Wikiversity Journal of Medicine/Peer reviewers

Wikiversity Journal of Medicine Type: Open access journal Publication history: 2014-present Frequency: Continuously ISSN: 2001-8762 URL: www.wijoumed.org Social media: Facebook, Twitter

Peer review in Wikiversity Journal of Medicine is intended to both help authors to improve articles, as well the editorial board in deciding whether to include it in the journal. The process of finding and inviting appropriate peer reviewers for article submissions is largely done by collaboration on "a favour for a favour" basis, where authors should assist in finding appropriate peer reviewers for previously submitted works, as directed by the editorial board.

Confidentiality policies

Most authors have allowed their article submissions to Wikiversity Journal to be open-access in the wiki from the very beginning, but in some cases they prefer to have in confidential up to publication. Many journals do not accept submissions that have been in the open at any time, and thereby authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of an article submission's details. Peer reviewers must therefore keep such works confidential by restricting discussions about such articles to for example email communications, rather than talk page entries in Wikipedia or Wikiversity. Peer reviewers must not retain such works for their personal use.

Criteria

Peer reviewers need to fulfill the following criteria:

Have public contact information, or be willing to be contacted by a Wikimedia volunteer by peer review verification if necessary, wherein only trusted participants know the identity.
Have expertise in medicine, and be willing to provide credentials if inquired to do so.
Be willing to state any conflicts of interests.
Not be editorial board members of this journal.

Individuals not fulfilling these criteria are still welcome to comment on works in need of peer review, such as checking how well the references support their associated article entries. Such comments are meant to facilitate and supplement the proper peer review of articles.

It is possible to sign up to show interest in receiving notices when works are submitted to Wikiversity Journal of Medicine, and can be specified to a particular field of expertise. This can be done by making an entry on the talk page, or email the editor-in-chief at haggstrom.mikaelwikiversityjournal.org (the latter also avails for more anonymous peer reviewing).

Article submissions needing peer review

(currently none)

Peer review guidelines

Peer reviews to Wikiversity Journal of Medicine can be written online on the corresponding Discuss page, or be emailed.

Peer reviews that are written online should include:

A disclosure of conflicts of interests, or simply state "none declared".

Emailed peer reviews should, in addition, include:

The title of the work that is peer reviewed, preferably with a link to the page in Wikiversity
Date of the peer review (or last date of peer review period)
A licensing statement that allows usage in Wikiversity, such as "This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License" at the bottom.

Emailed peer reviews are sent to the editor-in-chief Mikael Häggström at:
haggstrom.mikaelwikiversityjournal.org
(or to the editor who sent a peer review invitation if applicable), as well as a copy to:
infowikiversity.org

Initial peer reviews should preferably be written within 3 weeks. Comments should be constructive, include both strengths and areas for improvement, and be referenced whenever possible. Otherwise, Wikiversity Journal of Medicine has no strict rules regarding the structure and length of a peer review, since it appreciates every comment and suggestion for both potential and already included works. For example, length of peer reviews have varied from 65 words to approximately 700 words. Still, following are some guidelines.

Peer reviewers can choose to be anonymous or non-anonymous to the public. Being non-anonymous allows the peer reviewer to use the contribution as an academic merit, but can possibly prevent the peer reviewer from freely criticizing the work out of fear of retribution from authors.

General questions

Questions that can be answered in a peer review include:

Originality: Will the article add to existing knowledge? This question is not relevant for review articles.
Readability: Is the article easy to read and follow? Is the message clear?
References:

Can they be regarded to support their associated article entries?
Are they up to date?
Are there any glaring omissions of relevant work regarding the subject at hand?

For research articles

For research articles, the following additional questions may be answered:

Introduction:

Does it summarize what we knew before?
Is it up do date?
Does the introduction provide a rationale why the research at hand is needed?
Does it provide a clear research question?

Method:

Is it described in sufficient detail?
Is the study approach adequate in aiming to answer the research question?
Were the participants adequately described?

Were their conditions defined?
Were inclusion and exclusion criteria described? Were these criteria adequate in selecting a proper group for the purpose of the research?

Results:

Was the research properly executed?

Were there clear outcome measures?
Are the results credible?
Are the results well presented?
Was the approach to data analysis appropriate?
Does it help in answering the research question?

Interpretation and conclusion:

Is it adequately substantiated by the given data?

Was the study up to ethical standards?

Is patient consent commented?
Is there appropriate protection of research subjects, including animals?
Was there approval by an ethics committee or institutional review board?

If not, is there an adequate explanation whether this was done or not?

Limitations: Any omission?
Abstract: Does it reflect the work in general?
Supplemental files:

Are these sufficient in including necessary information?
Does information therein properly match what is in the manuscript?
Should any information therein be reported in the manuscript?