Archives: Questions

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Jens Flemming, Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany

A modest reviewer, Dr Jens Flemming wonders why he has received the Reviewer of the Year 2016 award, considering it his responsibility as a scientist to evaluate the results of his colleagues. An Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Mathematics, Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany, he enjoys being forced—at least sometimes—to think about topics outside of the realm of his research.

When reviewing, Dr Flemming examines the proofs, looks out for ambiguity and assesses whether the study results are truly new. He also checks for typos and grammatical errors to help authors present their research in the best possible light.

Being party to the most recent developments in inverse problems is one of the most rewarding aspects of reviewing for Dr Flemming, who identified an article entitled Flexible sparse regularization as an interesting read. In it, the authors introduce flexible sparse regularization by varying exponents, as well as the corresponding functional analysis framework.

Offering sound advice to those reviewing for the first time, Dr Flemming points out that it is not safe to assume that experienced scientists make few or no mistakes. Adhere to reason and not to authors’ names, he urges.

Commenting on Inverse Problems’ peer review process overall, Dr Flemming judges it to have become well organized over the last few years. He likes reading other reviewers’ reports once the decision whether to publish the article is made, viewing it as an opportunity to calibrate his ratings for future reviews.

Reviewer of the Year: MrEnrico Sowade, TU Chemnitz, Germany

A scientist working in the sphere of flexible and printed electronics, Mr Enrico Sowade is still as fascinated with the subject as he was when he first began researching it more than six years ago. He describes it as a fairly new field that requires interdisciplinary approaches, and he is therefore keen to promote and support Flexible and Printed Electronics.

Mr Sowade is interested in liquid deposition and printing technologies—especially inkjet printing. Flexible and printed electronics will have strong commercial applications in the future, he says. There are few international journals devoted to this field. However, the basic and applied research published in these journals is an important driver for commercialization and technology maturity in flexible and printed electronics.

When reviewing, Mr Sowade looks for a storyline, accuracy and relevant images. He pays attention to the experimental designs and results, drawing on knowledge obtained from his own research and that of others to ascertain the paper’s novelty. For Mr Sowade, the most rewarding aspect of refereeing is the opportunity it provides him to learn more about his field; for example, one article that recently captured his imagination investigated gravure-printed electronics: Gravure-printed electronics: recent progress in tooling development, understanding of printing physics, and realization of printed devices.

Mr Sowade feels honoured to have been selected for the Reviewer of the Year award. He believes that reviewers should be recognized for what can be a time-consuming task. According to Mr Sowade, there are not enough available reviewers. Therefore, rewarding their efforts helps to encourage more scientists to undertake this service.

Reviewer of the Year: Professor Carl Mungan, US Naval Academy, United States

Despite winning the Reviewer of the Year Award, Professor Carl Mungan considers himself to be an ordinary faculty member doing his job. He reviews for the European Journal of Physics (EJP) as a service to the greater community of physics educators and to improve the final articles published by the journal.

Professor Mungan stands out, however, because he is not afraid to be honest in his approach to manuscripts. His advice to first-time reviewers is to make bold suggestions, to be specific and to provide examples of how the research could be presented, rather than simply pointing out errors, inaccuracies or ambiguous wording. He believes reviewers should do their best to quickly reply to authors, who are eagerly awaiting a response.

When reviewing, Professor Mungan looks for papers that have a cogent storyline, would be of reasonable, general interest to physics educators, and are technically correct. An article that particularly fascinated him was: The young centre of the Earth, having been struck by the idea that the centre of the Earth is a few years younger than the surface of the Earth due to gravitational time dilation.

Professor Mungan is gratified when he is able to make suggestions to an article that has good ideas but is poorly written. One suggestion he would have for EJP’s peer review process would be to champion concise manuscripts, so that novel or interesting content does not become lost in lengthy papers.

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Shannan Sweet, Cornell University, United States

Having had many manuscripts reviewed by others, Dr Shannan Sweet appreciates the time and effort reviewers put in to ensure the research is well presented and comprehensible. For Dr Sweet, refereeing for Environmental Research Letters (ERL) is a way to ‘pay it forward’ and thank all the reviewers who provided her with ‘life-changing’, considered advice.

Dr Sweet values articles that are unique and believable, esteeming quality over quantity and readability over esoteric, ‘intelligent-sounding’ notions. It is important to her that ideas flow and that the author demonstrates advanced subject knowledge. Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming caught Dr Sweet’s attention because of its catchy title and political relevance.

According to Dr Sweet, the benefits of reviewing for ERL are manifold. Not only is it a reputable and broad environmental science journal, reading papers before they have been published means she is one of a select few to hear about an exciting discovery before it is released into the world, and she encourages others to peer review. While her first review took a long time, she has become more adept over time and advises first-time reviewers to read the manuscript in full before looking for small, grammatical errors and then appraising the research as a whole.

The peer review process is vital, Dr Sweet says, because wording and results can easily be misinterpreted without an outside perspective. She is delighted to be named Reviewer of the Year; the award recognizes the importance of this role, which all researchers should endeavour to undertake.

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Bernard Kelly, University of Maryland, Baltimore County & NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, United States

Classical and Quantum Gravity complements Dr Bernard Kelly’s line of work—computational gravity. As such, he enjoys going into the nitty-gritty details of a paper he might otherwise have only looked at superficially. He also finds it rewarding to see a second draft come back significantly cleaner than the original.

The majority of papers Dr Kelly reviews contain a good amount of ‘honest physics work’, he says, but if the authors cannot be clear about what they did, and why they did it, then the manuscript will need significant revision. In his experience, papers written by committees tend to be unfocused, containing more inconsistencies in style and notation from section to section.

