Editor and reviewer guidelines

Peer Review at ScienceBank

The ScienceBank peer-review process is designed to validate academic work, help to improve the quality of published research, and — where the community provides for it — remunerate the Editor and Reviewer(s) for their time in contributing to the great good of scientific publishing.

ScienceBank recognises four peer-review models. Each community operates one of them:

• Double-blind — Authors do not learn who reviewed their manuscript, and Reviewers do not learn who wrote it.
• Single-blind — Authors’ and institute’s names are visible to Reviewers and Editors; Reviewers’ identities are withheld from Authors.
• Open — Identities are visible to all parties.
• Post-publication — Identities are visible to all parties, as in open review. The workflow this model names, in which an article is published before it is reviewed, is not built: a manuscript in a post-publication community moves through the same review-then-publish sequence as any other. No ScienceBank community operates this model.

Every ScienceBank community currently operates double-blind review. The model in force is a property of the community, not of ScienceBank as a whole. The communities directory can be filtered by review model, and each community sets out its own peer review policy on its About page. Check the community you are working with before you accept an invitation — the guidance below applies to whichever model that community runs.

What double-blind means in practice

While a manuscript is under active review in a double-blind community:

• Authors’ names, email addresses, ORCID iDs and institutes are withheld from Reviewers and from the handling Editors. In manuscript conversations an Author appears as ‘Author 1’, ‘Author 2’, and so on.
• Reviewers’ names and institutes are withheld from Authors. In manuscript conversations a Reviewer appears as ‘Reviewer 1’, ‘Reviewer 2’, and so on.
• Reviewers’ names and institutes are anonymised to each other during the peer-review process.
• Reviewers do not see editorial decision letters; this holds in every model. In a blinded community they also do not see how the article processing charge for a submission is being funded, because funding information can narrow the Author pool in a small community; in an open community the funding source is visible to Reviewers along with everything else.
• Platform administrators retain access to identities for audit, integrity and compliance purposes.

Blinding of the Author’s identity is lifted once the manuscript reaches a decision — accepted, rejected, withdrawn, or moved into production — because the review is over at that point and a published article carries its Authors’ names. Blinding of the Reviewer’s identity is not lifted by a decision. A Reviewer’s name is never disclosed to the Author. Signing a review is offered at the moment the review is submitted and records that the Reviewer is willing to be named, but the only person it is shown to is the handling Editor.

Keeping a manuscript blind is a shared responsibility. Authors are asked to keep self-identifying material out of the manuscript file; Editors and Reviewers must not try to identify an Author — for example by searching for the manuscript text online — and must tell ScienceBank if an identity becomes apparent to them.

The peer-review record

The peer-review record is not published and is not registered with Crossref. No reviewer identity, review text, score or recommendation appears on the published article or in the metadata ScienceBank deposits, and communities have no setting that changes that. Review comments are machine-translated so that Authors and Editors can read them in their own language, which means the text of a review is sent to ScienceBank’s translation provider; it is not published anywhere.

How to Conduct Reviews

Step 1: Accepting or Rejecting an invitation

Once you receive an invitation from ScienceBank, then you must decide whether to accept or reject the opportunity to be an Editor or Reviewer for the manuscript. Please consider the following:

Do you have the right expertise?

It is important that you possess enough understanding of the area, and the methods and style used to demonstrate scientific findings. It is desirable, but not critical, that you have direct knowledge about the topic of the manuscript and have a grounding in the research within this area. You must be able to make critical judgments and give feedback to the Author.

Do you have the time?

Make sure you have the time to review and comment on the submission before committing to review. Read the manuscript entirely before you start providing input.

Can you be objective?

You must make a judgement call on whether you can be an objective Reviewer. Some potential conflicting or competing interests, may, for example, be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political, or religious. Please review the ScienceBank policies and seek advice from the ScienceBank team if you have concerns. In a double-blind community you are not told who the Authors are, so a competing interest may only become apparent to you later. If that happens, say so immediately.

What does this review pay?

Reviewer compensation is set by each community, not centrally. Where a community has not set a rate, the invitation carries no compensation and the review is unpaid. If you do not yet have a ScienceBank account and an Editor invites you by email, the amount payable on completion of the review is stated in that email and on the invitation page; if you already have an account and an Editor invites you from within the platform, no figure is shown — ask the Editor or the ScienceBank team what the community’s rate is before you accept. The amount you are paid is the community’s rate at the moment you submit your completed review, so if the community changes its rate while your review is in progress, the new rate applies. Do not assume a figure.

Are you unsure of any of the questions above?

Not every answer is likely to be definitive. As such, you are encouraged to reach out to the ScienceBank team to get advice—for example, when you have the right expertise for some of the areas but feel unsure about others, if you need a little more time than the deadline, or if you can be objective but have a potential competing interest.

Step 2: Understanding the ScienceBank standards

How is ScienceBank peer review different from Standard peer review?

Our model of "Constructive Expert Review" differs from traditional peer review in several critical aspects.

