{"id":3491,"date":"2020-02-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pl-asapbio.local\/convening-the-review-commons-community\/"},"modified":"2025-03-28T21:37:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T21:37:22","slug":"convening-the-review-commons-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/convening-the-review-commons-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Convening the Review Commons community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On December 9, 2019, ASAPbio, EMBO Press, and 17 affiliate journals launched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reviewcommons.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Review Commons<\/a>, a platform providing independent peer review prior to journal submission. At two subsequent community meetings (one in-person at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ascb.org\/2019ascbembo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ASCB|EMBO conference<\/a> and the other online the following week) the Review Commons team shared their motivations, planned workflow, and future vision. We also heard questions, concerns, and ideas about the project, which are summarized here as a composite of the two events. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7mjw_snf11g\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Review Commons? <\/h3>\n<p>The speed of scientific communication has not<br \/>\nkept pace with tremendous advances in web-based technology. For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/112\/44\/13439\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">graduates<br \/>\nstudents are taking on average one year longer<\/a> to publish their<br \/>\nfirst author work than they were 30 years ago, and the number of figure panels<br \/>\nper journal article has dramatically increased over the same period. One reason<br \/>\nfor these rising expectations may be that the existing journal publication<br \/>\nsystem performs many different functions for academic research, including<br \/>\ndissemination, evaluation, and curation. Despite more widespread adoption of<br \/>\npreprints to quickly disseminate research findings, evaluation of scientists is<br \/>\ntied to peer review via the perceived prestige of the journal they publish in.<br \/>\nConsequently, there\u2019s pressure to combine many results into a single \u201cbig<br \/>\nstory\u201d in an effort to publish in a high impact journal, and some papers are<br \/>\nserially <a href=\"https:\/\/researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/s41073-017-0045-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">resubmitted to many journals<\/a> in an effort to<br \/>\nfind the most prestigious possible home. This inefficient process depletes<br \/>\nvaluable peer review time and resources, leading to an estimated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aje.com\/arc\/peer-review-process-15-million-hours-lost-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">15 million hours of wasted reviewer time<\/a> per<br \/>\nyear. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"746\" height=\"388\" src=\"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_2-2.png\" alt=\"Image showing that publication is biology is taking longer and longer- there are many more panels Cell, Nature, and JCB articles in 2014 than in 1984. Grad students in Tetrad program at UCSF take about a year longer to produce a first-author paper in 2012-2014 vs 1979-1989\" class=\"wp-image-4155\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_2-2.png 746w, https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_2-2-300x156.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 746px) 100vw, 746px\"><figcaption> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/112\/44\/13439\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ron Vale, 2015<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Enter <em>Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/em>, \u201ca small village,\u201d in the words of Ron Vale (founder of ASAPbio),<br \/>\nin which collaborators are working to do something good for science. Ron<br \/>\nexplained that the goal is to inspire a cultural change in which reviews are<br \/>\nwritten in a spirit of partnership with the author for the improvement of<br \/>\nscience. In this model, reviewers focus on the science rather than journal fit.<br \/>\nMoreover, <em>Review Commons<\/em> aims to make<br \/>\nthe publishing process more efficient by facilitating better match-making<br \/>\nbetween scientists and journals. ASAPbio and EMBO are approaching <em>Review Commons<\/em> as an experiment in peer<br \/>\nreview.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"726\" height=\"346\" src=\"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_3-2.png\" alt=\"Uncoupling major events in scientific publication. Dissemination (sharing new results with the scientific community), Peer review (analysis of credibility, feedback to improve the work and its presentation), Evaluation (how communities view the quality and impact of the study)\" class=\"wp-image-4156\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_3-2.png 726w, https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_3-2-300x143.