Dr Kelly encourages first-time reviewers to be confident in their grasp of the material. If there is an unsupported statement, then they should point it out and not assume that it is due to their lack of knowledge. Very often, the authors have left out vital steps/references or made a minor mathematical mistake. More rarely, it is a sign of a real problem with their data or analysis.

Peer review is time-intensive and Dr Kelly is pleased that reviewers are being recognized for their efforts. To speed up the process, he suggests that the journal or authors’ home institution conducts a ‘zeroth pass’ review to check for basic comprehensibility. Marking up a collaborative version of a paper online would also make it easier for time-strapped researchers.

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Samuel Pichardo, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Canada

Sitting on the frontiers of biology, physics and engineering, Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express (BPEX) provides a home for scientifically sound, but conceptually marginal, studies. Interdisciplinary research is fast becoming the norm and, according to Dr Samuel Pichardo, BPEX is gaining ground as an attractive journal for cross-disciplinary approaches.

Helping to promote interdisciplinarity is not the only reason Dr Pichardo reviews for BPEX. As politicians begin to question the reliability of scientific studies, he sees it as his responsibility to uphold scientists’ integrity through peer review. Therefore, when refereeing, he looks for robust research, clear biomedical applications and good descriptions of the engineering methods employed.

Dr Pichardo is also a fan of open access software, citing an article on numerical modelling as an excellent example of scientists disclosing their methods: TIGRE: a MATLAB-GPU toolbox for CBCT image reconstruction. Full disclosure of software methods is a step in the right direction for reproducible research, he says.

Overall, in terms of reviewing, Dr Pichardo advocates a double-anonymous review process to help mitigate bias, although he realizes that this would not eradicate it completely. He also thinks it would be useful to be able to score manuscripts according to the degree to which authors disclose their methods.

Reminding first-time reviewers that a sound paper balances innovation with an adequate disclosure of methods, Dr Pichardo’s advice is to remain humble and to bear in mind that all reviewers generally want the same thing: the publication of high-quality research.

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Elke Vorndran, University of Würzburg, Germany

For Dr Elke Vorndran, Biomedical Materials perfectly fits her field of expertise and day-to-day research. Internationally recognized, the journal features articles on biomaterial research with a high impact factor. One paper she recently enjoyed considered the in vivo performance of additive manufactured bone implants, an area of great interest to her: Evaluation of 3D printed PCL/PLGA/-TCP versus collagen membranes for guided bone regeneration in a beagle implant model.

Dr Vorndran finds reviewing rewarding for two main reasons: it enables her to be at the forefront of new developments in her field and she gains much satisfaction from helping authors to improve their papers.

Besides novelty and significance, Dr Vorndran looks for a number of elements in a manuscript: clear introductions, suitable applied methods, convincing results and new knowledge. It is also important that the experiments can be replicated, and that the authors discuss their results in the context of the current literature.

In terms of the peer review process overall, Dr Vorndran feels that a double-anonymous approach would help alleviate bias. She also advocates sharing reports to encourage a fair and polite service, and to help inexperienced reviewers.

Dr Vorndran congratulates all novices who have been invited to review, saying this demonstrates that they are valued as an expert in their field. She strongly recommends that first-time reviewers keep within their sphere of knowledge and ensure editors are aware of this.

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Hiroto Tanaka, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

An Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, Dr Hiroto Tanaka finds the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics applicable to his field of research.

Calling his work and the published papers ‘a perfect match’, Dr Tanaka takes great pleasure in being able to contribute to maintaining the high standards of this interdisciplinary journal. One article that recently caught his attention investigated similarities between the wing motion of hummingbirds and flapping wing micro air vehicles: Experimental optimization of wing shape for a hummingbird-like flapping wing micro air vehicle.

When undertaking a review, Dr Tanaka finds it rewarding to have the opportunity to read thought-provoking studies and to contribute to their improvement. It is important to him that the papers he referees are original, clear and concise. His advice to those who are new to the review process is to first pick out the fundamental problems within the manuscript before tackling minor issues such as spelling and grammar.

Dr Tanaka encourages researchers to act as referees in order to meet the overwhelming need for high quality reviews. Although, he fears that the increasing numbers of journals and published papers are far outweighing the numbers of available volunteer reviewers.

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Daniela Duarte Campos, RWTH Aachen University Hospital, Germany

Having formerly published work in Biofabrication as part of her PhD, Dr Daniela Duarte Campos felt motivated to act as a reviewer for the journal. She not only deems it important to provide expertise in the field of the proposed manuscripts, but also to reciprocate a service that benefits all researchers.

Dr Duarte Campos strongly believes that only robust research should be published. The study need not be vastly interesting or contain successful results, but the methodology should be sound and should also add significant value to the field.

When refereeing, Dr Duarte Campos finds it particularly rewarding to see good articles successfully published after rigorous peer review. Always endeavouring to include recommendations for improvement, she is gratified when authors take her suggestions on board and implement changes.

One article that captured her imagination considered recent advances in bioprinting, using smart materials that can be transformed under various stimuli: 4D bioprinting: the next-generation technology for biofabrication enabled by stimuli-responsive materials.

Dr Duarte Campos modestly claims that she was not a particularly proficient reviewer in the beginning; she would approach the task as if it were Where’s Wally?, searching for every single spelling and scientific mistake possible. She therefore urges first-time reviewers to seek advice from colleagues or mentors, who are able to offer a different perspective.

Now a practised reviewer, Dr Duarte Campos looks for scientific relevance and novelty, scrutinizing the authors’ methodologies, among other things, to corroborate whether a paper should be rejected or accepted.

Some IOP Publishing journals operate slightly different reviewer reward schemes. If you are unsure, please check on the journal’s open access information page for which you have reviewed an article, or email the relevant journal.

*fully open access journals