Current Model:

• Traditional peer review primarily focuses on determining whether a paper should be accepted or rejected.

Constructive Expert Review:

• The most critical aspect of Constructive Expert Review (CER) is not the acceptance or rejection decision, but rather providing:

  1. An independent opinion about the academic quality of the work, and
  2. Specific recommendations for improving the work, thinking like a collaborator or mentor whilst maintaining impartiality and standards

Current Model:

• The evaluation of work quality varies depending on the context, such as the journal's impact or profile. Reviewers and Editors may request extensive revisions for manuscripts submitted to high-impact journals compared to those submitted to lower-profile journals.

Constructive Expert Review:

• In CER, ScienceBank does not differentiate between specialised or broad-interest articles, nor between high or low-profile manuscripts. Instead, CER focuses on an internally consistent and relevant evaluation of the paper's data strength with the claims made.

Current Model:

• Traditional peer review often takes an adversarial approach, with Reviewers and Editors opposing Authors and engaging in iterative and sometimes unproductive interactions.

Constructive Expert Review:

• CER adopts a collaborative process, where expert and external Reviewers provide constructive critiques to improve the work. The emphasis is on collaboration and constructive feedback rather than adversarial interactions.

Step 3: Reading the manuscript:

• Step 1: Use the ScienceBank peer-review web app

  • Access the manuscript from your dashboard
  • Read more than once. Take notes with page numbers. You can do this directly in the ScienceBank web app or do so using a different method but then add them to the app when you want to submit your review

• Step 2: Determine what the manuscript is about

  • Does the abstract include the key questions, methods, and findings of the research?
  • Does the abstract disclose why the article is important for the field?
  • Has the Author identified the main question and key claims in the introduction? What is the related research and how their study fits into that context?
  • Is the introduction of appropriate length or is there too much information that better fits a review paper?

• Step 3: Methods and study design

  • Are the methods appropriate?
  • Are power calculations provided where needed?
  • Are critical results examined by at least two independent methods?
  • Does the study meet reporting guidelines and ethical standards?

• Step 4: Results

  • Is the presentation of results clear? Do they line up with what is being shown in figures and tables?

• Step 5: Conclusions

  • Are they supported by the study and data presented?
  • Are there any speculative statements properly labelled as such?

• Step 6: How can this manuscript be improved?

  • What high-impact amendments would greatly improve this work?

Checklist:

• Please use this checklist as a guide to help you review:

  • Figures and Tables: Are they presented and correctly labeled?
  • Methods: Are they sufficiently detailed and the Reviewer can follow them?
  • Study design: Are they appropriate for the question? Are any experiments missing? Do they meet reporting guidelines and ethical standards?
  • Statistics: Are they sound, or do you recommend additional statistical analysis is necessary?
  • Results and data: Do they support the conclusions? Is all data accessible?
  • References: Are any missing?
  • Title: Is it appropriate and informative

Step 4: Writing the review

You will need to give your feedback directly in the web application.

1. How to write feedback to Authors

• Anchor each point to the passage it concerns. Every comment is recorded as a Comment, a Highlight, a Suggestion or a Question, so the Author can see what kind of response you are asking for.
• Lay out clearly what the Author has done well and what the Author needs to do to improve the study. Say so where something looks good — praise is as useful to an Author as criticism.
• Do not grade your own comments as ‘major’ or ‘minor’. Once peer review closes, the handling Editor categorises every comment as Critical, In scope, Optional or Out of scope, and the Author is required to respond to the Critical and In-scope ones. Write each comment clearly enough that the Editor can categorise it correctly.
• Focus on what is relevant to the current study—do not give feedback that causes additional work that may be the next stage of research.

2. Completing your review

• Give an overall recommendation: Accept, Minor revision, Major revision or Reject.
• Write your comments to the Author. You may also write confidential comments to the Editor, which the Author does not see.
• Score the manuscript for originality, significance, methodology and clarity.
• Re-confirm that you have no competing interest, including any that has become apparent since you accepted.
• Declare any use of AI tools in preparing your review, and describe that use (see the AI section below).
• Choose whether to sign your review. Signing records with the handling Editor that you are willing to be named; in a blinded community it does not disclose your name to the Author. It is optional, and declining to sign carries no penalty.

3. Additional advice:

• Think like a collaborator, help the Author get this manuscript published.
• Do not spend time pointing out typos or grammatical issues—the focus is on the research.
• Say what you liked about the manuscript.
• Keep the tone respectful and professional.
• Put yourself in the Author's shoes and write the review you would like to receive.