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 726px) 100vw, 726px\"><figcaption>Ron Vale &amp; Jessica Polka<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Initial reactions to the platform<\/h3>\n<p>Maria Leptin (Director of EMBO) reminded the<br \/>\naudience that the success of the project depends on engagement and adoption by<br \/>\nthe research community. Fortunately, the announcement of <em>Review Commons<\/em> was met with huge enthusiasm: during formation of<br \/>\nthe scientific advisory board, out of 109 invitations sent, 80 were accepted in<br \/>\nless than a week, with only 2 declines. Maria acknowledged that many from the<br \/>\nresearch community are wondering how <em>Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/em> will work if the referees don\u2019t know which journal the manuscript<br \/>\nis destined for. This reveals that our concept of peer review is deeply<br \/>\nentangled with journal brands; <em>Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/em> can help to differentiate between the scientific strength of a<br \/>\nmanuscript and the editorial assessment of suitability for publication in a<br \/>\nspecific journal. However, <em>Review Commons<\/em><br \/>\nis a limited-time trial, and by the end of 2020, the project will have to<br \/>\ndevelop a sustainable and scalable business model. <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Journal-agnostic, high-quality<br \/>\npeer review<\/h3>\n<p><em>Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/em> aims to decouple the many aspects of<br \/>\npublishing (dissemination, evaluation, and curation) by reversing the canonical<br \/>\nsequence of journal selection and peer review. The final output will be a peer<br \/>\nreviewed preprint that can be submitted, with the platform\u2019s facilitation, to<br \/>\none of 17 affiliate journals. The scope is currently in the life sciences,<br \/>\nwhere EMBO Press is confident in obtaining high-quality peer review. Thomas<br \/>\nLemberger (Deputy Head of Scientific Publications and <em>Review Commons<\/em> project lead at EMBO) emphasized that reviewers will<br \/>\nbe asked to evaluate the submitted work for what it is, not what it should or<br \/>\ncan be to fit the editorial standards of a specific journal. To learn more<br \/>\nabout the work flow, please watch Thomas\u2019 detailed description in the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/7mjw_snf11g?t=662\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recording<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"521\" src=\"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_4-2.png\" alt=\"Overview of Review Commons: preprint -&gt; selection &amp; peer-review-&gt; manuscript &amp; reviews -&gt; journal submission and\/or a refereed preprint. Benefits: preprints are evaluated as they stand. Faster dissemination. No serial re-reviewing cycles. Improved transparency.\" class=\"wp-image-4157\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_4-2.png 780w, https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_4-2-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/rc_4-2-768x513.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\"><figcaption>Screengrab from Thomas Lemberger\u2019s presentation <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>EMBO Press and ASAPbio will evaluate <em>Review Commons<\/em> periodically and use this<br \/>\ninformation to adapt the workflows and policies. <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Journals benefit from peer review<br \/>\nfocused on the science<\/h3>\n<p>Why engage as an affiliate journal? Bernd<br \/>\nPulverer (Head of Scientific Publications, EMBO) explained that <em>Review Commons<\/em> will help affiliate<br \/>\njournals adopt a more transparent publishing process in which reviews are<br \/>\nposted on preprints (see the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2019.12.13.875419v1#annotations:vvrwXkZ-EeqiSk-WEm0-Vw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">first Refereed Preprint<\/a> available on February<br \/>\n3, 2020). They will also benefit from the sequential manuscript transfer<br \/>\nnetwork from the platform to partner journals: since the first set of reviews<br \/>\nis coordinated centrally by <em>Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/em>, journals do not have to re-assign new referees for re-review of<br \/>\ntransferred manuscripts. This dramatically increases the overall efficacy of<br \/>\nthe peer review process. With <em>Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/em>, access to review reports <em>before<\/em><br \/>\nsubmitting to a journal can help authors choose an appropriate venue, which<br \/>\nfurther streamlines the editorial process. Through these measures, <em>Review Commons<\/em> can help conserve<br \/>\neditorial resources, potentially reducing the number of reviews per paper from<br \/>\n9-12 by the time of publication to 3-4. Because the platform may attract a new<br \/>\ndemographic of authors interested in transparent and innovative publishing,<br \/>\nthere may be a net increase in submissions to affiliate journals. The process<br \/>\nmay be challenged by: 1) too few or too many submissions, 2) poor quality<br \/>\nsubmissions leading to difficulty in securing referees, 3) referees that do not<br \/>\ncomply with requests to be journal agnostic, or 4) an uneven distribution of <em>Review Commons<\/em> transfers to certain<br \/>\npartner journals. EMBO and ASAPbio will monitor all of these possibilities.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Q&amp;A <\/h2>\n<p>After the presentations in both events,<br \/>\naudience members raised questions and made comments during Q&amp;A periods.<br \/>\nSome of those questions and corresponding answers from EMBO &amp; ASAPbio are<br \/>\nsummarized below.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The review process<\/h3>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How does the initial triage by<br \/>\nthe <em>Review Commons<\/em> managing editor<br \/>\nwork? <\/h4>\n<p>The initial triage decision is made by the<br \/>\nmanaging editor in consultation with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reviewcommons.org\/editors-and-board\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">advisory board<\/a>. To maintain a high-quality review process<br \/>\nand conserve the finite resource of reviewer time, preselection at the initial<br \/>\ntriage stage is kept quick and stringent, sending only studies that represent<br \/>\nsignificant advances to review.