peer review websites for students

Better learning through peer feedback

PeerStudio makes peer feedback easier for instructors to manage, and students to learn from. It automates away the tedious aspects of peer reviewing, and learners use a comparison-based interface that helps them see work as instructors see it.

More than 37500 learners in dozens of universities use PeerStudio to learn design, writing, psychology, and more.

Used by happy instructors and students at

Research-based, comparative peer review

Comparative peer reviewing allows students to see what instructors see

PeerStudio leverages the theory of contrasting cases: comparing similar artifacts helps people see deeper, subtler distinctions between them. Think of wine tasting. It's much easier to notice the flavors when you compare one wine to another.

How PeerStudio uses comparisons

When students review in PeerStudio, they use a rubric that instructors specify. In addition to the rubric, PeerStudio finds a comparison submission within the pool of submissions from their classmates. While reviewing, students compare the target submission to this comparison submission using the provided rubric.

AI-backed, always improving

PeerStudio uses an artifical-intelligence backend to find just the right comparison for each learner and submission. (Among other features, we use learners' history of reviewing, and that of their classmates to identify optimal comparison submissions.) This backend is always learning, with accuracy improving even within the same assignment.

Guided reviewing

Learners often want to review well, but don't know how. We both help students learn how to review through interactive guides, and automatically detect poor reviewing.

How PeerStudio creates a better classroom

Inspire students, inspire students with peer work.

Most students in college today see so little of the amazing work their classmates do. PeerStudio creates an opportunity to see inspiring work and get more feedback on it. Instructors also tell us that their students enjoy writing, designing and completing assignments for a real audience, and how the benefits of peer reviewing spill over into clearer presentations and more insightful questions in class.

CLOUD-BASED

Work as your students do.

PeerStudio is cloud-based, so it is available from any computer, and allows students to view most common assignment materials without any additional software: PDFs, videos (including auto-embedding Youtube), formatted text (bold, italics, tables,...) are all supported. And because it's backed up every night, your students (and you!) never have to worry about losing work.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Automated assignment of reviewers.

With traditional peer feedback tools, instructors have more, not less, work. You not only need to write the assignment and the rubric, but also assign students to review each other, make sure they do it on time, re-assign students who miss the deadline and so on.

PeerStudio automates it all. It uses an AI-backed to assign reviewers to submissions, automatically deals with balancing out reviewer load, and more. It even sends email reminders to students who haven't submitted their work or reviewed others.

REMAIN IN CONTROL

Grant deadline-extensions, keep an eye on review quality, and more.

PeerStudio automates the busywork, but you remain in control. On your dashboard, you can grant one-time exceptions, track who's late, even read individual reviews. Many instructors also use their dashboard to find examples of excellent work to show in class, or to recognize excellent peer feedback.

We can help you implement peer reviewing correctly and set up PeerStudio in your class. To get started, schedule a time to chat with us.

What our instructors say

PeerStudio has helped teach everything from design, English, music, and more.

Ready to get started?

We're also happy to help you think through introducing peer reviewing in your classroom, regardless of whether you use PeerStudio. Get in touch with us at [email protected] .

The 8 Best Open Access Journal Sites for Students

These sites provide credible research papers on a wide variety of subjects. Better yet, it's all free!

If you're a student, you know how important it is to cite your sources when making an argument. And to do so, you turn to no other than scholarly journals, which are basically physical or digital books that collect written works from experts in different fields.

Thanks to technology, there are a wealth of well-reputed scholarly journals on the internet for our perusal. However, due to intellectual property laws, many of them charge expensive fees.

Because of this, many nonprofit organizations have begun launching free, open access journal websites for the benefit of students and the general public.

What Are Open Access Journals?

Open access journals, as the name suggests, are websites where users are able to access scholarly articles and research papers for free. They are an immensely helpful source for individuals and groups who need to search for reliable academic information but are unable to pay for it.

Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best open access journals for you to expand your knowledge on different disciplines.

1. Elsevier

With over 140 years of serving the scientific community, open access journals on Elsevier are known to be highly credible and widely cited.

Journals on Elsevier cover just about any area of science and medicine you can think of, including cardiology, anesthesiology, infectious diseases, and even soil mechanics.

The open access journals also have English translations of scientific publications from around the world, including Spain, Brazil, China, and Saudi Arabia.

To get started on Elsevier, simply navigate to its open access website, and search for journals that are marked as Gold open access . Keep in mind that journals with  Green open access  labels are subscription journals that you need to pay for.

2. SAGE Open

SAGE is another well-established journal publisher in academia. Its open access website promises to deliver studies that adhere to the most rigorous peer-review standards for researchers, students, and the general public.

Because of the pandemic, SAGE has also made all COVID-19-related studies free to read and download. In the social sciences, the Black Lives Matter movement has also made publications about structural racism and police violence on SAGE available for free.

Similar to Elsevier, SAGE’s open access journals on the site are marked as Gold .

3. SpringerOpen

Launched in 2010, SpringerOpen has since gained a reputation as one of the most reputable open access journals in academia. The organization invites professionals from all fields of science, technology, the humanities, and the social sciences to submit research papers to raise awareness on different issues in society.

In addition to open access journals, SpringerOpen also runs a blog where you can read about the latest interviews, insights, and analyses with researchers and editors from Springer.

If you are still not sure about what kinds of sources you are looking for, don't fret. SpringerOpen has a search engine called the Journal Suggester that will recommend suitable scholarly articles. This personalized approach makes Springer the more user-friendly selection on the list.

4. BioMed Central

BioMed Central’s (BMC) online journals have been open access since 1999. The publication is owned by Springer Nature, which also runs SpringerOpen.

Some of BMC’s most well-known publications include BMC Biology and BMC Medicine. So if you’re looking for information related to either of those fields, don’t forget to check out BMC.

BMC is also a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, a UK charity organization that promotes integrity in scholarly research. With its history and affiliations, data obtained from BMC is reputable, so you don’t have to worry about spreading false information.

5. Royal Society Open Science

As its name clearly states, the Royal Society Open Science is an open access journal published by the Royal Society in the UK, the world’s oldest and perhaps most renowned independent scientific academy.

With that reputation alone, you can be sure that the quality of its research papers is top-notch. Its editorial team is also comprised of some of the best scientists in the field. The Royal Society Open Source publishes peer-reviewed content from a wide range of disciplines, including life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer sciences.

Research papers put out by the Royal Society Open Science are also regularly covered by mainstream news outlets, including BBC and CNN.

If you are a humanities student, especially an English major, consider JSTOR your savior. JSTOR is one of the best humanities-focused publications in academia, and by popular demand, it has now made many of its scholarly journals open access.

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Besides English, open access titles on JSTOR are available in Spanish, thanks to its partnership with El Colegio de Mexico and the Latin American Council of Social Sciences.

If you are a liberal arts student, get excited, because JSTOR also has a sister site called Artstor . Artstor has a collection of over 1.3 million images, videos, documents, and audio files from museums for you to download for free.

And as if that is not enough, JSTOR also has a section dedicated to  Early Journal Content . This makes articles published before 1923 in the US (and before 1870 everywhere else in the world) available for free.

7. MDPI Humanities

Here’s another Humanities-focused journal for students of the liberal arts.

MDPI is a publisher of open access journals based in Basel, Switzerland. It has an extensive worldwide network of over 67,000 editors working on 297 diverse, peer-reviewed journals.

Humanities is an online publication and is released quarterly. From film studies to linguistics and literature, you can find almost any research paper on different areas in the humanities and social sciences.

Aside from its quarterly journals, the website also has regular announcements about humanities-related conferences happening all around the world. If you’d like to receive new editions of the journal every quarter, you can also sign up for email alerts on the website.

8. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

If you're still unable to find what you're looking for from the above websites, why not try the DOAJ?

Think of the DOAJ as an alternative to Google Scholar. It's essentially a search engine that allows you to look up over 15,000 open access journals on the internet. Unlike other specialized publications on this list, journals on DOAJ cover all areas, in all disciplines. Journals in different languages from around the world can also be found on the site.

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The DOAJ is a 100 percent not-for-profit website, and its journal review process is supported by hundreds of passionate editorial staff, all of whom are volunteers.

Taking Advantage of Open Access Journals

Open access journals are probably the best sources of legitimate, reliable, and evidence-backed information on the internet.

The next time you’re completing an important assignment, don’t forget to browse these websites to locate the best scholarly journals to lend extra credibility to your argument.

21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024

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Written by  Scribendi

Has this ever happened to you? While looking for websites for research, you come across a research paper site that claims to connect academics to a peer-reviewed article database for free.

Intrigued, you search for keywords related to your topic, only to discover that you must pay a hefty subscription fee to access the service. After the umpteenth time being duped, you begin to wonder if there's even such a thing as free journal articles.

Subscription fees and paywalls are often the bane of students and academics, especially those at small institutions who don't provide access to many free article directories and repositories.

Whether you're working on an undergraduate paper, a PhD dissertation, or a medical research study, we want to help you find tools to locate and access the information you need to produce well-researched, compelling, and innovative work.

Below, we discuss why peer-reviewed articles are superior and list out the best free article databases to use in 2024.

Download Our Free Research Database Roundup PDF

Why peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are more authoritative.

Determining what sources are reliable can be challenging. Peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are the gold standard in academic research. Reputable academic journals have a rigorous peer-review process.

The peer review process provides accountability to the academic community, as well as to the content of the article. The peer review process involves qualified experts in a specific (often very specific) field performing a review of an article's methods and findings to determine things like quality and credibility.

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in peer-reviewed article databases and research databases, and if you know that a database of journals is reliable, that can offer reassurances about the reliability of a free article. Peer review is often double blind, meaning that the author removes all identifying information and, likewise, does not know the identity of the reviewers. This helps reviewers maintain objectivity and impartiality so as to judge an article based on its merit.

Where to Find Peer-Reviewed Articles

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in a variety of research databases. Below is a list of some of the major databases you can use to find peer-reviewed articles and other sources in disciplines spanning the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.

What Are Open Access Journals?

An open access (OA) journal is a journal whose content can be accessed without payment. This provides scholars, students, and researchers with free journal articles. OA journals use alternate methods of funding to cover publication costs so that articles can be published without having to pass those publication costs on to the reader.

Some of these funding models include standard funding methods like advertising, public funding, and author payment models, where the author pays a fee in order to publish in the journal. There are OA journals that have non-peer-reviewed academic content, as well as journals that focus on dissertations, theses, and papers from conferences, but the main focus of OA is peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles.

The internet has certainly made it easier to access research articles and other scholarly publications without needing access to a university library, and OA takes another step in that direction by removing financial barriers to academic content.

Choosing Wisely

Features of legitimate oa journals.

 There are things to look out for when trying to decide if a free publication journal is legitimate:

Mission statement —The mission statement for an OA journal should be available on their website.

Publication history —Is the journal well established? How long has it been available?

Editorial board —Who are the members of the editorial board, and what are their credentials?

Indexing —Can the journal be found in a reliable database?

Peer review —What is the peer review process? Does the journal allow enough time in the process for a reliable assessment of quality?

Impact factor —What is the average number of times the journal is cited over a two-year period?

Features of Illegitimate OA Journals

There are predatory publications that take advantage of the OA format, and they are something to be wary of. Here are some things to look out for:

Contact information —Is contact information provided? Can it be verified?

Turnaround —If the journal makes dubious claims about the amount of time from submission to publication, it is likely unreliable.

Editorial board —Much like determining legitimacy, looking at the editorial board and their credentials can help determine illegitimacy.

Indexing —Can the journal be found in any scholarly databases?

Peer review —Is there a statement about the peer review process? Does it fit what you know about peer review?

How to Find Scholarly Articles

Identify keywords.

Keywords are included in an article by the author. Keywords are an excellent way to find content relevant to your research topic or area of interest. In academic searches, much like you would on a search engine, you can use keywords to navigate through what is available to find exactly what you're looking for.

Authors provide keywords that will help you easily find their article when researching a related topic, often including general terms to accommodate broader searches, as well as some more specific terms for those with a narrower scope. Keywords can be used individually or in combination to refine your scholarly article search.

Narrow Down Results

Sometimes, search results can be overwhelming, and searching for free articles on a journal database is no exception, but there are multiple ways to narrow down your results. A good place to start is discipline.

What category does your topic fall into (psychology, architecture, machine learning, etc.)? You can also narrow down your search with a year range if you're looking for articles that are more recent.

A Boolean search can be incredibly helpful. This entails including terms like AND between two keywords in your search if you need both keywords to be in your results (or, if you are looking to exclude certain keywords, to exclude these words from the results).

Consider Different Avenues

If you're not having luck using keywords in your search for free articles, you may still be able to find what you're looking for by changing your tactics. Casting a wider net sometimes yields positive results, so it may be helpful to try searching by subject if keywords aren't getting you anywhere.

You can search for a specific publisher to see if they have OA publications in the academic journal database. And, if you know more precisely what you're looking for, you can search for the title of the article or the author's name.

Determining the Credibility of Scholarly Sources

Ensuring that sources are both credible and reliable is crucial to academic research. Use these strategies to help evaluate the usefulness of scholarly sources:

• Peer Review : Look for articles that have undergone a rigorous peer-review process. Peer-reviewed articles are typically vetted by experts in the field, ensuring the accuracy of the research findings.

Tip: To determine whether an article has undergone rigorous peer review, review the journal's editorial policies, which are often available on the journal's website. Look for information about the peer-review process, including the criteria for selecting reviewers, the process for handling conflicts of interest, and any transparency measures in place.

• Publisher Reputation : Consider the reputation of the publisher. Established publishers, such as well-known academic journals, are more likely to adhere to high editorial standards and publishing ethics.
• Author Credentials : Evaluate the credentials and expertise of the authors. Check their affiliations, academic credentials, and past publications to assess their authority in the field.
• Citations and References : Examine the citations and references provided in the article. A well-researched article will cite credible sources to support its arguments and findings. Verify the accuracy of the cited sources and ensure they are from reputable sources.
• Publication Date : Consider the publication date of the article. While older articles may still be relevant, particularly in certain fields, it is best to prioritize recent publications for up-to-date research and findings.
• Journal Impact Factor : Assess the journal's impact factor or other metrics that indicate its influence and reputation within the academic community. Higher impact factor journals are generally considered more prestigious and reliable. 