4. Contact ScienceBank or the Editor if you have any concerns:

• If you become aware that you (the Reviewer) have competing interests once you have delved deeper
• If you have concerns about ethics or misconduct evidenced within the manuscript
• If an Author’s identity becomes apparent to you in a blinded community
• If you need to drop out from the review process because of unforeseen circumstances

Editor Guidelines

ScienceBank Editors have slightly different accountabilities than working with traditional journals. In addition to the Reviewer guidelines, the Editor is responsible for the following:

1. Selecting and inviting Reviewers: The handling Editor — the Editor-in-Chief, an Associate Editor, or the community owner — selects the Reviewers and issues the invitations from the manuscript’s editorial screen. Reviewers can be invited by searching ScienceBank’s registered users by name or exact email address, or by sending an invitation to an email address that has no ScienceBank account. ScienceBank runs automated competing-interest checks on every invitation, including a check against the manuscript’s author list, and blocks an invitation that fails them. When you invite someone who already has a ScienceBank account, the automated checks run as the invitation is issued; when that Reviewer accepts, they confirm for themselves that they have no competing interest, and that confirmation is recorded but is not re-checked against the author list. When you invite an email address with no ScienceBank account, only the manuscript’s own author email addresses can be checked at the point of sending — the full automated check runs when the invitee creates their account and accepts, and it can refuse the invitation at that point. Those checks are a backstop, not a substitute for editorial judgement. Editors and Reviewers should contact ScienceBank if they identify any potentially competing interests that should be declared or that mean they, or a Reviewer, should recuse themselves from the process.

2. Similarity screening: Every manuscript is screened for text similarity before editorial assessment. Where a similarity report cannot be produced — for example because the screening service is unavailable — the manuscript is marked ‘review required’ for the Editor rather than being shown as cleared. That marking is not evidence of misconduct: it means no report exists, and the Editor must decide how to proceed rather than assume the manuscript is clean.

3. Desk check: Editors must decide whether the submission meets the ScienceBank criteria to qualify for peer review before Reviewers are invited. Editors must review the submission information to ensure the Author has provided the appropriate levels of information as per the ScienceBank guidelines and policies. Editors can desk-reject a submission if they do not think that it meets the ScienceBank policies or if there are significant errors in the submission. In a double-blind community the desk check is made without the Author names and affiliations, which are withheld from the Editor for the same reason they are withheld from Reviewers; where an integrity question genuinely turns on Author identity, refer it to ScienceBank rather than trying to deduce it from the manuscript.

4. Decision on publishing readiness post-peer-review: Editors have sole accountability as to whether a manuscript is fit for publication after considering feedback from Reviewers. Every decision is recorded together with a written decision letter to the Author; the platform will not record a decision without one. Editors have four options after peer review has taken place:

5. Accept: the manuscript meets the criteria for publication without further updates required from the Author.

6. Minor revision: the Author is asked to make small, well-defined changes before the manuscript is reconsidered.

7. Major revision: the Author is asked to make substantial changes and resubmit. Editors are required to categorise the issues raised during the peer-review process as ‘Critical’, ‘In scope’, ‘Optional’ or ‘Out of scope’. Authors are required to address every ‘Critical’ and ‘In scope’ issue in their resubmission, and may optionally address the rest. The ScienceBank platform makes this workflow simple and quick to achieve.

8. Reject: the Editor deems the manuscript unfit for publication where the scope of changes is such that a completely new submission is the best course of action for the Author. The Editor will need to give clear reasons why they are Rejecting the manuscript and provide recommendations to the Author.

9. Reviewing resubmissions: Editors can make an executive decision on the publishing readiness of resubmitted manuscripts. They can also choose to invite one, or all, Reviewers to review the resubmission. The key accountability for the Editor in the resubmission process includes the following:

10. Editors are required to review all responses that Authors give to the ‘Critical’ and ‘In scope’ issues that the Editor has categorised.

11. Editors must judge whether the responses are adequate. An Editor who is not satisfied — because a required issue has not been addressed, or because an issue remains open — requests a further revision and explains why in the decision letter.

12. Editors must review replies to responses that Authors make to ‘Optional’ and ‘Out of scope’ issues, to ensure that new changes are appropriately reviewed.

Confidentiality

The peer-review process is confidential to all parties. Editors and Reviewers must treat manuscripts under peer review in strict confidence and should not share information about submissions with any other parties unless previously agreed with ScienceBank. Editors and Reviewers are prohibited to make use of any material or take advantage of any information they gain through the peer-review process. Uploading a manuscript, or any part of one, to a third-party service — including a general-purpose AI assistant — is a breach of that confidence.

Editing and Reviewing Using Artificial Intelligence (AI)

ScienceBank supports the responsible use of AI tools, and this is further described in the ‘Ethical Publishing Practice’ section. At present, AI technology including but not limited to Large Language Models (LLMs) presents challenges to ensure data accuracy, confidentiality, and respect for intellectual property. Therefore, ScienceBank strongly advises Editors and Reviewers against the use of AI technologies for verifying data in the articles, drafting their reviews, or making final decisions.

When you submit a review you are asked to declare whether you used AI tools in preparing it, and to describe that use. Declare it: an honest disclosure is not held against you, an undisclosed use is.

If Editors and Reviewers make inappropriate use of LLMs, ScienceBank reserves the right to reject their contributions. In such cases, a new peer-review process will recommence to ensure transparency, objectivity, accuracy, and respectful treatment toward Authors and their work.