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How long will the peer review<br \/>\nprocess take? Could this process be faster than the journal-organized peer<br \/>\nreview? <\/h4>\n<p>A round of review at <em>Review Commons<\/em> may not be faster than review at affiliate journals<br \/>\n(approximately 28-30 days). If anything, it might be sometimes more challenging<br \/>\nto find reviewers because the platform is new. The biggest time saver is not<br \/>\nthe duration of a round of peer review, but rather the reduction of serial<br \/>\nsubmission and repetition of that process at other journals.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why is bioRxiv the only preprint<br \/>\nserver partner?<\/h4>\n<p>This decision was purely practical; bioRxiv is<br \/>\nthe dominant preprint server in the life sciences, and it supports the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cshl.edu\/transparent-review-in-preprints\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> that makes it possible to post the<br \/>\nreviews. Other preprint servers may be incorporated in the future. <\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Could the <em>Review Commons<\/em> Refereed Preprint be a final endpoint for a paper?<\/h4>\n<p>Yes, there is no obligation to submit to an<br \/>\naffiliate journal. These decisions will be tracked as a part of the analysis of<br \/>\nthe platform. Authors can also exit the <em>Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/em> system and submit to another journal with the peer review reports<br \/>\nthey received. <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Transparency and data sharing<\/h3>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Will cross-commenting be<br \/>\nanonymous? Can reviewers disclose their identities to one another? <\/h4>\n<p>Believing that the most important component of<br \/>\nreviews is the scientific content, <em>Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/em> will conduct cross-commenting anonymously, unless reviewers decide<br \/>\nto sign their reviews. <\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What level of transparency will<br \/>\nthere be about time to transfer, time in review, cost savings, etc?<\/h4>\n<p>The time of review will be posted on a<br \/>\nrefereed preprint. Other results will be reported in aggregate to report on <em>Review Commons. <\/em><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Will the editorial decision of<br \/>\nthe affiliate journals be visible to each other? <\/h4>\n<p>No, the decisions of the affiliate journal<br \/>\nwill not be visible to other affiliate journals during transfer. If authors are<br \/>\nunsatisfied with their reviews, they can withdraw from <em>Review Commons<\/em&gt;; in this case reviews won\u2019t be posted to bioRxiv and\nauthors can proceed to submit to another journal to start review afresh. As\ndescribed in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reviewcommons.org\/authors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Guidelines for Authors<\/a>, \u201c<em>Review Commons<\/em> reserves the right to reject manuscripts at any<br \/>\npoint if ethical, biosecurity or scientific integrity issues arise. In serious<br \/>\ncases, <em>Review Commons<\/em> may post a note<br \/>\nof editorial concern next to the public reviews.\u201d <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Future perspectives for Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/h3>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How will <em>Review Commons<\/em> scale up?<\/h4>\n<p>Currently there are 16 EMBO scientific editors<br \/>\naccessing a network of 20,000 registered referees, which would otherwise take<br \/>\nseveral years to build from scratch. In the future, EMBO may consider deploying<br \/>\nadditional editors from affiliate journals, increasing the scope of research<br \/>\nreviewed, and including other journals in the affiliate network.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Would <em>Review Commons<\/em> consider partnering with community review projects?<\/h4>\n<p>Perhaps, but probably not in the beginning due<br \/>\nto limited resources. Efforts are underway to make <em>Review Commons<\/em> more interoperable and portable for potential<br \/>\nintegration with other peer review projects. <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Public perception and cultural<br \/>\nchange in publishing<\/h3>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Will journals view <em>Review Commons<\/em> Refereed Preprints as<br \/>\npublication? <\/h4>\n<p><em>Review<br \/>\nCommons<\/em> will not make an editorial accept\/reject<br \/>\ndecision, which is one of the features distinguishing it from journals. That<br \/>\nsaid, it\u2019s unclear whether some journals outside of the affiliate network will<br \/>\nview this as competition in publishing. <\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who will consider a <em>Review Commons<\/em> Refereed Preprints as<br \/>\nvalid as journal publication? <\/h4>\n<p>It will depend on the different contexts of<br \/>\n\u2018validity.\u2019 Valid for readers keeping up with the latest science? Valid for<br \/>\ncareer assessment? Valid for funding? It will be interesting to see how <em>Refereed Preprints<\/em> are adopted across<br \/>\nthese use cases. <\/p>\n<p><em>Are you ready to send a manuscript to Review Commons? Contribute to the discussion by following <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/refereedpreprint\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#RefereedPreprint<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/reviewcommons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@ReviewCommons<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>By Victoria Yan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On December 9, 2019, ASAPbio, EMBO Press, and 17 affiliate journals launched Review Commons, a platform providing independent peer review prior to journal submission. At two subsequent community meetings (one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asapbio-news","category-peer-review"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3492,"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491\/revisions\/3492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}