Tip: Journal Citation Reports (JCR), produced by Clarivate Analytics, is a widely used source for impact factor data. You can access JCR through academic libraries or directly from the Clarivate Analytics website if you have a subscription.

• Peer Recommendations : Seek recommendations from peers, mentors, or professors in your field. They can provide valuable insights and guidance on reputable sources and journals within your area of study.
• Cross-Verification : Cross-verify the information presented in the article with other credible sources. Compare findings, methodologies, and conclusions with similar studies to ensure consistency and reliability.

By employing these strategies, researchers can confidently evaluate the credibility and reliability of scholarly sources, ensuring the integrity of their research contributions in an ever-evolving landscape.

The Top 21 Free Online Journal and Research Databases

Navigating OA journals, research article databases, and academic websites trying to find high-quality sources for your research can really make your head spin. What constitutes a reliable database? What is a useful resource for your discipline and research topic? How can you find and access full-text, peer-reviewed articles?

Fortunately, we're here to help. Having covered some of the ins and outs of peer review, OA journals, and how to search for articles, we have compiled a list of the top 21 free online journals and the best research databases. This list of databases is a great resource to help you navigate the wide world of academic research.

These databases provide a variety of free sources, from abstracts and citations to full-text, peer-reviewed OA journals. With databases covering specific areas of research and interdisciplinary databases that provide a variety of material, these are some of our favorite free databases, and they're totally legit!

CORE is a multidisciplinary aggregator of OA research. CORE has the largest collection of OA articles available. It allows users to search more than 219 million OA articles. While most of these link to the full-text article on the original publisher's site, or to a PDF available for download, five million records are hosted directly on CORE.

CORE's mission statement is a simple and straightforward commitment to offering OA articles to anyone, anywhere in the world. They also host communities that are available for researchers to join and an ambassador community to enhance their services globally. In addition to a straightforward keyword search, CORE offers advanced search options to filter results by publication type, year, language, journal, repository, and author.

CORE's user interface is easy to use and navigate. Search results can be sorted based on relevance or recency, and you can search for relevant content directly from the results screen.

Collection : 219,537,133 OA articles

Other Services : Additional services are available from CORE, with extras that are geared toward researchers, repositories, and businesses. There are tools for accessing raw data, including an API that provides direct access to data, datasets that are available for download, and FastSync for syncing data content from the CORE database.

CORE has a recommender plug-in that suggests relevant OA content in the database while conducting a search and a discovery feature that helps you discover OA versions of paywalled articles. Other features include tools for managing content, such as a dashboard for managing repository output and the Repository Edition service to enhance discoverability.

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : Yes

Advanced Search Options : Language, author, journal, publisher, repository, DOI, year

2. ScienceOpen

Functioning as a research and publishing network, ScienceOpen offers OA to more than 74 million articles in all areas of science. Although you do need to register to view the full text of articles, registration is free. The advanced search function is highly detailed, allowing you to find exactly the research you're looking for.

The Berlin- and Boston-based company was founded in 2013 to "facilitate open and public communications between academics and to allow ideas to be judged on their merit, regardless of where they come from." Search results can be exported for easy integration with reference management systems.

You can also bookmark articles for later research. There are extensive networking options, including your Science Open profile, a forum for interacting with other researchers, the ability to track your usage and citations, and an interactive bibliography. Users have the ability to review articles and provide their knowledge and insight within the community.

Collection : 74,560,631

Other Services : None

Advanced Search Options :   Content type, source, author, journal, discipline

3. Directory of Open Access Journals

A multidisciplinary, community-curated directory, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) gives researchers access to high-quality peer-reviewed journals. It has archived more than two million articles from 17,193 journals, allowing you to either browse by subject or search by keyword.

The site was launched in 2003 with the aim of increasing the visibility of OA scholarly journals online. Content on the site covers subjects from science, to law, to fine arts, and everything in between. DOAJ has a commitment to "increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, OA scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language."

Information about the journal is available with each search result. Abstracts are also available in a collapsible format directly from the search screen. The scholarly article website is somewhat simple, but it is easy to navigate. There are 16 principles of transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing that clearly outline DOAJ policies and standards.

Collection : 6,817,242

Advanced Search Options :   Subject, journal, year

4. Education Resources Information Center

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) of the Institution of Education Sciences allows you to search by topic for material related to the field of education. Links lead to other sites, where you may have to purchase the information, but you can search for full-text articles only. You can also search only peer-reviewed sources.

The service primarily indexes journals, gray literature (such as technical reports, white papers, and government documents), and books. All sources of material on ERIC go through a formal review process prior to being indexed. ERIC's selection policy is available as a PDF on their website.

The ERIC website has an extensive FAQ section to address user questions. This includes categories like general questions, peer review, and ERIC content. There are also tips for advanced searches, as well as general guidance on the best way to search the database. ERIC is an excellent database for content specific to education.

Collection : 1,292,897

Advanced Search Options : Boolean

5. arXiv e-Print Archive

The arXiv e-Print Archive is run by Cornell University Library and curated by volunteer moderators, and it now offers OA to more than one million e-prints.

There are advisory committees for all eight subjects available on the database. With a stated commitment to an "emphasis on openness, collaboration, and scholarship," the arXiv e-Print Archive is an excellent STEM resource.

The interface is not as user-friendly as some of the other databases available, and the website hosts a blog to provide news and updates, but it is otherwise a straightforward math and science resource. There are simple and advanced search options, and, in addition to conducting searches for specific topics and articles, users can browse content by subject. The arXiv e-Print Archive clearly states that they do not peer review the e-prints in the database.

Collection : 1,983,891

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : No

Advanced Search Options :   Subject, date, title, author, abstract, DOI

6. Social Science Research Network

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a collection of papers from the social sciences community. It is a highly interdisciplinary platform used to search for scholarly articles related to 67 social science topics. SSRN has a variety of research networks for the various topics available through the free scholarly database.

The site offers more than 700,000 abstracts and more than 600,000 full-text papers. There is not yet a specific option to search for only full-text articles, but, because most of the papers on the site are free access, it's not often that you encounter a paywall. There is currently no option to search for only peer-reviewed articles.

You must become a member to use the services, but registration is free and enables you to interact with other scholars around the world. SSRN is "passionately committed to increasing inclusion, diversity and equity in scholarly research," and they encourage and discuss the use of inclusive language in scholarship whenever possible.

Collection : 1,058,739 abstracts; 915,452 articles

Advanced Search Options : Term, author, date, network

7. Public Library of Science

Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a big player in the world of OA science. Publishing 12 OA journals, the nonprofit organization is committed to facilitating openness in academic research. According to the site, "all PLOS content is at the highest possible level of OA, meaning that scientific articles are immediately and freely available to anyone, anywhere."

PLOS outlines four fundamental goals that guide the organization: break boundaries, empower researchers, redefine quality, and open science. All PLOS journals are peer-reviewed, and all 12 journals uphold rigorous ethical standards for research, publication, and scientific reporting.

PLOS does not offer advanced search options. Content is organized by topic into research communities that users can browse through, in addition to options to search for both articles and journals. The PLOS website also has resources for peer reviewers, including guidance on becoming a reviewer and on how to best participate in the peer review process.

Collection : 12 journals

Advanced Search Options : None

8. OpenDOAR

OpenDOAR, or the Directory of Open Access Repositories, is a comprehensive resource for finding free OA journals and articles. Using Google Custom Search, OpenDOAR combs through OA repositories around the world and returns relevant research in all disciplines.

The repositories it searches through are assessed and categorized by OpenDOAR staff to ensure they meet quality standards. Inclusion criteria for the database include requirements for OA content, global access, and categorically appropriate content, in addition to various other quality assurance measures. OpenDOAR has metadata, data, content, preservation, and submission policies for repositories, in addition to two OA policy statements regarding minimum and optimum recommendations.

This database allows users to browse and search repositories, which can then be selected, and articles and data can be accessed from the repository directly. As a repository database, much of the content on the site is geared toward the support of repositories and OA standards.

Collection : 5,768 repositories

Other Services : OpenDOAR offers a variety of additional services. Given the nature of the platform, services are primarily aimed at repositories and institutions, and there is a marked focus on OA in general. Sherpa services are OA archiving tools for authors and institutions.

They also offer various resources for OA support and compliance regarding standards and policies. The publication router matches publications and publishers with appropriate repositories.

There are also services and resources from JISC for repositories for cost management, discoverability, research impact, and interoperability, including ORCID consortium membership information. Additionally, a repository self-assessment tool is available for members.

Advanced Search Options :   Name, organization name, repository type, software name, content type, subject, country, region

9. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) is operated by the Bielefeld University Library in Germany, and it offers more than 240 million documents from more than 8,000 sources. Sixty percent of its content is OA, and you can filter your search accordingly.

BASE has rigorous inclusion requirements for content providers regarding quality and relevance, and they maintain a list of content providers for the sake of transparency, which can be easily found on their website. BASE has a fairly elegant interface. Search results can be organized by author, title, or date.

From the search results, items can be selected and exported, added to favorites, emailed, and searched in Google Scholar. There are basic and advanced search features, with the advanced search offering numerous options for refining search criteria. There is also a feature on the website that saves recent searches without additional steps from the user.

Collection : 276,019,066 documents; 9,286 content providers

Advanced Search Options :   Author, subject, year, content provider, language, document type, access, terms of reuse

10. Digital Library of the Commons Repository

Run by Indiana University, the Digital Library of the Commons (DLC) Repository is a multidisciplinary journal repository that allows users to access thousands of free and OA articles from around the world. You can browse by document type, date, author, title, and more or search for keywords relevant to your topic.

DCL also offers the Comprehensive Bibliography of the Commons, an image database, and a keyword thesaurus for enhanced search parameters. The repository includes books, book chapters, conference papers, journal articles, surveys, theses and dissertations, and working papers. DCL advanced search features drop-down menus of search types with built-in Boolean search options.

Searches can be sorted by relevance, title, date, or submission date in ascending or descending order. Abstracts are included in selected search results, with access to full texts available, and citations can be exported from the same page. Additionally, the image database search includes tips for better search results.

Collection : 10,784

Advanced Search Options :   Author, date, title, subject, sector, region, conference

11. CIA World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook is a little different from the other resources on this list in that it is not an online journal directory or repository. It is, however, a useful free online research database for academics in a variety of disciplines.

All the information is free to access, and it provides facts about every country in the world, which are organized by category and include information about history, geography, transportation, and much more. The World Factbook can be searched by country or region, and there is also information about the world's oceans.

This site contains resources related to the CIA as an organization rather than being a scientific journal database specifically. The site has a user interface that is easy to navigate. The site also provides a section for updates regarding changes to what information is available and how it is organized, making it easier to interact with the information you are searching for.

Collection : 266 countries

12. Paperity

Paperity boasts its status as the "first multidisciplinary aggregator of OA journals and papers." Their focus is on helping you avoid paywalls while connecting you to authoritative research. In addition to providing readers with easy access to thousands of journals, Paperity seeks to help authors reach their audiences and help journals increase their exposure to boost readership.

Paperity has journal articles for every discipline, and the database offers more than a dozen advanced search options, including the length of the paper and the number of authors. There is even an option to include, exclude, or exclusively search gray papers.

Paperity is available for mobile, with both a mobile site and the Paperity Reader, an app that is available for both Android and Apple users. The database is also available on social media. You can interact with Paperity via Twitter and Facebook, and links to their social media are available on their homepage, including their Twitter feed.

Collection : 8,837,396

Advanced Search Options : Title, abstract, journal title, journal ISSN, publisher, year of publication, number of characters, number of authors, DOI, author, affiliation, language, country, region, continent, gray papers

13. dblp Computer Science Bibliography

The dblp Computer Science Bibliography is an online index of major computer science publications. dblp was founded in 1993, though until 2010 it was a university-specific database at the University of Trier in Germany. It is currently maintained by the Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics.

Although it provides access to both OA articles and those behind a paywall, you can limit your search to only OA articles. The site indexes more than three million publications, making it an invaluable resource in the world of computer science. dblp entries are color-coded based on the type of item.

dblp has an extensive FAQ section, so questions that might arise about topics like the database itself, navigating the website, or the data on dblp, in addition to several other topics, are likely to be answered. The website also hosts a blog and has a section devoted to website statistics.

Collection : 5,884,702

14. EconBiz

EconBiz is a great resource for economic and business studies. A service of the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, it offers access to full texts online, with the option of searching for OA material only. Their literature search is performed across multiple international databases.

EconBiz has an incredibly useful research skills section, with resources such as Guided Walk, a service to help students and researchers navigate searches, evaluate sources, and correctly cite references; the Research Guide EconDesk, a help desk to answer specific questions and provide advice to aid in literature searches; and the Academic Career Kit for what they refer to as Early Career Researchers.

Other helpful resources include personal literature lists, a calendar of events for relevant calls for papers, conferences, and workshops, and an economics terminology thesaurus to help in finding keywords for searches. To stay up-to-date with EconBiz, you can sign up for their newsletter.

Collection : 1,075,219

Advanced Search Options :   Title, subject, author, institution, ISBN/ISSN, journal, publisher, language, OA only

15. BioMed Central

BioMed Central provides OA research from more than 300 peer-reviewed journals. While originally focused on resources related to the physical sciences, math, and engineering, BioMed Central has branched out to include journals that cover a broader range of disciplines, with the aim of providing a single platform that provides OA articles for a variety of research needs. You can browse these journals by subject or title, or you can search all articles for your required keyword.

BioMed Central has a commitment to peer-reviewed sources and to the peer review process itself, continually seeking to help and improve the peer review process. They're "committed to maintaining high standards through full and stringent peer review."

Additionally, the website includes resources to assist and support editors as part of their commitment to providing high-quality, peer-reviewed OA articles.

Collection : 507,212

Other Services : BMC administers the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) registry. While initially designed for registering clinical trials, since its creation in 2000, the registry has broadened its scope to include other health studies as well.

The registry is recognized by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), and it meets the requirements established by the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

The study records included in the registry are all searchable and free to access. The ISRCTN registry "supports transparency in clinical research, helps reduce selective reporting of results and ensures an unbiased and complete evidence base."

