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In recent years, we have attended to major changes in scholarly publishing. Not so many years ago, journals printed the issues they published and distributed them by postal mail. We tend to think that this distribution targeted a reduced number of people who, somehow, paid for all the costs. Payment could be made through subscriptions, individual or institutional, or by becoming affiliated with the scientific society that published the journal. In fact, however, this is not completely true. Many of these scientific or professional societies considered publishing to be their social responsibility and published journals without any for-profit business model: the so-called gratis journals.
The advent of new technologies, such as the internet, the PDF, cheap formatting tools, and free journal management systems, have made it possible for scientific and professional societies to keep publishing their journals but also for new societies to begin the adventure of publishing for free. Gratis journals are frequently and purposefully ignored in the open access debate. Of the 9,699 journals indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) in 2017, 6,827 have no article processing charges. They are gratis journals published according to a collaborative publishing philosophy.
However, gratis journals live ‘between two fires’: subscription journals and APC journals. Both are owned by large corporations that publish under a for-profit business model. Many of the discussions in journalology are biased in that they take into account only these two main types of business-oriented publishers.
One of these hot topics is also one of the main problems in today’s scholarly publishing: peer review. Although peer review may have a very long history1, this process was systematically implemented in publishing only in the 1960s.2 From that time forward, we consider “peer-reviewed journals” as synonymous with quality journals. However, we are facing a massive crisis in publishing: editors face a huge problem when trying to find high-quality peer reviewers for a manuscript. Editors have to ask many potential reviewers in order to obtain two or three who accept the task. The other potential reviewers usually decline because they are too busy at that moment. Authors should be aware that this lengthy process is responsible for the publication delay that annoys them so much.3,43,4
The peer-review crisis is posing a risk to the scholarly peer-reviewed journal system. One can find an amazing number of articles predicting the future of peer review. Publishers have also produced a report entitled “What might peer review look like in 2030”.5 It seems that, years ago, reviewers accepted collaboration for the sake of contributing to the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Then, giving credit to the reviewers became crucial. In addition, more recently, the idea of reimbursing reviewers for their service is frequently raised.6 The absence of pre-publication review has also been presented as a solution to the peer-review crisis.
If we want the paying-to-review model, we have to consider who should pay. Copiello calculated the costs of peer review and suggested a “reward scheme for peer review”.7 He suggested that subscription journal publishers and publishers charging APC should reallocate a portion of their “two-digit profit rates”. How can we control this? At the end of the day, subscribers and authors would end up paying for the peer review. And, again, we would be ignoring the existence of gratis journals.
The elimination of pre-publication peer-review is an extreme solution that has also been suggested. A post-publication review system is commonly used in some disciplines such as physics, where a researcher publishes an idea that is then critiqued by colleagues. However, a major difference between physics and medical or pharmaceutical fields exists: in our areas, we make decisions that affect patients and healthcare systems based on what is published. In these cases, while peer review is not a guarantee, it helps to reduce errors not only in publications but also in clinical practice.8
Before supporting these new systems, a thorough evaluation of their consequences in different areas should be conducted through rigorous studies. Rennie recently reminded us that “any advertised advantages of new arrangements are unsupported assertions”.9
The shortage of peer reviewers makes no sense for many reasons. The term ‘peer’ is the key in this rationale. Peer means colleague, or equal. Authors and reviewers are essentially the same people with different tasks. In fact, a good peer review represents an enormous contribution to a good paper, so the contribution of peer reviewers should be recognized in the final version of the paper. The first barrier to giving credit is the maintenance of the anonymized review. While many journals are moving to open the review process, or testing the feasibility10 of doing so, others have started offering the ability to conceal the process even more.11 Solutions such as Publons (publons.com) were created to register assignments completed by reviewers, and curriculum platforms such as ORCID (orcid.org) are now importing these records. If we take into consideration that a peer reviewer is a contributor to the final version of the paper, why not acknowledge that contribution in the same way that we acknowledge collaborators in PubMed? Since March 2008, NLM includes the names of the individual collaborators that make up a collective authorship in a field called ‘Investigator’.12 Thus, NLM currently differentiates two levels of contributorship to an article: authors [AU] and investigators [IR] (displayed as collaborators). Why not include a third level of contributorship, the reviewer?
