Peer and Expert Review

Peer and expert review is a central part of the scholarly publishing process. Published works are viewed by a number of qualified and critical referees who are able to ensure that they are novel, correct, easy to read and that the research is ethically carried out.

Will my submission be reviewed?

Articles, perspectives and book and literature reviews are always sent to referees as part of the editorial process. Submissions may be sent through multiple rounds of review if significant modifications are made following a preceeding round. In a given round, the submission is given anonymously to one expert reviewer and one peer reviewer. The reviewers cannot see who the author is at any point. Reviewers are also asked to decide whether they think that the work should be accepted as is for publication, whether modifications need to be made or if the article should not be accepted at all. However, this decision ultimately sits with the Editors.

An expert reviewer is someone who has a university qualification in a field related to what is discussed in the submission, or who has published research in the area. They might have volunteered to be a reviewer for the journal or the Editors may have contacted them to perform the review after recieving the submission. A peer reviewer is someone who is a peer of the authors, so they don't strictly need a university qualification and may be an undergraduate student.

Reviewers are generally considered the copyright owners of their comments which sometimes include unconstructive, rude or highly emotive statements that could harm a submitter's faith in the publishing process, which the journal considers unacceptable since we are often working with first-time authors. Accordingly, comments left by reviewers are not passed to authors in their original form. The Editors will go back to authors and provide their own feedback, with consideration to things pointed out by the reviewer. Reviewers who are consistently unable to provide helpful or relevant feedback may be disinvited from future rounds. The journal follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics in this respect.

Letters and proceedings are not usually subject to review.

How the process works

There are many different models of peer review. For Student Political Economy Review, we abide by the following principles:

Timing

Reviews are conducted before publication. Preprints are not made available to the public.

Indentifiabiliy

Double-anonymous: reviewers and authors are not known to each other. At time, instructors have been reviewers for previous students and recognised a submission based on an assignment. Such conflicts shall be acknowledged, but not usually disallowed.

Mediation

Editors mediate all interactions between reviewers and authors. Comments left by reviewers are not passed on directly to authors, though their feedback will be generalised and incorporated into feedback written by the Editors. Reviews may ask to meet each other if they wish to collaborate on a review together, but justification must be given to the Editors on why this is necessary.

Publication

Peer reviews are not published.

Facilitation

Reviews are facilitated by the journal. The journal will approach reviews with a request and, upon acceptance, the referee can complete their review in an online portal. They are guided through particular questions which might help them structure their feedback, but there is an opportunity for open comment as well.

Ownership

Reviews are owned by authors. They retain all legal and moral rights and the journal does not license them.

Remember that ultimately the decision to accept, accept with modification or reject a submission sits exclusively with the Ediors.

Can I become a reviewer?

Yes you can! You can register on this site by creating an account and filling in your review interests. If you are an expert, please provide a university affiliation or your ORCID iD, or you may be asked to provide alternative evidence of your qualification.