Advanced Search Options :   Author, title, journal, list

A multidisciplinary search engine, JURN provides links to various scholarly websites, articles, and journals that are free to access or OA. Covering the fields of the arts, humanities, business, law, nature, science, and medicine, JURN has indexed almost 5,000 repositories to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

Search features are enhanced by Google, but searches are filtered through their index of repositories. JURN seeks to reach a wide audience, with their search engine tailored to researchers from "university lecturers and students seeking a strong search tool for OA content" and "advanced and ambitious students, age 14-18" to "amateur historians and biographers" and "unemployed and retired lecturers."

That being said, JURN is very upfront about its limitations. They admit to not being a good resource for educational studies, social studies, or psychology, and conference archives are generally not included due to frequently unstable URLs.

Collection : 5,064 indexed journals

Other Services : JURN has a browser add-on called UserScript. This add-on allows users to integrate the JURN database directly into Google Search. When performing a search through Google, the add-on creates a link that sends the search directly to JURN CSE. JURN CSE is a search service that is hosted by Google.

Clicking the link from the Google Search bar will run your search through the JURN database from the Google homepage. There is also an interface for a DuckDuckGo search box; while this search engine has an emphasis on user privacy, for smaller sites that may be indexed by JURN, DuckDuckGo may not provide the same depth of results.

Advanced Search Options :   Google search modifiers

Dryad is a digital repository of curated, OA scientific research data. Launched in 2009, it is run by a not-for-profit membership organization, with a community of institutional and publisher members for whom their services have been designed. Members include institutions such as Stanford, UCLA, and Yale, as well as publishers like Oxford University Press and Wiley.

Dryad aims to "promote a world where research data is openly available, integrated with the scholarly literature, and routinely reused to create knowledge." It is free to access for the search and discovery of data. Their user experience is geared toward easy self-depositing, supports Creative Commons licensing, and provides DOIs for all their content.

Note that there is a publishing charge associated if you wish to publish your data in Dryad.  When searching datasets, they are accompanied by author information and abstracts for the associated studies, and citation information is provided for easy attribution.

Collection : 44,458

Advanced Search Options : No

Run by the British Library, the E-Theses Online Service (EThOS) allows you to search over 500,000 doctoral theses in a variety of disciplines. All of the doctoral theses available on EThOS have been awarded by higher education institutions in the United Kingdom.

Although some full texts are behind paywalls, you can limit your search to items available for immediate download, either directly through EThOS or through an institution's website. More than half of the records in the database provide access to full-text theses.

EThOS notes that they do not hold all records for all institutions, but they strive to index as many doctoral theses as possible, and the database is constantly expanding, with approximately 3,000 new records added and 2,000 new full-text theses available every month. The availability of full-text theses is dependent on multiple factors, including their availability in the institutional repository and the level of repository development.

Collection : 500,000+

Advanced Search Options : Abstract, author's first name, author's last name, awarding body, current institution, EThOS ID, year, language, qualifications, research supervisor, sponsor/funder, keyword, title

PubMed is a research platform well-known in the fields of science and medicine. It was created and developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). It has been available since 1996 and offers access to "more than 33 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books."

While PubMed does not provide full-text articles directly, and many full-text articles may be behind paywalls or require subscriptions to access them, when articles are available from free sources, such as through PubMed Central (PMC), those links are provided with the citations and abstracts that PubMed does provide.

PMC, which was established in 2000 by the NLM, is a free full-text archive that includes more than 6,000,000 records. PubMed records link directly to corresponding PMC results. PMC content is provided by publishers and other content owners, digitization projects, and authors directly.

Collection : 33,000,000+

Advanced Search Options : Author's first name, author's last name, identifier, corporation, date completed, date created, date entered, date modified, date published, MeSH, book, conflict of interest statement, EC/RN number, editor, filter, grant number, page number, pharmacological action, volume, publication type, publisher, secondary source ID, text, title, abstract, transliterated title

20. Semantic Scholar

A unique and easy-to-use resource, Semantic Scholar defines itself not just as a research database but also as a "search and discovery tool." Semantic Scholar harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to efficiently sort through millions of science-related papers based on your search terms.

Through this singular application of machine learning, Semantic Scholar expands search results to include topic overviews based on your search terms, with the option to create an alert for or further explore the topic. It also provides links to related topics.

In addition, search results produce "TLDR" summaries in order to provide concise overviews of articles and enhance your research by helping you to navigate quickly and easily through the available literature to find the most relevant information. According to the site, although some articles are behind paywalls, "the data [they] have for those articles is limited," so you can expect to receive mostly full-text results.

Collection : 203,379,033

Other Services : Semantic Scholar supports multiple popular browsers. Content can be accessed through both mobile and desktop versions of Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera.

Additionally, Semantic Scholar provides browser extensions for both Chrome and Firefox, so AI-powered scholarly search results are never more than a click away. The mobile interface includes an option for Semantic Swipe, a new way of interacting with your research results.

There are also beta features that can be accessed as part of the Beta Program, which will provide you with features that are being actively developed and require user feedback for further improvement.

Advanced Search Options : Field of study, date range, publication type, author, journal, conference, PDF

Zenodo, powered by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), was launched in 2013. Taking its name from Zenodotus, the first librarian of the ancient library of Alexandria, Zenodo is a tool "built and developed by researchers, to ensure that everyone can join in open science." Zenodo accepts all research from every discipline in any file format.

However, Zenodo also curates uploads and promotes peer-reviewed material that is available through OA. A DOI is assigned to everything that is uploaded to Zenodo, making research easily findable and citable. You can sort by keyword, title, journal, and more and download OA documents directly from the site.

While there are closed access and restricted access items in the database, the vast majority of research is OA material. Search results can be filtered by access type, making it easy to view the free articles available in the database.

Collection : 2,220,000+

Advanced Search Options : Access, file type, keywords

Check out our roundup of free research databases as a handy one-page PDF.

How to find peer-reviewed articles.

There are a lot of free scholarly articles available from various sources. The internet is a big place. So how do you go about finding peer-reviewed articles when conducting your research? It's important to make sure you are using reputable sources.

The first source of the article is the person or people who wrote it. Checking out the author can give you some initial insight into how much you can trust what you’re reading. Looking into the publication information of your sources can also indicate whether the article is reliable.

Aspects of the article, such as subject and audience, tone, and format, are other things you can look at when evaluating whether the article you're using is valid, reputable, peer-reviewed material. So, let's break that down into various components so you can assess your research to ensure that you're using quality articles and conducting solid research.

Check the Author

Peer-reviewed articles are written by experts or scholars with experience in the field or discipline they're writing about. The research in a peer-reviewed article has to pass a rigorous evaluation process, so it's a foregone conclusion that the author(s) of a peer-reviewed article should have experience or training related to that research.

When evaluating an article, take a look at the author's information. What credentials does the author have to indicate that their research has scholarly weight behind it? Finding out what type of degree the author has—and what that degree is in—can provide insight into what kind of authority the author is on the subject.

Something else that might lend credence to the author's scholarly role is their professional affiliation. A look at what organization or institution they are affiliated with can tell you a lot about their experience or expertise. Where were they trained, and who is verifying their research?

Identify Subject and Audience

The ultimate goal of a study is to answer a question. Scholarly articles are also written for scholarly audiences, especially articles that have gone through the peer review process. This means that the author is trying to reach experts, researchers, academics, and students in the field or topic the research is based on.

Think about the question the author is trying to answer by conducting this research, why, and for whom. What is the subject of the article? What question has it set out to answer? What is the purpose of finding the information? Is the purpose of the article of importance to other scholars? Is it original content?

Research should also be approached analytically. Is the methodology sound? Is the author using an analytical approach to evaluate the data that they have obtained? Are the conclusions they've reached substantiated by their data and analysis? Answering these questions can reveal a lot about the article's validity.

Format Matters

Reliable articles from peer-reviewed sources have certain format elements to be aware of. The first is an abstract. An abstract is a short summary or overview of the article. Does the article have an abstract? It's unlikely that you're reading a peer-reviewed article if it doesn't. Peer-reviewed journals will also have a word count range. If an article seems far too short or incredibly long, that may be reason to doubt it.

Another feature of reliable articles is the sections the information is divided into. Peer-reviewed research articles will have clear, concise sections that appropriately organize the information. This might include a literature review, methodology, results (in the case of research articles), and a conclusion.

One of the most important sections is the references or bibliography. This is where the researcher lists all the sources of their information. A peer-reviewed source will have a comprehensive reference section.

An article that has been written to reach an academic community will have an academic tone. The language that is used, and the way this language is used, is important to consider. If the article is riddled with grammatical errors, confusing syntax, and casual language, it almost definitely didn't make it through the peer review process.

Also consider the use of terminology. Every discipline is going to have standard terminology or jargon that can be used and understood by other academics in the discipline. The language in a peer-reviewed article is going to reflect that.

If the author is going out of their way to explain simple terms, or terms that are standard to the field or discipline, it's unlikely that the article has been peer reviewed, as this is something that the author would be asked to address during the review process.

Publication

The source of the article will be a very good indicator of the likelihood that it was peer reviewed. Where was the article published? Was it published alongside other academic articles in the same discipline? Is it a legitimate and reputable scholarly publication?

A trade publication or newspaper might be legitimate or reputable, but it is not a scholarly source, and it will not have been subject to the peer review process. Scholarly journals are the best resource for peer-reviewed articles, but it's important to remember that not all scholarly journals are peer reviewed.

It's helpful to look at a scholarly source's website, as peer-reviewed journals will have a clear indication of the peer review process. University libraries, institutional repositories, and reliable databases (and now you have a list of legit ones) can also help provide insight into whether an article comes from a peer-reviewed journal.

Common Research Mistakes to Avoid

Research is a lot of work. Even with high standards and good intentions, it's easy to make mistakes. Perhaps you searched for access to scientific journals for free and found the perfect peer-reviewed sources, but you forgot to document everything, and your references are a mess. Or, you only searched for free online articles and missed out on a ground-breaking study that was behind a paywall.

Whether your research is for a degree or to get published or to satisfy your own inquisitive nature, or all of the above, you want all that work to produce quality results. You want your research to be thorough and accurate.

To have any hope of contributing to the literature on your research topic, your results need to be high quality. You might not be able to avoid every potential mistake, but here are some that are both common and easy to avoid.

Sticking to One Source

One of the hallmarks of good research is a healthy reference section. Using a variety of sources gives you a better answer to your question. Even if all of the literature is in agreement, looking at various aspects of the topic may provide you with an entirely different picture than you would have if you looked at your research question from only one angle.

Not Documenting Every Fact

As you conduct your research, do yourself a favor and write everything down. Everything you include in your paper or article that you got from another source is going to need to be added to your references and cited.

It's important, especially if your aim is to conduct ethical, high-quality research, that all of your research has proper attribution. If you don't document as you go, you could end up making a lot of work for yourself if the information you don't write down is something that later, as you write your paper, you really need.

Using Outdated Materials

Academia is an ever-changing landscape. What was true in your academic discipline or area of research ten years ago may have since been disproven. If fifteen studies have come out since the article that you're using was published, it's more than a little likely that you're going to be basing your research on flawed or dated information.

If the information you're basing your research on isn't as up-to-date as possible, your research won't be of quality or able to stand up to any amount of scrutiny. You don't want all of your hard work to be for naught.

Relying Solely on Open Access Journals

OA is a great resource for conducting academic research. There are high-quality journal articles available through OA, and that can be very helpful for your research. But, just because you have access to free articles, that doesn't mean that there's nothing to be found behind a paywall.

Just as dismissing high-quality peer-reviewed articles because they are OA would be limiting, not exploring any paid content at all is equally short-sighted. If you're seeking to conduct thorough and comprehensive research, exploring all of your options for quality sources is going to be to your benefit.

Digging Too Deep or Not Deep Enough

Research is an art form, and it involves a delicate balance of information. If you conduct your research using only broad search terms, you won't be able to answer your research question well, or you'll find that your research provides information that is closely related to your topic but, ultimately, your findings are vague and unsubstantiated.

On the other hand, if you delve deeply into your research topic with specific searches and turn up too many sources, you might have a lot of information that is adjacent to your topic but without focus and perhaps not entirely relevant. It's important to answer your research question concisely but thoroughly.

Different Types of Scholarly Articles

Different types of scholarly articles have different purposes. An original research article, also called an empirical article, is the product of a study or an experiment. This type of article seeks to answer a question or fill a gap in the existing literature.

Research articles will have a methodology, results, and a discussion of the findings of the experiment or research and typically a conclusion.

Review articles overview the current literature and research and provide a summary of what the existing research indicates or has concluded. This type of study will have a section for the literature review, as well as a discussion of the findings of that review. Review articles will have a particularly extensive reference or bibliography section.

Theoretical articles draw on existing literature to create new theories or conclusions, or look at current theories from a different perspective, to contribute to the foundational knowledge of the field of study.

10 Tips for Navigating Journal Databases

Use the right academic journal database for your search, be that interdisciplinary or specific to your field. Or both!

If it's an option, set the search results to return only peer-reviewed sources.

Start by using search terms that are relevant to your topic without being overly specific.

Try synonyms, especially if your keywords aren't returning the desired results.

Even if you've found some good articles, try searching using different terms.

Explore the advanced search features of the database(s).

Learn to use Booleans (AND, OR, NOT) to expand or narrow your results.

Once you've gotten some good results from a more general search, try narrowing your search.

Read through abstracts when trying to find articles relevant to your research.

Keep track of your research and use citation tools. It'll make life easier when it comes time to compile your references.

7 Frequently Asked Questions

1. how do i get articles for free.

Free articles can be found through free online academic journals, OA databases, or other databases that include OA journals and articles. These resources allow you to access free papers online so you can conduct your research without getting stuck behind a paywall.

Academics don't receive payment for the articles they contribute to journals. There are often, in fact, publication fees that scholars pay in order to publish. This is one of the funding structures that allows OA journals to provide free content so that you don't have to pay fees or subscription costs to access journal articles.

2. How Do I Find Journal Articles?

Journal articles can be found in databases and institutional repositories that can be accessed at university libraries. However, online research databases that contain OA articles are the best resource for getting free access to journal articles that are available online.

Peer-reviewed journal articles are the best to use for academic research, and there are a number of databases where you can find peer-reviewed OA journal articles. Once you've found a useful article, you can look through the references for the articles the author used to conduct their research, and you can then search online databases for those articles, too.

3. How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in reputable scholarly peer-reviewed journals. High-quality journals and journal articles can be found online using academic search engines and free research databases. These resources are excellent for finding OA articles, including peer-reviewed articles.