Pharmacy Practice wants to recognize the extremely important role of reviewers by publishing an editorial in the first issue of each year with a collective authorship including all the reviewers that contributed during the previous year.
Pharmacy Practice 2017 peer reviewers
Two reviews
Andrew D. Berti, University of Wisconsin, United States
Denise Yeung, Parkland Health & Hospital System, United States
Kazeem B. Yusuff, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia
Mohamed E. El Zowalaty, Jazan University, Saudi Arabia
One review
Eyob D. Adane, Ohio Northern University, United States
Sinaa Al-Aqeel, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia
Ali Azeez Al-Jumaili, University of Iowa, United States
Edita Alili-Idrizi, State University of Tetovo, Macedonia
Marija Anđelković, Sports Medicine Association of Serbia, Serbia
Anil Aranha, Wayne State University Health Center, United States
Mohammad Arief, UCSI University, Malaysia
Wiwat Arkaravichien, Khon Kaen University, Thailand
Xavier Armoiry, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Omar F. Attarabeen, Marshall University, United States
Nehad Ayoub, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan
Beata V. Bajorek, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Paul Beninger, Tufts University, United States
Sarah J. Billups, Kaiser Permanente Colorado, United States
Jane F. Bowen, University of the Sciences, United States
Carla Bouwmeester, Northeastern University, United States
Patrick Campbell, University of Arizona, United States
Vincent Chan, RMIT University, Australia
Sharon E. Connor, University of Pittsburgh, United States
Larry H. Danziger, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
Omar T. Dawood, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia
Mark Dunnenberger, NorthShore University Health System, United States
Selwa Elrouby, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom
Souhiela Fakih, Chapman University, United States
Rana K. Abu Farha, Applied Science University, Jordan
Isabel V. Figueiredo, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Nazanin Foroutan, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran
Lauren E. Forsythe, UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, United States
Caitlin K. Frail, Purdue University, United States
Dan Friesner, North Dakota State University, United States
Kylie Funk, University of Minnesota, United States
Caroline Gaither, University of Minnesota, United States
Casey E. Gallimore, University of Wisconsin, United States
Vincent Gan, Parkway Pantai, Malaysia
Beate H. Garcia, University of Tromsø, Norway
Jessica L. Gaskins, North Carolina State University, United States
Miguel A. Gastelurrutia, University of Granada, Spain
Justin Gatwood, University of Tennessee, United States
Cheryl K. Genord, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, United States
Eric Gilliam, University of Colorado, United States
Nancy Hope Goodbar, Presbyterian College, United States
Maxine Gossell-Williams, University of the West Indies, Jamaica
Quinn Grundy, University of Sydney, Australia
Line Guénette, Université Laval, Canada
Muhammad A. Hadi, Umm-Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia
Souheil Hallit, Lebanese University, Lebanon
Drayton A. Hammond, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, United States
Racha S. Hawasli, Kingston University, United Kingdom
Maria T. Herdeiro, University of Aveiro, Portugal
Andi Hermansyah, University of Sydney, Australia
Ana L. Hincapie, University of Cincinnati, United States
James D. Hoehns, University of Iowa, United States
Lutfun N. Hossain, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Brooke Hudspeth, Kroger, United States
Mohamed I. B. M. Ibrahim, Qatar University, Qatar
Farida Islahudin, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
Ramune Jacobsen, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark
Matthew Jones, University of Bath, United Kingdom
Sofia Kälvemark Sporrong, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Pamela Kantelhardt, Johannes-Gutenberg University, Germany
Thando Katangwe, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom
Maram G. Katoue, Kuwait University, Kuwait
Sean R. King, Union University, United States
Moira Kinnear, NHS Lothian Pharmacy Service, United Kingdom
Lisa Kouladjian O’Donnell, University of Sydney, Australia
Sandra V. Kovačević, University of Belgrade. Serbia
Ines Krass, University of Sydney, Australia
