ORCID Reviewer Recognition

Author: ChemistryViews.org
Published On: January 2, 2019
Copyright: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA

Since 2012, the not-for-profit organization ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) offers free, unique identifiers to scholarly researchers that distinguish one researcher from every other. They reliably connect each published work to the correct name, no matter if others have the same name, or the author has changed affiliation or research fields.

Recently, ORCID has introduced an additional service: the Reviewer Recognition. Researchers can have their ORCID profile updated automatically with information about reviews completed for a publication. To add this information as Peer Reviewer Activity records in the personal ORCID account, the referee has to tick a box during the referee process or allow that this information will be collected each time a review report is completed.

Researchers volunteer to undertake peer review for scholarly journals without getting paid. The majority of scholarly journals run “blind” peer review workflows. These contributions are anonymous and unrewarded. ORCID Reviewer Recognition provides a visible and verifiable way for journals to publicly credit reviewers, without compromising the confidentiality of the peer review process. To retain reviewer anonymity, the transfer of data from Editorial Manager (manuscript submission and tracking system offered by Aries Systems Corporation most publishers use for manuscript refereeing) to ORCID does not include details of the individual manuscript. In addition, posting of recognition can be delayed, e.g., monthly or quarterly, so as to “mask” the exact date of review completion.

The journals owned by the GDCh (German Chemical Society) and the journals owned by ChemPubSoc Europe are introducing the ORCID reviewer recognition program to be finalized by mid-January. Please check the homepage of these and other journals or the ORCID FAQ site for more details.