OA articles are articles that can be accessed for free. While some scholarly search engines and databases include articles that aren't peer reviewed, there are also some that provide only peer-reviewed articles, and databases that include non-peer-reviewed articles often have advanced search features that enable you to select "peer review only." The database will return results that are exclusively peer-reviewed content.

4. What Are Research Databases?

A research database is a list of journals, articles, datasets, and/or abstracts that allows you to easily search for scholarly and academic resources and conduct research online. There are databases that are interdisciplinary and cover a variety of topics.

For example, Paperity might be a great resource for a chemist as well as a linguist, and there are databases that are more specific to a certain field. So, while ERIC might be one of the best educational databases available for OA content, it's not going to be one of the best databases for finding research in the field of microbiology.

5. How Do I Find Scholarly Articles for Specific Fields?

There are interdisciplinary research databases that provide articles in a variety of fields, as well as research databases that provide articles that cater to specific disciplines. Additionally, a journal repository or index can be a helpful resource for finding articles in a specific field.

When searching an interdisciplinary database, there are frequently advanced search features that allow you to narrow the search results down so that they are specific to your field. Selecting "psychology" in the advanced search features will return psychology journal articles in your search results. You can also try databases that are specific to your field.

If you're searching for law journal articles, many law reviews are OA. If you don't know of any databases specific to history, visiting a journal repository or index and searching "history academic journals" can return a list of journals specific to history and provide you with a place to begin your research.

6. Are Peer-Reviewed Articles Really More Legitimate?

The short answer is yes, peer-reviewed articles are more legitimate resources for academic research. The peer review process provides legitimacy, as it is a rigorous review of the content of an article that is performed by scholars and academics who are experts in their field of study. The review provides an evaluation of the quality and credibility of the article.

Non-peer-reviewed articles are not subject to a review process and do not undergo the same level of scrutiny. This means that non-peer-reviewed articles are unlikely, or at least not as likely, to meet the same standards that peer-reviewed articles do.

7. Are Free Article Directories Legitimate?

Yes! As with anything, some databases are going to be better for certain requirements than others. But, a scholarly article database being free is not a reason in itself to question its legitimacy.

Free scholarly article databases can provide access to abstracts, scholarly article websites, journal repositories, and high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles. The internet has a lot of information, and it's often challenging to figure out what information is reliable. 

Research databases and article directories are great resources to help you conduct your research. Our list of the best research paper websites is sure to provide you with sources that are totally legit.

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How Peer Review Effectively Supports Student Writing

When students assess each other’s work, they can provide valuable feedback that leads to growth in their writing skills.

I’ve heard it said that there’s no better way to get to know your students than by inviting them to write. I would also add that there’s great value in having students write to develop their literacy skills and that the process of composing is sometimes overlooked. 

One of the challenges with writing instruction is that it produces so much work for teachers to grade. As a middle school teacher, I had an average of 120 students. If I had each student write just a little bit each day, this volume of reading (and grading) material added up quickly. Yet, we know from long-standing and more recent research that writing and reading are reciprocal processes . If we don’t have both of these engagements happening frequently, an educator with a critical stance might ask, “What is happening in my students’ literacy development?” 

When it comes to authentic development, as well as manageability, peer review is a valuable step. Students need to learn to write for an audience, but it’s also important for them to do the reading work of providing high-level thinking in critique to a peer. It presents another opportunity for them to read with purpose.

The Positives of Peer Review

There are a number of positives for peer review, including the framing of “constructive” criticism as wording from writers and editors that can help the writer construct something new and better, as the name entails. Scathing critiques do little to improve our writing, but neither do “It’s all good” approaches that barely skim the surface. 

As a classroom teacher, I share ideas about how to shape and share peer review, including providing focus points and allowing authors the space to share the kind of feedback that would be most helpful to them. I learned this best when I was in graduate school and have since practiced this focused approach with K–12 students.

I emphasize the importance of asking for specific feedback, including identifying areas of strength, as it is an important step and helps students to know what the peer review process is really all about. I also position writing as a process and engage in the vulnerability of demonstrating my own writing to the class. I do not hesitate to lay bare the moments when I might make a mistake or need to think of a better way of saying something.

Specific peer review, both written and verbal, can be useful data that is generated in the moment, and saved for later, to include during conference times (in person or in video meetings) to help further guide the process of composing.

Encourage Composing in Community

Writing can be a very lonely process. When students are invited to compose drafts, engage in small group or paired discussion, and then incorporate feedback, the classroom process of composing begins to look and feel much more like an authentic way of engaging with writing and creating, rather than simply completing a task for a grade or to prepare for an exam.

Modeling is key in all of these stages, from the writing itself to the feedback process, and I do not shy away from showing students my writing in development (including notes and comments from editors). Stephen King showed me how to do this so well at the end of his book On Writing , in which the reader gets to glimpse the pages that illustrate that no writer achieves perfection on the first round.

I also freely discuss the times that I have received less-than-helpful feedback—not as a means of commiserating, but in order to show students how to provide feedback in more productive ways. Above all, I attempt to build a culture of revision, which is so vital in writing. Linking to talks, I also share interviews I have done with authors about the many-leveled process of revision. Authors are people too, and the world of authoring is not some exclusive utopia of people whose fingers work magic on keyboards.

We all have a process, and we all benefit from specific feedback. This type of modeling doesn’t require an entire lesson but can be accomplished with a brief series of personal examples coupled with in-the-moment feedback while students are working in small groups. The examples can take only five to 10 minutes of sharing and lead to the kind of specific feedback we’d already want to share with students when conferencing.

Finally, I attempt to celebrate writing as an individual and yet communal exercise in which sharing ideas means writing with others in mind. Kurt Vonnegut famously said that a writer needs to imagine one person they are trying to “speak to” in their composing. Toni Morrison has indicated that we should write the stories that we are looking for.

8 Recommended Strategies for Negotiating Peer Reviews

• Set specific goals for one improvement at a time.Resist the urge to do a complete rewrite when engaging in peer review (or, for teachers, grading).
• Read a wide range of mentor texts, noting specific author moves.
• Connect mentor texts with writing goals.
• Incorporate examples of common errors or challenges in writing for class-wide practice—again, with many examples.
• Embrace multimodal options of composing  for students who might find reading and writing to be difficult (including those with particular needs and accommodations).
• Embrace oral language process (i.e., talking through what one will write) as a scaffold to the written word.
• Students may not be in command of the words they want to use just yet.
• Minimize the fear of the blank page by writing in front of and alongside students.

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Peer Review: An Introduction: Where to Find Peer Reviewed Sources

• Why not just use Google or Wikipedia?
• Where to Find Peer Reviewed Sources
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Why is it so hard to find Peer-Reviewed Sources?

It isn't hard to find peer-reviewed sources: you just need to know where to look!  If you start in the right place, you can usually find a relevant, peer-reviewed source for your research in as few clicks as a Google search, and you can even use many of the search techniques you use in Google and Wikipedia.

The easiest way to find a peer-reviewed article is by using one of the Library's numerous databases. All of the Library's databases are listed in the Online Journals and Databases index. The databases are divided by name and discipline.

Departmental libraries and library subject guides have created subject-focused lists of electronic and print research resources that are useful for their disciplines. You can search the library directory  for links to the departmental libraries at the University of Illinois Library, or search library websites by college  if you're not sure which departmental library serves your subject.

Peer-Reviewed Resources for Disciplinary Topics

There are numerous print and digital resources for specific disciplines, areas of study, and specialist fields.  To find research resources and databases for your area, consult the comprehensive directory of LibGuides , the websites of specialist libraries, and above all, contact a librarian for help !

Here are a few major databases for finding peer-reviewed research sources in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences:

• MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Proved access to citations from worldwide publications, including periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies. more... less... Alternate Access Link
• Web of Science (Core Collection) This link opens in a new window Web of Science indexes core journal articles, conference proceedings, data sets, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
• Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window A scholarly, multidisciplinary database providing indexing and abstracts for over 10,000 publications, including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, and others. Also includes full-text access to over 5,000 journals. Offers coverage of many areas of academic study including: archaeology, area studies, astronomy, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, ethnic & multicultural studies, food science & technology, general science, geography, geology, law, mathematics, mechanical engineering, music, physics, psychology, religion & theology, women's studies, and other fields. more... less... Alternate Access Link
• IEEE Xplore This link opens in a new window Provides full-text access to IEEE transactions, IEEE and IEE journals, magazines, and conference proceedings published since 1988, and all current IEEE standards; brings additional search and access features to IEEE/IEE digital library users. Browsable by books & e-books, conference publications, education and learning, journals and magazines, standards and by topic. Also provides links to IEEE standards, IEEE spectrum and other sites.
• Scopus This link opens in a new window Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database including peer-reviewed titles from international publishers, Open Access journals, conference proceedings, trade publications and quality web sources. Subject coverage includes: Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Engineering; Life and Health Sciences; Social Sciences, Psychology and Economics; Biological, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
• Business Source Ultimate This link opens in a new window Provides bibliographic and full text content, including indexing and abstracts for scholarly business journals back as far as 1886 and full text journal articles in all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. The database full text content includes financial data, books, monographs, major reference works, book digests, conference proceedings, case studies, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses and more. more... less... Alternate Access Link
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• Last Updated: Nov 9, 2023 11:15 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.illinois.edu/peerreview

Reference management. Clean and simple.

The top list of academic search engines

1. Google Scholar

4. science.gov, 5. semantic scholar, 6. baidu scholar, get the most out of academic search engines, frequently asked questions about academic search engines, related articles.

Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.

Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles
• Abstracts: only a snippet of the abstract is available
• Related articles: ✔
• References: ✔
• Cited by: ✔
• Links to full text: ✔
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, RIS, BibTeX

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany. That is also where its name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles (contains duplicates)
• Abstracts: ✔
• Related articles: ✘
• References: ✘
• Cited by: ✘
• Export formats: RIS, BibTeX

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open-access research papers. For each search result, a link to the full-text PDF or full-text web page is provided.

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles
• Links to full text: ✔ (all articles in CORE are open access)
• Export formats: BibTeX

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need anymore to query all those resources separately!

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles and reports
• Links to full text: ✔ (available for some databases)
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX (available for some databases)

Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. Its mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

• Coverage: approx. 40 million articles
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX

Although Baidu Scholar's interface is in Chinese, its index contains research papers in English as well as Chinese.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 100 million articles
• Abstracts: only snippets of the abstract are available
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX

RefSeek searches more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Its clean interface makes it especially easy to use for students and new researchers.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 1 billion documents
• Abstracts: only snippets of the article are available
• Export formats: not available

Consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Google Scholar is an academic search engine, and it is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only let's you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free, but also often provides links to full text PDF file.

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature developed at the Allen Institute for AI. Sematic Scholar was publicly released in 2015 and uses advances in natural language processing to provide summaries for scholarly papers.

BASE , as its name suggest is an academic search engine. It is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that's where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers. For each search result a link to the full text PDF or full text web page is provided.

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

Facilitating Digital Peer Review

Main navigation.

There are a lot of different ways to facilitate peer review and the ubiquity of online commenting and composing tools gives users yet another option for conducting peer review work. Asking students to conduct peer review on hard paper copies is one of the most common ways of encouraging students to do peer review, but a number of digital tools can make the peer review process more streamlined. This page will lay out some of the options for conducting peer review digitally, weighing the pros and cons of each approach.

Why Conduct Peer Review Digitally?

Accessibility.

When peer review is conducted via paper, it does not allow students the flexibility to re-size font sizes or colors; the document is static. When conducting peer review digitally, students have more options for viewing documents in ways that may better suit their ways of thinking and reading. Further, not all students can read each other's handwriting effectively; typed text is clearer and easier for other students to read and process. Because increasing numbers of students also type and write digitally on a regular basis, it is also physically less demanding for many students to write extensive comments in typed text rather than via handwriting.

Room for extensive feedback 

When students are constrained to a limited space, they may not feel incentivized to offer clear, extensive, and legible feedback. Digital spaces gives students a lot of room to unpack comments.

Ease of archiving exchanges

It can be easy for students and instructors alike to lose pieces of paper! Archiving peer review work digitally allows everyone to maintain a clear paper trail of feedback given and received so it's easy to see which comments to which students chose to respond.

Promoting digital literacy  

The more experience that students have offering feedback in digital spaces, the more comfortable they'll become if, in future school or work contexts, they are asked to give feedback in a digital space.

Available Tools for Facilitating Digital Peer Review

Description .

The peer review tool in Canvas, our campus' learning management system, allows students to comment on their peers' papers, give marginal feedback, give summative comments, and complete rubrics. The instructor sets up the Canvas peer review tool via Assignments (see the Canvas Help Center guide for more information on  how to create a peer review assignment ) and then assigns students into groups to allow students to view work submitted to Canvas assignments. Once a student has been assigned to read their peers' papers, they use Canvas' PDF editing tool to give comments on the paper itself. They will also be able to add comments via a comments box on the side bar. If an instructor wants a student to fill out a specific rubric, the instructor can attach a rubric to the assignment, which students can fill out, or the instructor can create a rubric within  Canvas' Outcomes tool . 

Advantages to Using Canvas

Using one centralized tool for managing class activities is generally a best practice in digital teaching and learning. Students tend to prefer going to one place to find all of their class activities. Canvas' tool also includes robust commenting features that allow students to highlight, underline, and comment on features of their peers' texts. By using Canvas, students can also find their students' peer review comments more easily so that all of their drafts are in one unified place. Canvas' interface also makes it easy for students to exchange papers without running the risk of errors.

Disadvantages to Using Canvas

In Canvas, students can only engage in a one-to-one exchange; within a peer review group, students cannot see their peers' comments on different papers. Rather, they can also see the comments they give and the comments that they receive. Therefore, if instructors want students to work as a full group - commenting on each other's comments - then Canvas will not be the right tool to facilitate that process. In addition, on the instructor end, setting up peer review can feel a little confusing since it has to be done through the Assignments feature.

Google Docs

Description.

Google Docs is a collaborative writing platform where students can comment on each other's work online. Google Docs has largely the same functionality as a word processor, but with the advantages of allowing students to work on documents collaboratively in real time. With rigorous version control tools that allow students to track revisions by different users over time, Google Docs allows students to quickly see how their paper is getting revised by their peers. Students can offer both comments in the margins and offer a marginal end note. While no rubric tool is built into Google Docs, instructors can create a separate document for students to complete a required rubric.

