article systematically and logically organized?

The Written Review Report

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

After assigning the manuscript rating, reviewers may submit a written review (up to 10,000 characters). Reviews should stick to the aims and objectives set out above. Try to structure your review as a list of major points followed by minor points, and conclude with an overall impression of the manuscript. Keep in mind that the audience for the review includes both authors and editors. Reviews, comments and the average rating are displayed along with the article and are included in the article metadata.

Who is Able to Review?

Registered Members who meet certain conditions are able to contribute to the review process in two different ways:

Registered Members

Members with at least one publication linked from their ORCID account are able to review/ comment on a paper.

Scientific & Expert Members

Scientific Members and Expert Members with at least five publications linked from their ORCID account are able to write a review and rate an article

We do make exceptions, and users who do not meet these criteria but still wish to perform a peer review should contact us.

Who is Able to Select and Invite Reviewers?

Authors are free to invite suitable reviewers for their own manuscript – as long as they are in accordance with our Peer Review Policy. There are no limits on the number of invited reviews. Editor-in-Chief or other journal editors may invite additional peers to review your work.

Before reviewing and sharing your feedback, please remember the following:

Reviewers need to register at the relevant journal and use their unique ORCID identifier before they are able to review an article. We expect reviewers to enter their full name and affiliation in ORCID, in order to make it easier for others to verify their identity.

  • We expect reviewers to declare any potential competing interests that might have an influence on their independent judgment and refrain from writing a review when the judgment is biased by other conflicting interests. Furthermore, we expect reviewers to only review articles that clearly fall into their field of expertise.
  • We expect reviewers to write comprehensive and balanced reviews. The major intention of reviews is to encourage authors to further improve their work and to support readers in judging the overall quality of the work in its current state. Especially negative reviews should be well justified and explained in great detail.
  • We encourage reviewers to take the practice of open science into account when writing a review. Did the authors deposit all relevant research data, data sets, and protocols in a public domain database or repository? Do the authors share research tools (reagents, cell lines, animal models, vectors, etc.)?