Influencing Factors For Review Quality Of Peer-reviewer For Sci-Tech Periodical

Peer reviewer is a person who is engaged in evaluation, suggestion on acceptance or rejection, and revising or offering advices on how to revise a manuscript. Reviewer's comments on manuscripts provide a critical reference for whether the editors receive it or not. Meanwhile, it is one of key factors for determining the quality of a journal. During the process of reviewing, the comments from the reviewer on the manuscript may deviate from objective, fair, and appropriate principles, and provide inappropriate suggestion for the editors-in-chief due to some interferential factors, which results in misleading the editors into a wrong decision. Therefore, how to avoid the effect of these adverse factors on reviewing quality of a manuscript, offer high-quality reviewing comments to the editor-in-chief, and make excellent manuscript stand out is a hot point for editors-in-chief and editors.In present study, we summarized some factors which will affect the reviewing quality of the sci-tech periodicals in recent years. By literature review and expert consultation, we classified these factors into 11 categories, including reviewer's quality, psychology, institutional factor, reviewing manner, friendship, age, health status, cost for reviewing, conflict of interest, quality of manuscript itself, and the professional gap between the author and reviewer. An anonymous questionnaire survey among reviewers from some sci-tech periodicals was carried out by a self-designed questionnaire validated by experts. The questionnaire survey was used to analyze the main factors and the power of each factor on reviewing quality. Meanwhile, we investigate how to avoid such adverse factors efficiently. Further, statistical analyses were performed to screen out the principal factors which could affect the reviewing quality. Linear correlation analysis was employed to find causal relation between various variances, and further regression analysis was used to understand the power of the factors on reviewing quality. In view of this, we expected to focus more labor power, material resources, and financial resources on the main factors and pay less attention to insignificant ones, which led to optimal resource allocation.In order to avoid such influence made by the above mentioned factors on the reviewer's quality, we put forward nine solutions based on our results: (i)build up an evaluation system for reviewing to improve reviewers'quality; (ii) insist our manuscript-reviewing criteria, and standardize the manuscript-reviewing system; (iii) improve the reviewer's quality, and strengthen their mental adjustment; (iv) select a scientific and rational mode for manuscript reviewing; (v) emphasize institutional research, revise and improve institutional factors gradually; (vi ) dynamically grasp the age and health status of the reviewer; (vii) draw up the manuscript-reviewing evasion principle and increase input for reviewing; (viii) make full use of modern technique, and strengthen preliminary review for manuscript; (ix) come to understand the reader's major through multiple ways, and establish and amplify reviewer's database.By putting forward all the above measures, we tried to accumulate more good ideas from the reviewers, and improve the academic quality of the sci-tech periodicals.