Advantages to using Google Docs 

Google Docs offers users a lot of flexibility for commenting on student work and is the most collaborative tool available since it allows users to see each other's comments and work together in real time. Google Docs' commenting tools are also quite robust; students can make a variety of changes. Plus, Stanford students all have access to a Google Drive account, so it is likely that students use Google Docs in other class contexts and may have some familiarity with how the tool works already, eliminating the need to offer much technical orientation.

Disadvantages to using Google Docs 

The privacy and visibility settings in Google Docs can be confusing to students; they will need to make sure that they've shared their docs in a way that will allow peer reviewers both to see and edit the document. Further, as a third party tool, students will need to navigate outside of the course management system to access it. Google Docs' comments can also be challenging to download since the format of the documents is meant to be viewed on the screen.

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is one of the most popular word processing tools for writers to use and it offers robust commenting tools. For example, students can write comments in the margin of the paper or write summative comments at the end of the paper. Microsoft Word is not a free program, but with their Stanford accounts, students  can install the Microsoft Office suite for free.

Advantages to using Microsoft Word 

The Microsoft word interface is basically a digitized version of a hard copy, so it has the advantages of looking visually familiar to students who are accustomed to printed peer review. The commenting tools are clear and will help students easily archive and keep track of comments and changes to their essays.

Disadvantages to using Microsoft Word

Like Canvas, Microsoft Word mostly facilitates one-to-one exchanges. While students could send each other versions of their papers with peers' comments, this process can be a bit cumbersome because it requires that students upload new versions of their documents every time that another person contributes to the conversation. Further, Microsoft Word documents can be easy to lose track of precisely because they are not stored in the cloud and cannot be commented on in real time.

Peer Review With Digital Tools

I nteractions are a key component of student learning in online and face-to-face settings including student-instructor interactions, student-content interactions, and student-student interactions. Peer review is one type of student-student interaction that can build classroom community and deepen student learning (Nilson 2018). Feedback is a crucial part of learning but doesn’t only have to come from instructors –peer feedback can potentially save some time for instructors to do other important work with students (Brigati & Swann 2015). Guiding students to useful, productive peer feedback strengthens student performance and provides students with more feedback for learning growth.

How to Get Started

Best practices.

• Digital Tools
• Recording: Peer Review with Digital Tools and Moodle Workshop 2/2023
• Start the peer-review process with students by explaining the purpose of using peer review in your course. Stay positive and share why this is a worthwhile learning experience. Share that peer feedback should be descriptive (not evaluative) and the goal is for it to be formative, meaning that it will help change and develop future work that students submit.
• Will the peer feedback be graded or earn points in the class?
• What should the size of peer groups be and how many reviews should each assignment receive?
• Create a peer review feedback sheet or co-create wone with students –be sure it is aligned with goals/objectives for the assignment and any final evaluations that will occur.
• After collection, redistribute papers randomly along with a grading rubric. After students have evaluated the papers ask them to exchange with a neighbor, evaluate the new paper, and then compare notes.
• After completing an exam, have students compare and discuss answers with a partner. You may offer them the opportunity to submit a new answer, dividing points between the two.
• In a small class, ask students to bring one copy of their paper with their name on it and one or two copies without a name. Collect the “name” copy and redistribute the others for peer review. Provide feedback on all student papers. Collect the peer reviews and return papers to their authors.
• For group presentations, require the class to evaluate the group’s performance using a predetermined marking scheme.
• When working on group projects, have students evaluate each group member’s contribution to the project on a scale of 1-10. Require students to provide rationale for how and why they awarded points.
• Provide student models/examples of quality feedback and guidance for what students should do and what their feedback should “look like.” Align the feedback examples and expectations with learning objectives for students on the assignment requiring peer feedback. In the examples you share with students, model clear, constructive feedback with positive feedback as a first step. Note: the positive feedback is not praise about the student or person but specific to the task. 
• Infographic example of “How to Give Awesome Feedback”
• Find the thesis statement and three pieces of evidence aligned with the thesis statement
• Identify terminology from class used in the lab report
• Identify the strongest sentence in the conclusion
• Describe the organization of the methods and materials section of the lab report. Are their parts that confused you? If so, give suggestions for what might need clarification or expansion.
• Look for statements in the posting that directly connect to our class lectures and discussions. Point these out and ask for clarification if needed.

There are many peer review forms, worksheets, checklists, and so on available for different content areas and can be found by searching online. Here are some templates/examples:

• Essay peer review form with reviewer comment area and writer reflection/notes area
• A rubric to self-assess and peer-assess mathematical problem solving tasks of college students (article with peer checklist examples)
• Argumentative essay rubric with a column for peer feedback
• Group/team peer review checklist (make a copy to edit)
• RISE Model with open-ended/fill-in-the blank feedback (make a copy to edit)
• Peer Review Cover Sheet Example for a Presentation
• Presentation Rubric Checklist Rubric
• Choose a digital tool to support the peer review process — see the digital tool section (tab) for details. Recommended tools include PlayPosit Peer Review, Moodle Workshop Activity, Turnitin PeerMark, Google Workspace Tools
• Ideally allow students to keep revising and working with the peer feedback to make improvements in their work. This may mean fewer assignments get done in a class but students may show more growth and improvement in skills/deeper understanding of course concepts.
• Provide training to students and guided worksheets or reference materials to help them give better quality feedback. As part of this process, include examples and models of what effective feedback looks like.
• Explain the purpose of peer review to students, helping students realize the role of a peer-reviewer is to read and describe and not to evaluate or grade (Washington University Center for Teaching and Learning 2022). Consider asking students to analyze, react to, and describe their peers’ work rather than grade or evaluate.
• In guides, worksheets, or expectations ask students to give positive feedback first when describing the work of their peers (Nilson & Goodson 2018).
• In an online course, give a time estimate for how long student should expect to spend on a peer review. This could be part of a partnership contract for peer review (you can also consider having students design contracts together).
• Teaching Students to Evaluate Each Other (from Cornell University, Center for Teaching Innovation)
• Planning and Guiding In-Class Peer Review (from Washington University, Center for Teaching and Learning)
• Peer Feedback: Making it Meaningful (by Dr. Catlin Tucker)

Digital Tools: Feature Comparison

• Moodle Workshop
• Turnitin PeerMark
• Google Workspace

Moodle Workshop Activity: Peer Review Activity for Multiple Submission Types

Moodle’s workshop activity enables the collection, review and peer assessment of students’ work. Students can submit digital files (such as documents, slides, spreadsheets, or other attachments) or type text directly into a field using the text editor. Then, depending on instructor settings and guidance, students assess each other and give comments/feedback to their peers and/or give grades to their peers. After the peer-assessment window closes, instructors review the grades given to students, make any adjustments, and then post the grades to the Moodle gradebook.

Moodle Workshop has a complicated set up procedure and a bit of a learning curve for instructors and students. Therefore it is best if you plan on using it multiple times in a course. Workshop is particularly useful for large classes in which an instructor wants to get make grading more efficient by using students to grade their peers (note: there is research to show that peer grading can be valid and reliable).

If you only want students to provide feedback to each other and have an instructor provide the grade, be sure to use the “Comments” grading strategy when setting up the Workshop activity. Then have students turn in a revised copy of an assignment in an separate Moodle assignment activity so the instructor can provide the final grade.

Student submissions can be assessed by their peers in multiple ways depending on how an instructor sets up the activity. Peers can use a “checklist” of criteria or a rubric with specific quality indicators – both must be defined by the instructor. Students are given the opportunity to assess one or more of their peers’ submissions. Submissions and reviewers may be anonymous. Students obtain two grades in a workshop activity — a grade for their submission and a grade for their assessment of their peers’ submissions. Both grades are recorded in the Moodle Gradebook. 

• Moodle Docs: Workshop Activity with video tutorial (Moodle 4)
• Moodle Docs: Using Workshop with step-by-step phase directions (Moodle 4 )
• Moodle Forum for Instructors on Using the Workshop Activity –online discussion with help and other instructors who use Workshop
• YouTube Playlist: Moodle Workshop Activity
• Example workshop with data  (Log in with username  teacher /password  moodle  and explore the grading and phases of a completed workshop on the Moodle School demo site.)
• Workshop Guide with Grade Adjustment Suggestions

Turnitin PeerMark: Peer Review Tool for Writing Assignments/Papers

PeerMark is a peer review assignment tool for essays, papers, and other writing assignments. Instructors can create and manage PeerMark assignments that allow students to read, review, and evaluate one or many papers submitted by their classmates. Reviews can be anonymous.

Instructors will create a Turnitin Assignment 2 within Moodle and then add a PeerMark assignment to the original assignment. After students have submitted writing assignments they will be given peer’s submissions to provide feedback. An instructor can determine pairings/groups for peer review or allow them to be assigned by the Turnitin system. An instructor can provide questions to guide the review – these questions can be open-ended or associated with points. Inline and pop-up comments can also be added by peers. Note: if instructors want to assign grades to students based on their work doing peer reviews, those grades will have to be added to Moodle manually.

NOTE: Turnitin does not work on a mobile device

• Turnitin PeerMark Assignments in Moodle: Instructor Guide
• Turnitin PeerMark Guide to Share with Students
• YouTube Playlist (currently being updated)
• About PeerMark™ assignments  

Google Workspace Tools: Peer Reviews not Synced with Moodle

Each of the primary Google Workspace Tools: Docs, Slides, Sheets allow for comments and assigning tasks to students. These features can help students with peer review as can annotating text by highlighting and underlining with different colors. In Google Docs, additional peer review tools include the ability to add a watermark i.e. “Draft” and use the “Suggesting” mode to make changes directly to a document that can be accepted or declined by the author/owner of the document.

For workflow, students can also create a tickable checkbox/schedule for peer review at the top of the document. Instructors can also create templates for students to use when drafting that have built in headings, question, etc. for peers to consider when reviewing — ask students to make a copy of a document or you can create a “forced copy” version of a document. Instructors can also use shared folders to organize peer reviews. Using Google Workspace tools for peer review will not automatically add grades to Moodle –instructors would need to manually add grades to Moodle. 

Features within Google Tools:

• Suggest edits in Google Docs – Computer – Docs Editors Help  
• Comments and Action Items in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides
• How to Create a Checklist in Google Docs
• Process Suggestion: Guiding Student Peer Review – Google Drive   
• Jamboard Process Suggestion (students add work to a Jamboard and send it to their peers)
• Manage Notifications
• Google Forms: Students can send Google Forms to peers – -instructors can create Google Form templates for students to use ( example form and suggested process )

Guidance Using Google Tools in Conjunction with Moodle:

• Google Groups : Create a class folder in Drive and then share it or group folders with students –groups can be managed through Wolfware
• Use a Discussion Forum/Board: Students submit work and use the forum to give each other feedback — note: feedback will be viewable to peers. Instructors can also create forums for small peer groups.  A rubric can be attached to the Discussion Forum via “Advanced Grading”
• Moodle Assignments: Students independently use Google commenting, suggestion, annotation tools and upload a marked copy to a Moodle Assignment. A rubric can be attached to the assignment via “Advanced Grading”
• Google Assignments: Allows students to turn in work directly from Google Drive and it controls the sharing/access to documents but does not have a built in peer/collaboration feature. Use the template option and ask students to turn in the work with the peer comments. For more on Google Assignments in general use this instructor guide.
• Manual Grading in Moodle: If students are using a Google Form or shared documents in Drive folders and you want to add a grade to Moodle, add a grade item and enter the grades manually. Instructors can add multiple grade items for the creator/writer’s work and for the peers who are reviewing.

Video Project Student Submission and Peer Review

PlayPosit is an interactive video creator allowing instructors to overlay questions, discussion, web content, and other interactions on top of a video creating opportunities for students to interact with course content.

The Peer Review feature allows students to upload videos and then provide feedback on peer-submitted videos and get peer feedback for their own work. This tool is particularly useful for performance-based assignments.

Students can submit a recording of their own performance in a speech, presentation, micro-teaching session, model job interview, artistic performance, etc. and receive peer feedback on that work. Instructors can provide different levels of guidance in how students should provide feedback and feedback can be anonymous. PlayPosit communicates with the Moodle Gradebook through a “completion” grade just for uploading a video and giving comments OR through a graded assignment in which the instructor gives students comments and/or feedback via an embedded rubric.

• PlayPosit Peer Review Instructor Set Up in Moodle at NC State
• Grading a PlayPosit Peer Review in Moodle at NC State: Instructors
• Completing a PlayPosit Peer Review Assignment in Moodle at NC State: Students
• PlayPosit Peer Review Guide for Instructors
• PlayPosit Peer Review Video for Instructors

Panopto is the NC State enterprise tool for recording, storing, and sharing videos and audio. Both students and instructors can record in Panopto and then share their work with others within and outside of NC State.

Instructors can add a “Panopto Student Submission” activity in a Moodle course. This will allow students to add a video from Panopto (they can record within Panopto or upload a video to Panopto). However, in the Panopto Student Submission activity type, student-submitted videos are only viewable to the instructor.

If instructors want students to view each others work and give feedback, they can create and use the “Assignment Folder” feature built into Panopto.

• Panopto Assignment Folders for Peer Feedback

Research: Books & Articles

Boyd, J. P., Dominelli, A., & Polimeni, J. (2022, January 19). Teach One, Save One: The Unlimited Power of Peer Education. Faculty Focus. Retrieved 7 February 2022, from https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/course-design-ideas/teach-one-save-one-the-unlimited-power-of-peer-education/?st=FFWeekly%3Bsc%3DFFWeekly220121%3Butm_term%3DFFWeekly220121  

Brigati, J. R., & Swann, J. M. (2015). Facilitating improvements in laboratory report writing skills with less grading: a laboratory report peer-review process. Journal of microbiology & biology education , 16 (1), 61–68. https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/jmbe.v16i1.884   

Hattie, J., & Clarke, S. (2018). Visible Learning: Feedback (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi-org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/10.4324/9780429485480  

Madland, C. & Richards, G. (2016). Enhancing Student-Student Online Interaction: Exploring the Study Buddy Peer Review Activity. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning , 17 (3), 157–175. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v17i3.2179  

Mcleod, M., Grabill, J., & Hart-Davidson, B. (2022) Feedback and Revision: The Key Components of Powerful Writing Pedagogy. ELI Review. Retrieved 7 February 2022, from https://elireview.com/content/td/feedback/  

Nilson, L. B., & Goodson, L. A. (2018). Online teaching at its best: Merging instructional design with teaching and learning research . https://catalog.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog/NCSU4049218  

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When Students Critique Each Other’s Work, Learning Happens

Explore more.