Sarah K. Kraus, Pennsylvania Hospital, United States
Dragana Lakić, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Danielle Larson, University of Iowa, United States
Kate LeMay, University of Sydney, Australia
Benjamin C. Loh, Hospital Queen Elizabeth, Malaysia
Nicole Lowres, University of Sydney, Australia
Karen Luetsch, University of Queensland, Australia
Carlotta Lunghi, University of Sherbrooke, Canada
Divaldo P. Lyra Jr. Federal University of Sergipe, Brazil
Carolyn S. Ma, University of Hawaii, United States
Elyse A. MacDonald, University of Utah Health Care, United States
Michelle A. Mancuso, Boston Medical Center, United States
Faizan Mazhar, King Fahd Military Medical Complex, Saudi Arabia
Lisa McCarthy, University of Toronto, Canada
Meghan McComb, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
Michael S. McFarland, University of Tennessee, United States
Gholamhossein Mehralian, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Iran
Piotr Merks, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland
Darko Modun, University of Split, Croatia
Mohammed A. Mohammed, University of Sydney, Australia
Aude Motulsky, McGill University, Canada
Tareq L. Mukattash, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan
Shereen Nabhani-Gebara, Kingston University London, United Kingdom
Sheyda Najafi, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran
Weiyi Ni, University of Southern California, United States
Sujin Nitadpakorn, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Patricia U. Ogbo, University of Lagos, Nigeria
Subish Palaian, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia
Rachana J. Patel, Kaiser Permanente Colorado, United States
Morgan H. Payne, University of Colorado, United States
Alex K. Peaslee, Navitus Health Solutions, United States
Leonardo R. Pereira, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Tracy D. Perry, East Carolina University, United States
Yvonne Phan, University of the Sciences, United States
Stefanie Plage, University of New South Wales, Australia
John P. Prybylski, University of Florida, United States
Lieth H. Quffa, South Georgia Veterans Health System, United States
Lul Raka, University of Pristina, Kosovo
Allan Ramos-Esquivel, Universidad de Costa Rica, Costa Rica
Helen Ramsbottom, NHS South Sefton CCG, United Kingdom
Ibrahim K. Rayes, Ajman University of Science and Technology, United Arab Emirates
Jadranka V. Rodriguez, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Meagen Rosenthal, University of Mississippi, United States
Cheryl A. Sadowski, University of Alberta, Canada
Adam Sage, University of North Carolina, United States
Teresa M. Salgado, Virginia Commonwealth University, United States
Pui S. Saw, Monash University Malaysia, Malaysia
Katherine M. Schafer, Mayo Clinic, United States
Tim Schutte, VU University Medical Center, Netherlands
Asrul A. Shafie, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia
Ruchit M. Shah, Pharmerit International, United States
Alok Sharma, MCPHS University, United States
Syed I. Shehnaz, Gulf Medical University, United Arab Emirates
Olayinka O. Shiyanbola, University of Wisconsin, United States
Piia Siitonen, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Isabelle Skinner, Charles Darwin University, Australia
Margie E. Snyder, Purdue University, United States
Derek Stewart, Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom
Aimee Strang, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, United States
Paul M. Stranges, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
Khizra Sultana, King Abdullah International M.R.C., Saudi Arabia
Satya Surbhi, University of Tennessee, United States
Halit Sinan Suzen, Ankara University, Turkey
Damian Świeczkowski, Medical University of Gdansk, Poland
Chelsea L. Tasaka, University of California, United States
Ann M. Taylor, University of Arizona, United States
Cory R. Theberge, University of New England, United States
Dimitra V. Travlos, Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, United States
J. Rick Turner, Campbell University, United States
Bert Vandenberk, KU Leuven, Belgium
Sara A. Wettergreen, University of North Texas, United States
Charles M. White, University of Connecticut, United States
Jon P. Wietholter, West Virginia University, United States
Francesca Wirth, University of Malta, Malta
Amber Young, University of Otago, New Zealand
Tracy Zembles, Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, United States
