Other types of review are listed below:
- Open Review: This method is used in all medical journals, such as BioMed Central and BMJ.
- Open Peer Review: In this method, all of the submitted articles are published and if the authors can receive favorable opinion from three members of the editorial board, their comments will be published with the article.
- Two-Stage Internal Review (Internal and Peer Review): In this method, first the editorial board reviews the manuscript, and if they approve of its quality, it will be considered for peer review.
- Three-Stage Review (Internal and Peer Review): In this method first an internal review is conducted in the journal and the issues mentioned by the authors are reviewed. Then a preprint of the article will be published online so that the readers can comment on it and the authors would be able to use them in order to revise their article. Finally, the editorial board will decide whether the article should be accepted or rejected. The Journal of Interactive Media in Education uses this method.
- Transferable (Portable) Peer Review: In this method, if a journal rejects a manuscript, which has a chance to be accepted by others, then there is the possibility of transferring it to another journal. The advantage is that the review reports are allowed to be transferred to the new journal as well, which saves the reviewers’ time and energy. One of the journals that uses this type of peer review is: https //: nprc.incf.org
It is always important for the journals that use peer-review to only consider original articles (including review articles), for peer review. However, some journals may send other types of texts, such as letters to the editor and even advertisements, to be reviewed. At first glance this may not seem to be desirable, but indicates that all of the scientific components of a journal must be subjected to peer review.
If the scientific journal decides to utilize peer review, it should provide a searchable database of reviewers. This database must include their names, specialties, telephones, and emails as well as whether they are members of the editorial board or not. Most of the article management systems contain such information.
It is useful to have clear criteria for selecting reviewers, and it should not be forgotten that young researchers are very valuable in this regard. Despite the fact that they might not have much experience, they are among the best reviewers because of the time and energy they spend on reviewing articles.
Article manuscripts could be reviewed by the editorial board, authors, or peer reviewers. Usually the manuscripts are reviewed by two reviewers so that the editor can balance their opinions. In some scientific journals, authors are asked to offer three reviewers when submitting their manuscript, and in most cases one of them will be selected by the editor.