• Classroom Management
• Student Engagement

G iving students formative feedback on their writing has a positive impact on their learning and performance. But reviewing students’ work at multiple points throughout the writing process can quickly become time-prohibitive for educators. What I’ve learned from experience is that I don’t have to do it all myself—my students are also capable of providing valuable feedback to each other.

Peer review is something I have used in my classes off and on for many years. I find it to be a powerful and engaging learning activity to help students think deeply about what makes writing effective. By reviewing others’ work and preparing constructive written or verbal feedback for their peers, students also start thinking more about their own work and how to improve it. Throughout the process, they connect with each other and form relationships through collaborative writing and review cycles. And with practice, they often gain confidence in their own abilities as both writers and reviewers.

Over time, I have found that letting go of some of the feedback process and incorporating peer review into my courses spares me review cycles while also giving students more opportunities to get feedback. For it all to go well, you need to ensure students really understand what peer review is, what purpose it serves, and what they’ll need to do in the process—for many, it’s not intuitive. Giving feedback that is meaningful, supportive, and constructive may not be something they’ve done before, so students may need additional resources and support to get started.

Here is how I incorporate peer review into my courses, along with some practical suggestions to help students find meaning in the process.

WHAT IS PEER REVIEW AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

Peer review is a process in which students give each other feedback on their work. While peer review can be used in a variety of ways, in this article I’m referring to using student peer review for academic writing—including short essays, opinion pieces, and minute papers, as well as more comprehensive project reports, position papers, and research reports.

Peer review is the giving of an opinion. This is critical for students to understand—it can help create buy-in and smooth the process as students get ready to give and receive peer feedback.

Students can provide this feedback one on one or in groups. It can be either formally structured, with written feedback, or informally structured, with conversation and discussion.

The peer review approach can be effective in online and in-person classrooms. Yet, in both environments, I’ve found the results are best when I break writing assignments down into several sections and have students complete them over time, rather than setting one big deadline.

Most recently, I have been using peer review as group work in my research application class for senior-level students. I create groups of three, when possible, for both writing teams and reviewing teams. The assignment is scaffolded, meaning students complete individual components of the research paper at different times throughout the term. This way, students have multiple opportunities for peer review and engagement with others.

Each writing team is paired with a reviewing team for the entire term, so the reviewers can become familiar with the topics and see changes that are made based on their suggestions. As the writing evolves, the reviewers receive a grade on their feedback. The writing team receives their grade once the final paper is submitted.

Explain the Process to Your Class and Address Any Fears

Once you’ve selected the writing assignment you’d like to use to incorporate peer review, the first step is to gauge your students’ comfort level with critiquing their classmates’ work. Before introducing the peer-review process, I send out an anonymous, one-item questionnaire through the learning management system (LMS) asking, “What specific thoughts, beliefs, or concerns do you have about conducting a review of your peers’ writing?”

Their responses give me a sense of how comfortable or experienced they are with editing each other’s work. The answers also help me individualize instruction and address specific concerns. I find that my students often have the same worries: They’re afraid of offending their peers, and they don’t think they’re knowledgeable enough to provide helpful feedback.

For example, one of my students responded, “I do not feel like I know what I should be looking for, so critiquing my peers makes me nervous. I do not want to misguide them. The only feedback I feel confident in is grammar, wording, and spelling. Essentially, given that I have no clue what I am doing, it is intimidating to review a peer’s work.

Another said, “I want to be a good reviewer, but sometimes I don’t know if I know enough.”

To ease these doubts, take time in class to define what peer review is (and what it is not) and talk about how giving and receiving feedback helps students learn from each other in a meaningful way. Reinforcing that it is not the reviewer’s job to fix or grade someone else’s work may help alleviate some of the fear and self-doubt students may feel.

Providing clear guidelines, explicit examples, and a well-structured framework for feedback can also help lessen students’ anxiety about their role in the peer-review process. Most college students have already read something they thought was really good or something they felt was confusing or misleading. I let them know that peer review starts there. My job is to help them put language to their opinions so they’re more confident describing to others what worked well and what could be stronger.

To do this, I provide examples of prior peer feedback. I also use publicly available sites with suggestions for creating feedback that reinforces a spirit of collegial collaboration. Students can revisit these resources as often as needed as they begin to craft peer feedback.

Set Up an Online Annotation Platform for Ease of Access

I use an online annotation platform to streamline the peer review process. This allows for collaborative learning that can be synchronous or asynchronous . There are many good platforms available, and most LMSs have a compatible annotation option that can be configured to allow secure access.

Digital annotation through the LMS allows faculty to track individual reviewer contributions and allows students 24/7 access to complete their reviews and generate feedback at a time that’s convenient for them.

Offer Review Guidelines and Rubrics

I create a rubric for each assignment with key components and expectations the writers should follow. These guidelines change depending on the assignment, and I encourage peer reviewers to adhere to the rubric when evaluating their classmates’ work, as it will help identify what they should be looking for. It gives them a point of focus beyond the default of grammar and punctuation and compels students to dive more deeply into the guidelines the writers used when crafting their work. Reviewers can easily see what should be included in the assignment and where the emphasis should be (the weighting from the rubric).

“Take time in class to define what peer review is (and what it is not) and talk about how giving and receiving feedback helps students learn from each other in a meaningful way.”

The reviewers can use the statements from the rubric to focus on the level of evidentiary support provided (e.g., Is it enough to support this as a problem? Is it current? Is there something missing?) and look for connections between the question posed and the research problem (e.g., Can I see how this problem will be addressed? Do I understand who the population of interest is? Do the comparisons make sense?).

Instead of providing checkboxes on the rubric, I encourage students to communicate in writing what they see and what they don’t see in their peers’ work based on the guidelines and their knowledge of the assignment’s requirements. For example, students’ feedback might answer questions such as, Am I seeing what is expected based on the criteria? Is the content understandable? Does the progression of ideas make sense?

Provide Ample Time for Communication and Feedback

I encourage reviewers to gather additional information from writers before they begin their work. Knowing if writers would like reviewers to focus on something specific can provide additional direction. For example, writers may ask, “Is the thesis statement clearly presented? Have we provided sufficient context in the background information? Are the transitions clear?” While the reviewers will see things they want to offer feedback on, taking the writers’ needs into consideration is important for creating a collegial review process.

As such, reviewers need ample time to formulate meaningful feedback at each step. Generally, I provide three days for students to review each draft. Reviewers are encouraged to read the work aloud, then formulate their opinions. If this peer review is being used as group work, reviewers can then get together to discuss their impressions and record their collective feedback. This collaborative manner of review avoids groupthink, enhances students’ understanding, and allays concerns students might have about misdirecting their peers.

“By encouraging student reviewers to focus on the guidelines, take the writers’ needs into consideration, and form feedback based on their experience as a reader, the process remains well-grounded and helps to create constructive dialogue among students.”

I also always assess reviewers’ feedback. This allows me to monitor comments, address any potential misdirection, and get a sense of how the writing is progressing without spending a lot of time on formative feedback. On occasion, I provide a corrective comment or suggestion to the writers or the reviewers outside of the annotation platform—but this is rare. By encouraging student reviewers to focus on the guidelines, take the writers’ needs into consideration, and form feedback based on their experience as a reader, the process remains well-grounded and helps to create constructive dialogue among students.

After I look over the reviewers’ feedback, I take five minutes of class the next day to talk about the strengths I saw. Without using specific phrases or comments from the feedback, I point out what I noticed that’s good, such as suggestions for improving the writers’ organization or useful feedback that helped identify missing elements in the paper.

This exercise helps me create buy-in from student reviewers, who now feel supported in the process, as well as from writers, who are more likely to make the suggested changes if they sense they can trust the feedback.

Establish a Grading System for Feedback

To encourage meaningful participation throughout the process, I grade peer feedback. Consistent with evidence-based recommendations , I use a grading guide that is focused on providing high-quality feedback on each paper’s structure, content, organization, and clarity of writing. This guide is straightforward and can be adapted as needed depending on the structure of the assignment.

Some of the core areas the grading guide covers include the following:

Observations clearly identify what worked well and what could be strengthened from the perspective of a reader. Reviewer also provides collegial encouragement with specific suggestions for improvement.

Feedback is given in a positive, constructive manner.

Comments are well thought out and reviewer’s recommendations are clearly and concisely articulated.

Language, grammar, and tense is consistent with college-level writing.

In my experience, grading the reviewers ensures that feedback is well-written and substantive (simply stating, “This is good,” “This still needs work,” or, “I love this!” is not sufficient). And if the feedback addresses something lacking in the writing, grading helps enforce that students are collegial, constructive, and specific when they make constructive suggestions.

I do wait until the final submission of the assignment before I grade the writers; this allows time for peer feedback to be considered, incorporated, or discarded as appropriate.

Poll Your Students to Learn What Worked for Them—or Didn’t

After final papers are submitted, I typically send my students another brief, anonymous questionnaire to see what they thought about the activity and what I can improve for the next time. Most of my students have consistently indicated that both giving and receiving feedback from their peers was beneficial—for the group writing process, as well as for their own writing ability.

One student commented, “It helped me gain an understanding of different writing styles, elements that could be added to better our group’s writing, and how to provide constructive feedback in a collegial manner.”

Developing Skills That Transcend a Single Assignment

While there is occasionally doubt—for me and for students—that peer review activities will result in meaningful learning, I am always pleasantly surprised by how involved my students become with the process over the course of the term and how much insight they possess about good writing once they have a clear framework.

In my experience, reviewers commonly identify opportunities for clarity in their peers’ writing, which in turn helps improve their own understanding of the material as well. They comment on areas for expansion, organization of content, transition of thought, and suggestions for including forgotten or interesting elements that would strengthen the overall work.

By reviewing their peers’ work, students gain skills and confidence that transcend a single assignment. They tend to think more critically about what they are reading and hone their communication skills in a way that prepares them to work with others to accomplish a common task. They also realize how much they know and how much they have to offer each other.

As an educator, giving up control and allowing students to give each other feedback can be a scary proposition. But over time, I have found that even though I spend less time giving students feedback, I am more informed about the work they ultimately submit for grading. And the quality of my students’ writing—across the board—is noticeably improved.

Dr. Tammy Haley is an associate professor of nursing and director of graduate nursing education in the Beaver College of Health Sciences at Appalachian State University.

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Peer review templates, expert examples and free training courses

Joanna Wilkinson

Learning how to write a constructive peer review is an essential step in helping to safeguard the quality and integrity of published literature. Read on for resources that will get you on the right track, including peer review templates, example reports and the Web of Science™ Academy: our free, online course that teaches you the core competencies of peer review through practical experience ( try it today ).

How to write a peer review

Understanding the principles, forms and functions of peer review will enable you to write solid, actionable review reports. It will form the basis for a comprehensive and well-structured review, and help you comment on the quality, rigor and significance of the research paper. It will also help you identify potential breaches of normal ethical practice.

This may sound daunting but it doesn’t need to be. There are plenty of peer review templates, resources and experts out there to help you, including:

Peer review training courses and in-person workshops

• Peer review templates ( found in our Web of Science Academy )
• Expert examples of peer review reports
• Co-reviewing (sharing the task of peer reviewing with a senior researcher)

Other peer review resources, blogs, and guidelines

We’ll go through each one of these in turn below, but first: a quick word on why learning peer review is so important.

Why learn to peer review?

Peer reviewers and editors are gatekeepers of the research literature used to document and communicate human discovery. Reviewers, therefore, need a sound understanding of their role and obligations to ensure the integrity of this process. This also helps them maintain quality research, and to help protect the public from flawed and misleading research findings.

Learning to peer review is also an important step in improving your own professional development.

You’ll become a better writer and a more successful published author in learning to review. It gives you a critical vantage point and you’ll begin to understand what editors are looking for. It will also help you keep abreast of new research and best-practice methods in your field.

We strongly encourage you to learn the core concepts of peer review by joining a course or workshop. You can attend in-person workshops to learn from and network with experienced reviewers and editors. As an example, Sense about Science offers peer review workshops every year. To learn more about what might be in store at one of these, researcher Laura Chatland shares her experience at one of the workshops in London.

There are also plenty of free, online courses available, including courses in the Web of Science Academy such as ‘Reviewing in the Sciences’, ‘Reviewing in the Humanities’ and ‘An introduction to peer review’

The Web of Science Academy also supports co-reviewing with a mentor to teach peer review through practical experience. You learn by writing reviews of preprints, published papers, or even ‘real’ unpublished manuscripts with guidance from your mentor. You can work with one of our community mentors or your own PhD supervisor or postdoc advisor, or even a senior colleague in your department.

Go to the Web of Science Academy

Peer review templates

Peer review templates are helpful to use as you work your way through a manuscript. As part of our free Web of Science Academy courses, you’ll gain exclusive access to comprehensive guidelines and a peer review report. It offers points to consider for all aspects of the manuscript, including the abstract, methods and results sections. It also teaches you how to structure your review and will get you thinking about the overall strengths and impact of the paper at hand.

• Web of Science Academy template (requires joining one of the free courses)
• PLoS’s review template
• Wiley’s peer review guide (not a template as such, but a thorough guide with questions to consider in the first and second reading of the manuscript)

Beyond following a template, it’s worth asking your editor or checking the journal’s peer review management system. That way, you’ll learn whether you need to follow a formal or specific peer review structure for that particular journal. If no such formal approach exists, try asking the editor for examples of other reviews performed for the journal. This will give you a solid understanding of what they expect from you.

Peer review examples

Understand what a constructive peer review looks like by learning from the experts.

Here’s a sample of pre and post-publication peer reviews displayed on Web of Science publication records to help guide you through your first few reviews. Some of these are transparent peer reviews , which means the entire process is open and visible — from initial review and response through to revision and final publication decision. You may wish to scroll to the bottom of these pages so you can first read the initial reviews, and make your way up the page to read the editor and author’s responses.

