Transparent peer review

Research Directions: Biotechnology Design operates transparent peer review for full transparency about decision-making, to mitigate issues that contribute to editorial bias, and to enable reviewers to collect their contributions as part of their academic record. We understand that there are valid reasons why a reviewer may not want to sign their report so we provide that option. Accepted manuscripts are published with their review reports, which are assigned an individual DOI; these reports may include the reviewer name and their ORCID ID. 

Transparent peer review does not mean that reviewers should contact authors directly, or that authors should contact reviewers. All queries should be directed through [email protected].

Guidance for peer reviewers

If we need your help with reviewing a manuscript, we will email you and ask you to accept or decline the invitation through our submission site.

Results/Analysis

If you accept to review a Results or Analysis manuscript, you will be asked to complete a scorecard review. See example scorecard for Results and Analysis, and more information below .

Before writing your review you may find it helpful to browse our Instructions for Authors and this useful checklist.

• You can indicate whether you would like to get recognition for your review on Publons.
• We need your agreement to have your review published online with your name associated, and to make it available under a CC-BY open access licence.
• The five questions in the Overall Evaluation section need to be a ‘Yes’ for the paper to be suitable for publication.
• Please do let us know if you need extra time, or if you are unavailable so that we can approach alternative reviewers.

 

• Are the Results or Analysis reported contributing significantly towards answering the question they are responding to? Yes/No
• Are the findings novel? Yes/No
• If this is an analysis of previously analysed results, is the new contribution novel and relevant? Yes/No
• Are the experiments reported scientifically sound?  Yes/No
• Are the controls used in the experiment valid?  Yes/No
• Are the experimental methods well designed?  Yes/No

If the answers to these questions are yes than the manuscript should be accepted and the following statement will be published:

For Results: This paper has been accepted because it contributes significantly to the question posed, is a novel finding, it is scientifically sound, has the correct controls, has appropriate methodology, and is statistically valid.

For Analysis: This paper has been accepted because it contributes significantly to the question posed, it provides a novel analysis, it is scientifically sound, has appropriate methodology, and is statistically valid.

 

Please rank the paper according to each of the following attributes. This doesn’t indicate whether or not it is suitable for publication, but can be used to guide the Executive Editor if the paper is being sent back to the author for revisions.

We have weighted the questions for each of the subsections in terms of which elements we saw as being most important. An average score for each section will be published in the report.

To evaluate a Results paper:

Presentation

• Is the article written in clear and proper English?
• Is the data presented in the most useful manner?
• Does the paper cite relevant and related articles appropriately?

Context

• Does the title suitably represent the article?
• Does the abstract correctly embody the content of the article?
• Does the introduction give appropriate context and indicate the relevance of the results to the question or hypothesis under consideration?   
• Is the objective of the experiment clearly defined?

Results

• Is sufficient detail provided to allow reproduction of the study? Please see checklist.
• Are the limitations of the experiment as well as the contributions of the results clearly outlined?

 

To evaluate an Analysis paper:

Presentation

• Is the article written in clear and proper English?
• Is the analysis presented in the most useful manner?
• Does the paper cite relevant and related articles appropriately?

Context

• Does the title suitably represent the article?
• Does the abstract correctly embody the content of the article?
• Does the introduction give appropriate context in how these analyses are relevant to the question?
• Is the objective of the experiment clearly defined?

Analysis

•  Is sufficient detail provided to allow reproduction of the study? Please see checklist (see the bottom of document).
• Are the limitations as well as the contributions of the analysis clearly outlined?
• Are the principal conclusions supported by the analysis?

• You will need to sign the Conflict of Interest declaration, and detail any competing personal, professional or financial interests that could be perceived as an influence on evaluating the work under review, or confirming that no such competing interests exist by entering the response "Reviewer declares none".
• Example wording for a Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Reviewer is employed at company B/owns shares in company D/ is on the Board of company E/is a member of organisation F/ has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, the declaration should state “Reviewer declares none”.

• We need you to recommend a decision for the paper.
• You have the opportunity to include ‘Confidential comments for the Handling Editor’, detailing any concerns that you have about the manuscript that you don’t want the author to see.
• The Comments to the Author section enables you to detail points that require amending/clarification. These comments will be published online and as Research Directions: Biotechnology Design is open peer review, authors will know who has reviewed their work. Therefore, please do not make any comments that you do not wish the author (or the whole community) to see.

This section should not be longer than needed (usually no more than 250 words). 

The reviewer should focus on whether the paper addresses the question or challenge it is responding to and contributes in a significant, original way to advancing knowledge in that topic. If the reviewer believes the answer is yes than the reviewer’s comments should focus on if and how the paper should be improved as well as include a sentence as to why this research or analysis is important. The reviewer can mention what further experiments and analysis would be beneficial as next steps but this should not be criteria for rejection and the authors will not be asked to perform these in order for this paper to be accepted.  

As Research Directions: Biotechnology Design aims to be a fast publication journal, we are recommending that reviews be returned within ten days where possible. Please do let us know if you need extra time, or if you are unavailable so that we can approach alternative reviewers.

 

Impact papers

Before writing your review you may find it helpful to browse our Instructions for Authors.

• We need your agreement to have your review published online with your name associated, and to make it available under a CC-BY open access licence.
• You will also need to sign the Conflict of Interest declaration, and detail any competing personal, professional or financial interests that could be perceived as an influence on evaluating the work under review, or confirming that no such competing interests exist by entering the response “Reviewer declares none”.
• Example wording for a Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Reviewer is employed at company B/owns shares in company D/ is on the Board of company E/is a member of organisation F/ has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, the declaration should state “Reviewer declares none”.
• We need you to recommend a decision for the paper.
• The Comments to the Author section enables you to detail points that require amending/clarification. These comments will be published online and as Research Directions: Biotechnology Design is open peer review, readers will see these comments. Authors and readers will know who has reviewed their work. Therefore, please do not make any comments that you do not wish the author (or the whole community) to see. There is a suggested limit of 500 words for this section to encourage succinct and informative reviews.
• Impact papers are similar to Review or Perspective papers. We are asking reviewers to aim for 14 days. Please do let us know if you need extra time, or if you are unavailable so that we can approach alternative reviewers.

We ask reviewers to help us ensure that the Impact paper contributes significantly to answering the question it is responding to by referring to and contextualizing the results and analysis published in this journal as well as other publications in the wider literature. Reviewers should judge whether the Impact paper is thorough, informative, sets out to contextualise the research in response to the question, and preferably suggest:

• Future avenues of research
• How the research can be applied

The editorial team will make the final decision to accept or reject a manuscript, based on the reviewers’ comments and their own editorial judgement.

 

Becoming a reviewer

If you would like to become a reviewer for Research Directions: Biotechnology Design, please register at the journal’s Submission site.

Resources

Introductory resources for peer reviewers can be found on Cambridge Core here.

Ethics

Guidance on ethical peer review can be found on Cambridge Core here.