• Pre-publication peer review: Patterns and mechanisms in instances of endosymbiont-induced parthenogenesis
• Pre-publication peer review: Can Ciprofloxacin be Used for Precision Treatment of Gonorrhea in Public STD Clinics? Assessment of Ciprofloxacin Susceptibility and an Opportunity for Point-of-Care Testing
• Transparent peer review: Towards a standard model of musical improvisation
• Transparent peer review: Complex mosaic of sexual dichromatism and monochromatism in Pacific robins results from both gains and losses of elaborate coloration
• Post-publication peer review: Brain state monitoring for the future prediction of migraine attacks
• Web of Science Academy peer review: Students’ Perception on Training in Writing Research Article for Publication

F1000 has also put together a nice list of expert reviewer comments pertaining to the various aspects of a review report.

Co-reviewing

Co-reviewing (sharing peer review assignments with senior researchers) is one of the best ways to learn peer review. It gives researchers a hands-on, practical understanding of the process.

In an article in The Scientist , the team at Future of Research argues that co-reviewing can be a valuable learning experience for peer review, as long as it’s done properly and with transparency. The reason there’s a need to call out how co-reviewing works is because it does have its downsides. The practice can leave early-career researchers unaware of the core concepts of peer review. This can make it hard to later join an editor’s reviewer pool if they haven’t received adequate recognition for their share of the review work. (If you are asked to write a peer review on behalf of a senior colleague or researcher, get recognition for your efforts by asking your senior colleague to verify the collaborative co-review on your Web of Science researcher profiles).

The Web of Science Academy course ‘Co-reviewing with a mentor’ is uniquely practical in this sense. You will gain experience in peer review by practicing on real papers and working with a mentor to get feedback on how their peer review can be improved. Students submit their peer review report as their course assignment and after internal evaluation receive a course certificate, an Academy graduate badge on their Web of Science researcher profile and is put in front of top editors in their field through the Reviewer Locator at Clarivate.

Here are some external peer review resources found around the web:

• Peer Review Resources from Sense about Science
• Peer Review: The Nuts and Bolts by Sense about Science
• How to review journal manuscripts by R. M. Rosenfeld for Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery
• Ethical guidelines for peer review from COPE
• An Instructional Guide for Peer Reviewers of Biomedical Manuscripts by Callaham, Schriger & Cooper for Annals of Emergency Medicine (requires Flash or Adobe)
• EQUATOR Network’s reporting guidelines for health researchers

And finally, we’ve written a number of blogs about handy peer review tips. Check out some of our top picks:

• How to Write a Peer Review: 12 things you need to know
• Want To Peer Review? Top 10 Tips To Get Noticed By Editors
• Review a manuscript like a pro: 6 tips from a Web of Science Academy supervisor
• How to write a structured reviewer report: 5 tips from an early-career researcher

Want to learn more? Become a master of peer review and connect with top journal editors. The Web of Science Academy – your free online hub of courses designed by expert reviewers, editors and Nobel Prize winners. Find out more today.

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Peer-Review

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Most of the library's research databases include articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals.

Learning to identify scholarly (often known as "peer-reviewed") and non-scholarly sources of information is an important skill to cultivate.  Many databases provide help with making this distinction; they will offer options when searching to identify peer-reviewed content.

Additionally,  Ulrich's Directory of Publications  is a database that can be searched to verify the publication type (scholarly, refereed, magazine, etc).

Each database interface will look a little different, but may include a way to limit your searches to peer reviewed articles. One example is pictured below... just make sure to look for a "peer review" limiter either before or after your search:

How do articles get peer reviewed? What role does peer review play in scholarly research and publication? Peer-reviewed journals only publish articles that have been approved by a panel of experts/researchers/professionals in a field of study. Some research professors/assignments will require that you only use peer-reviewed sources.

The video below, explains peer review and what it means to you; In 3 minutes, viewers of this video will become familiar with the peer-review process and understand its significance to new knowledge production and scholarly research.

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Journal of Student Research

Journal of Student Research (JSR) is an Academic, Multidisciplinary, and Faculty-reviewed Journal (Houston, Texas) devoted to the Rapid Dissemination of Current Research Published by High School Edition , Undergraduate and Graduate students.

Articles Indexed in Scholarly Databases

The journal seeks articles that are novel, integrative, and accessible to a broad audience, including an array of disciplines. The content of the journal ranges from Applied research to Theoretical research. In general, papers on all topics are welcome to submit. The journal uses an automated process from manuscript submission to publication. Manuscript submission, peer review, and publication are all handled online, and the journal automates all clerical steps during peer review.

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Students strive to be successful at publications, and with JSR, authors aspiring to publish will receive scholarly feedback after the reviews of their submissions are received. This feedback will help authors identify areas of improvement to their submission and help them better understand the process to be successful at publication. Once published, we strive to provide a global platform for our authors to showcase their work.

Faculty-Refereed Review Process

This journal uses a double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. Authors need to ensure that their manuscripts do not give away their identity to facilitate this. To find out more about the review process, please visit the  Author Guidelines  page. We invite teachers and faculty interested in reviewing articles for this journal; please visit our  Reviewers  page for more information.

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This journal provides access to its published content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Learn more about  Open Access .

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Articles published in this journal are under a  Creative Commons License , and the authors retain the copyright to their work.

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Peer Review in Scientific Publications: Benefits, Critiques, & A Survival Guide

Jacalyn kelly.

1 Clinical Biochemistry, Department of Pediatric Laboratory Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Tara Sadeghieh

Khosrow adeli.

2 Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

3 Chair, Communications and Publications Division (CPD), International Federation for Sick Clinical Chemistry (IFCC), Milan, Italy

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding publication of this article.

Peer review has been defined as a process of subjecting an author’s scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. It functions to encourage authors to meet the accepted high standards of their discipline and to control the dissemination of research data to ensure that unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations or personal views are not published without prior expert review. Despite its wide-spread use by most journals, the peer review process has also been widely criticised due to the slowness of the process to publish new findings and due to perceived bias by the editors and/or reviewers. Within the scientific community, peer review has become an essential component of the academic writing process. It helps ensure that papers published in scientific journals answer meaningful research questions and draw accurate conclusions based on professionally executed experimentation. Submission of low quality manuscripts has become increasingly prevalent, and peer review acts as a filter to prevent this work from reaching the scientific community. The major advantage of a peer review process is that peer-reviewed articles provide a trusted form of scientific communication. Since scientific knowledge is cumulative and builds on itself, this trust is particularly important. Despite the positive impacts of peer review, critics argue that the peer review process stifles innovation in experimentation, and acts as a poor screen against plagiarism. Despite its downfalls, there has not yet been a foolproof system developed to take the place of peer review, however, researchers have been looking into electronic means of improving the peer review process. Unfortunately, the recent explosion in online only/electronic journals has led to mass publication of a large number of scientific articles with little or no peer review. This poses significant risk to advances in scientific knowledge and its future potential. The current article summarizes the peer review process, highlights the pros and cons associated with different types of peer review, and describes new methods for improving peer review.

WHAT IS PEER REVIEW AND WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE?

Peer Review is defined as “a process of subjecting an author’s scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field” ( 1 ). Peer review is intended to serve two primary purposes. Firstly, it acts as a filter to ensure that only high quality research is published, especially in reputable journals, by determining the validity, significance and originality of the study. Secondly, peer review is intended to improve the quality of manuscripts that are deemed suitable for publication. Peer reviewers provide suggestions to authors on how to improve the quality of their manuscripts, and also identify any errors that need correcting before publication.

HISTORY OF PEER REVIEW

The concept of peer review was developed long before the scholarly journal. In fact, the peer review process is thought to have been used as a method of evaluating written work since ancient Greece ( 2 ). The peer review process was first described by a physician named Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi of Syria, who lived from 854-931 CE, in his book Ethics of the Physician ( 2 ). There, he stated that physicians must take notes describing the state of their patients’ medical conditions upon each visit. Following treatment, the notes were scrutinized by a local medical council to determine whether the physician had met the required standards of medical care. If the medical council deemed that the appropriate standards were not met, the physician in question could receive a lawsuit from the maltreated patient ( 2 ).

The invention of the printing press in 1453 allowed written documents to be distributed to the general public ( 3 ). At this time, it became more important to regulate the quality of the written material that became publicly available, and editing by peers increased in prevalence. In 1620, Francis Bacon wrote the work Novum Organum, where he described what eventually became known as the first universal method for generating and assessing new science ( 3 ). His work was instrumental in shaping the Scientific Method ( 3 ). In 1665, the French Journal des sçavans and the English Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society were the first scientific journals to systematically publish research results ( 4 ). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is thought to be the first journal to formalize the peer review process in 1665 ( 5 ), however, it is important to note that peer review was initially introduced to help editors decide which manuscripts to publish in their journals, and at that time it did not serve to ensure the validity of the research ( 6 ). It did not take long for the peer review process to evolve, and shortly thereafter papers were distributed to reviewers with the intent of authenticating the integrity of the research study before publication. The Royal Society of Edinburgh adhered to the following peer review process, published in their Medical Essays and Observations in 1731: “Memoirs sent by correspondence are distributed according to the subject matter to those members who are most versed in these matters. The report of their identity is not known to the author.” ( 7 ). The Royal Society of London adopted this review procedure in 1752 and developed the “Committee on Papers” to review manuscripts before they were published in Philosophical Transactions ( 6 ).

Peer review in the systematized and institutionalized form has developed immensely since the Second World War, at least partly due to the large increase in scientific research during this period ( 7 ). It is now used not only to ensure that a scientific manuscript is experimentally and ethically sound, but also to determine which papers sufficiently meet the journal’s standards of quality and originality before publication. Peer review is now standard practice by most credible scientific journals, and is an essential part of determining the credibility and quality of work submitted.

IMPACT OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Peer review has become the foundation of the scholarly publication system because it effectively subjects an author’s work to the scrutiny of other experts in the field. Thus, it encourages authors to strive to produce high quality research that will advance the field. Peer review also supports and maintains integrity and authenticity in the advancement of science. A scientific hypothesis or statement is generally not accepted by the academic community unless it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal ( 8 ). The Institute for Scientific Information ( ISI ) only considers journals that are peer-reviewed as candidates to receive Impact Factors. Peer review is a well-established process which has been a formal part of scientific communication for over 300 years.

OVERVIEW OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

The peer review process begins when a scientist completes a research study and writes a manuscript that describes the purpose, experimental design, results, and conclusions of the study. The scientist then submits this paper to a suitable journal that specializes in a relevant research field, a step referred to as pre-submission. The editors of the journal will review the paper to ensure that the subject matter is in line with that of the journal, and that it fits with the editorial platform. Very few papers pass this initial evaluation. If the journal editors feel the paper sufficiently meets these requirements and is written by a credible source, they will send the paper to accomplished researchers in the field for a formal peer review. Peer reviewers are also known as referees (this process is summarized in Figure 1 ). The role of the editor is to select the most appropriate manuscripts for the journal, and to implement and monitor the peer review process. Editors must ensure that peer reviews are conducted fairly, and in an effective and timely manner. They must also ensure that there are no conflicts of interest involved in the peer review process.

Overview of the review process

When a reviewer is provided with a paper, he or she reads it carefully and scrutinizes it to evaluate the validity of the science, the quality of the experimental design, and the appropriateness of the methods used. The reviewer also assesses the significance of the research, and judges whether the work will contribute to advancement in the field by evaluating the importance of the findings, and determining the originality of the research. Additionally, reviewers identify any scientific errors and references that are missing or incorrect. Peer reviewers give recommendations to the editor regarding whether the paper should be accepted, rejected, or improved before publication in the journal. The editor will mediate author-referee discussion in order to clarify the priority of certain referee requests, suggest areas that can be strengthened, and overrule reviewer recommendations that are beyond the study’s scope ( 9 ). If the paper is accepted, as per suggestion by the peer reviewer, the paper goes into the production stage, where it is tweaked and formatted by the editors, and finally published in the scientific journal. An overview of the review process is presented in Figure 1 .

WHO CONDUCTS REVIEWS?

Peer reviews are conducted by scientific experts with specialized knowledge on the content of the manuscript, as well as by scientists with a more general knowledge base. Peer reviewers can be anyone who has competence and expertise in the subject areas that the journal covers. Reviewers can range from young and up-and-coming researchers to old masters in the field. Often, the young reviewers are the most responsive and deliver the best quality reviews, though this is not always the case. On average, a reviewer will conduct approximately eight reviews per year, according to a study on peer review by the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) ( 7 ). Journals will often have a pool of reviewers with diverse backgrounds to allow for many different perspectives. They will also keep a rather large reviewer bank, so that reviewers do not get burnt out, overwhelmed or time constrained from reviewing multiple articles simultaneously.

WHY DO REVIEWERS REVIEW?

Referees are typically not paid to conduct peer reviews and the process takes considerable effort, so the question is raised as to what incentive referees have to review at all. Some feel an academic duty to perform reviews, and are of the mentality that if their peers are expected to review their papers, then they should review the work of their peers as well. Reviewers may also have personal contacts with editors, and may want to assist as much as possible. Others review to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in their field, and reading new scientific papers is an effective way to do so. Some scientists use peer review as an opportunity to advance their own research as it stimulates new ideas and allows them to read about new experimental techniques. Other reviewers are keen on building associations with prestigious journals and editors and becoming part of their community, as sometimes reviewers who show dedication to the journal are later hired as editors. Some scientists see peer review as a chance to become aware of the latest research before their peers, and thus be first to develop new insights from the material. Finally, in terms of career development, peer reviewing can be desirable as it is often noted on one’s resume or CV. Many institutions consider a researcher’s involvement in peer review when assessing their performance for promotions ( 11 ). Peer reviewing can also be an effective way for a scientist to show their superiors that they are committed to their scientific field ( 5 ).

ARE REVIEWERS KEEN TO REVIEW?

A 2009 international survey of 4000 peer reviewers conducted by the charity Sense About Science at the British Science Festival at the University of Surrey, found that 90% of reviewers were keen to peer review ( 12 ). One third of respondents to the survey said they were happy to review up to five papers per year, and an additional one third of respondents were happy to review up to ten.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO REVIEW ONE PAPER?

On average, it takes approximately six hours to review one paper ( 12 ), however, this number may vary greatly depending on the content of the paper and the nature of the peer reviewer. One in every 100 participants in the “Sense About Science” survey claims to have taken more than 100 hours to review their last paper ( 12 ).

HOW TO DETERMINE IF A JOURNAL IS PEER REVIEWED

Ulrichsweb is a directory that provides information on over 300,000 periodicals, including information regarding which journals are peer reviewed ( 13 ). After logging into the system using an institutional login (eg. from the University of Toronto), search terms, journal titles or ISSN numbers can be entered into the search bar. The database provides the title, publisher, and country of origin of the journal, and indicates whether the journal is still actively publishing. The black book symbol (labelled ‘refereed’) reveals that the journal is peer reviewed.

THE EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR PEER REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

As previously mentioned, when a reviewer receives a scientific manuscript, he/she will first determine if the subject matter is well suited for the content of the journal. The reviewer will then consider whether the research question is important and original, a process which may be aided by a literature scan of review articles.

Scientific papers submitted for peer review usually follow a specific structure that begins with the title, followed by the abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, conclusions, and references. The title must be descriptive and include the concept and organism investigated, and potentially the variable manipulated and the systems used in the study. The peer reviewer evaluates if the title is descriptive enough, and ensures that it is clear and concise. A study by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) published by the Oxford University Press in 2006 indicated that the title of a manuscript plays a significant role in determining reader interest, as 72% of respondents said they could usually judge whether an article will be of interest to them based on the title and the author, while 13% of respondents claimed to always be able to do so ( 14 ).

The abstract is a summary of the paper, which briefly mentions the background or purpose, methods, key results, and major conclusions of the study. The peer reviewer assesses whether the abstract is sufficiently informative and if the content of the abstract is consistent with the rest of the paper. The NAR study indicated that 40% of respondents could determine whether an article would be of interest to them based on the abstract alone 60-80% of the time, while 32% could judge an article based on the abstract 80-100% of the time ( 14 ). This demonstrates that the abstract alone is often used to assess the value of an article.

The introduction of a scientific paper presents the research question in the context of what is already known about the topic, in order to identify why the question being studied is of interest to the scientific community, and what gap in knowledge the study aims to fill ( 15 ). The introduction identifies the study’s purpose and scope, briefly describes the general methods of investigation, and outlines the hypothesis and predictions ( 15 ). The peer reviewer determines whether the introduction provides sufficient background information on the research topic, and ensures that the research question and hypothesis are clearly identifiable.

The methods section describes the experimental procedures, and explains why each experiment was conducted. The methods section also includes the equipment and reagents used in the investigation. The methods section should be detailed enough that it can be used it to repeat the experiment ( 15 ). Methods are written in the past tense and in the active voice. The peer reviewer assesses whether the appropriate methods were used to answer the research question, and if they were written with sufficient detail. If information is missing from the methods section, it is the peer reviewer’s job to identify what details need to be added.

The results section is where the outcomes of the experiment and trends in the data are explained without judgement, bias or interpretation ( 15 ). This section can include statistical tests performed on the data, as well as figures and tables in addition to the text. The peer reviewer ensures that the results are described with sufficient detail, and determines their credibility. Reviewers also confirm that the text is consistent with the information presented in tables and figures, and that all figures and tables included are important and relevant ( 15 ). The peer reviewer will also make sure that table and figure captions are appropriate both contextually and in length, and that tables and figures present the data accurately.

The discussion section is where the data is analyzed. Here, the results are interpreted and related to past studies ( 15 ). The discussion describes the meaning and significance of the results in terms of the research question and hypothesis, and states whether the hypothesis was supported or rejected. This section may also provide possible explanations for unusual results and suggestions for future research ( 15 ). The discussion should end with a conclusions section that summarizes the major findings of the investigation. The peer reviewer determines whether the discussion is clear and focused, and whether the conclusions are an appropriate interpretation of the results. Reviewers also ensure that the discussion addresses the limitations of the study, any anomalies in the results, the relationship of the study to previous research, and the theoretical implications and practical applications of the study.

The references are found at the end of the paper, and list all of the information sources cited in the text to describe the background, methods, and/or interpret results. Depending on the citation method used, the references are listed in alphabetical order according to author last name, or numbered according to the order in which they appear in the paper. The peer reviewer ensures that references are used appropriately, cited accurately, formatted correctly, and that none are missing.

Finally, the peer reviewer determines whether the paper is clearly written and if the content seems logical. After thoroughly reading through the entire manuscript, they determine whether it meets the journal’s standards for publication,

and whether it falls within the top 25% of papers in its field ( 16 ) to determine priority for publication. An overview of what a peer reviewer looks for when evaluating a manuscript, in order of importance, is presented in Figure 2 .

How a peer review evaluates a manuscript

To increase the chance of success in the peer review process, the author must ensure that the paper fully complies with the journal guidelines before submission. The author must also be open to criticism and suggested revisions, and learn from mistakes made in previous submissions.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PEER REVIEW

The peer review process is generally conducted in one of three ways: open review, single-blind review, or double-blind review. In an open review, both the author of the paper and the peer reviewer know one another’s identity. Alternatively, in single-blind review, the reviewer’s identity is kept private, but the author’s identity is revealed to the reviewer. In double-blind review, the identities of both the reviewer and author are kept anonymous. Open peer review is advantageous in that it prevents the reviewer from leaving malicious comments, being careless, or procrastinating completion of the review ( 2 ). It encourages reviewers to be open and honest without being disrespectful. Open reviewing also discourages plagiarism amongst authors ( 2 ). On the other hand, open peer review can also prevent reviewers from being honest for fear of developing bad rapport with the author. The reviewer may withhold or tone down their criticisms in order to be polite ( 2 ). This is especially true when younger reviewers are given a more esteemed author’s work, in which case the reviewer may be hesitant to provide criticism for fear that it will damper their relationship with a superior ( 2 ). According to the Sense About Science survey, editors find that completely open reviewing decreases the number of people willing to participate, and leads to reviews of little value ( 12 ). In the aforementioned study by the PRC, only 23% of authors surveyed had experience with open peer review ( 7 ).

Single-blind peer review is by far the most common. In the PRC study, 85% of authors surveyed had experience with single-blind peer review ( 7 ). This method is advantageous as the reviewer is more likely to provide honest feedback when their identity is concealed ( 2 ). This allows the reviewer to make independent decisions without the influence of the author ( 2 ). The main disadvantage of reviewer anonymity, however, is that reviewers who receive manuscripts on subjects similar to their own research may be tempted to delay completing the review in order to publish their own data first ( 2 ).

Double-blind peer review is advantageous as it prevents the reviewer from being biased against the author based on their country of origin or previous work ( 2 ). This allows the paper to be judged based on the quality of the content, rather than the reputation of the author. The Sense About Science survey indicates that 76% of researchers think double-blind peer review is a good idea ( 12 ), and the PRC survey indicates that 45% of authors have had experience with double-blind peer review ( 7 ). The disadvantage of double-blind peer review is that, especially in niche areas of research, it can sometimes be easy for the reviewer to determine the identity of the author based on writing style, subject matter or self-citation, and thus, impart bias ( 2 ).

Masking the author’s identity from peer reviewers, as is the case in double-blind review, is generally thought to minimize bias and maintain review quality. A study by Justice et al. in 1998 investigated whether masking author identity affected the quality of the review ( 17 ). One hundred and eighteen manuscripts were randomized; 26 were peer reviewed as normal, and 92 were moved into the ‘intervention’ arm, where editor quality assessments were completed for 77 manuscripts and author quality assessments were completed for 40 manuscripts ( 17 ). There was no perceived difference in quality between the masked and unmasked reviews. Additionally, the masking itself was often unsuccessful, especially with well-known authors ( 17 ). However, a previous study conducted by McNutt et al. had different results ( 18 ). In this case, blinding was successful 73% of the time, and they found that when author identity was masked, the quality of review was slightly higher ( 18 ). Although Justice et al. argued that this difference was too small to be consequential, their study targeted only biomedical journals, and the results cannot be generalized to journals of a different subject matter ( 17 ). Additionally, there were problems masking the identities of well-known authors, introducing a flaw in the methods. Regardless, Justice et al. concluded that masking author identity from reviewers may not improve review quality ( 17 ).

In addition to open, single-blind and double-blind peer review, there are two experimental forms of peer review. In some cases, following publication, papers may be subjected to post-publication peer review. As many papers are now published online, the scientific community has the opportunity to comment on these papers, engage in online discussions and post a formal review. For example, online publishers PLOS and BioMed Central have enabled scientists to post comments on published papers if they are registered users of the site ( 10 ). Philica is another journal launched with this experimental form of peer review. Only 8% of authors surveyed in the PRC study had experience with post-publication review ( 7 ). Another experimental form of peer review called Dynamic Peer Review has also emerged. Dynamic peer review is conducted on websites such as Naboj, which allow scientists to conduct peer reviews on articles in the preprint media ( 19 ). The peer review is conducted on repositories and is a continuous process, which allows the public to see both the article and the reviews as the article is being developed ( 19 ). Dynamic peer review helps prevent plagiarism as the scientific community will already be familiar with the work before the peer reviewed version appears in print ( 19 ). Dynamic review also reduces the time lag between manuscript submission and publishing. An example of a preprint server is the ‘arXiv’ developed by Paul Ginsparg in 1991, which is used primarily by physicists ( 19 ). These alternative forms of peer review are still un-established and experimental. Traditional peer review is time-tested and still highly utilized. All methods of peer review have their advantages and deficiencies, and all are prone to error.

PEER REVIEW OF OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS

Open access (OA) journals are becoming increasingly popular as they allow the potential for widespread distribution of publications in a timely manner ( 20 ). Nevertheless, there can be issues regarding the peer review process of open access journals. In a study published in Science in 2013, John Bohannon submitted 304 slightly different versions of a fictional scientific paper (written by a fake author, working out of a non-existent institution) to a selected group of OA journals. This study was performed in order to determine whether papers submitted to OA journals are properly reviewed before publication in comparison to subscription-based journals. The journals in this study were selected from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Biall’s List, a list of journals which are potentially predatory, and all required a fee for publishing ( 21 ). Of the 304 journals, 157 accepted a fake paper, suggesting that acceptance was based on financial interest rather than the quality of article itself, while 98 journals promptly rejected the fakes ( 21 ). Although this study highlights useful information on the problems associated with lower quality publishers that do not have an effective peer review system in place, the article also generalizes the study results to all OA journals, which can be detrimental to the general perception of OA journals. There were two limitations of the study that made it impossible to accurately determine the relationship between peer review and OA journals: 1) there was no control group (subscription-based journals), and 2) the fake papers were sent to a non-randomized selection of journals, resulting in bias.

JOURNAL ACCEPTANCE RATES

Based on a recent survey, the average acceptance rate for papers submitted to scientific journals is about 50% ( 7 ). Twenty percent of the submitted manuscripts that are not accepted are rejected prior to review, and 30% are rejected following review ( 7 ). Of the 50% accepted, 41% are accepted with the condition of revision, while only 9% are accepted without the request for revision ( 7 ).

SATISFACTION WITH THE PEER REVIEW SYSTEM

Based on a recent survey by the PRC, 64% of academics are satisfied with the current system of peer review, and only 12% claimed to be ‘dissatisfied’ ( 7 ). The large majority, 85%, agreed with the statement that ‘scientific communication is greatly helped by peer review’ ( 7 ). There was a similarly high level of support (83%) for the idea that peer review ‘provides control in scientific communication’ ( 7 ).

HOW TO PEER REVIEW EFFECTIVELY

The following are ten tips on how to be an effective peer reviewer as indicated by Brian Lucey, an expert on the subject ( 22 ):

1) Be professional

Peer review is a mutual responsibility among fellow scientists, and scientists are expected, as part of the academic community, to take part in peer review. If one is to expect others to review their work, they should commit to reviewing the work of others as well, and put effort into it.

2) Be pleasant

If the paper is of low quality, suggest that it be rejected, but do not leave ad hominem comments. There is no benefit to being ruthless.

3) Read the invite

When emailing a scientist to ask them to conduct a peer review, the majority of journals will provide a link to either accept or reject. Do not respond to the email, respond to the link.

4) Be helpful

Suggest how the authors can overcome the shortcomings in their paper. A review should guide the author on what is good and what needs work from the reviewer’s perspective.

5) Be scientific

The peer reviewer plays the role of a scientific peer, not an editor for proofreading or decision-making. Don’t fill a review with comments on editorial and typographic issues. Instead, focus on adding value with scientific knowledge and commenting on the credibility of the research conducted and conclusions drawn. If the paper has a lot of typographical errors, suggest that it be professionally proof edited as part of the review.

6) Be timely

Stick to the timeline given when conducting a peer review. Editors track who is reviewing what and when and will know if someone is late on completing a review. It is important to be timely both out of respect for the journal and the author, as well as to not develop a reputation of being late for review deadlines.

7) Be realistic

The peer reviewer must be realistic about the work presented, the changes they suggest and their role. Peer reviewers may set the bar too high for the paper they are editing by proposing changes that are too ambitious and editors must override them.

8) Be empathetic

Ensure that the review is scientific, helpful and courteous. Be sensitive and respectful with word choice and tone in a review.

Remember that both specialists and generalists can provide valuable insight when peer reviewing. Editors will try to get both specialised and general reviewers for any particular paper to allow for different perspectives. If someone is asked to review, the editor has determined they have a valid and useful role to play, even if the paper is not in their area of expertise.

10) Be organised

A review requires structure and logical flow. A reviewer should proofread their review before submitting it for structural, grammatical and spelling errors as well as for clarity. Most publishers provide short guides on structuring a peer review on their website. Begin with an overview of the proposed improvements; then provide feedback on the paper structure, the quality of data sources and methods of investigation used, the logical flow of argument, and the validity of conclusions drawn. Then provide feedback on style, voice and lexical concerns, with suggestions on how to improve.

In addition, the American Physiology Society (APS) recommends in its Peer Review 101 Handout that peer reviewers should put themselves in both the editor’s and author’s shoes to ensure that they provide what both the editor and the author need and expect ( 11 ). To please the editor, the reviewer should ensure that the peer review is completed on time, and that it provides clear explanations to back up recommendations. To be helpful to the author, the reviewer must ensure that their feedback is constructive. It is suggested that the reviewer take time to think about the paper; they should read it once, wait at least a day, and then re-read it before writing the review ( 11 ). The APS also suggests that Graduate students and researchers pay attention to how peer reviewers edit their work, as well as to what edits they find helpful, in order to learn how to peer review effectively ( 11 ). Additionally, it is suggested that Graduate students practice reviewing by editing their peers’ papers and asking a faculty member for feedback on their efforts. It is recommended that young scientists offer to peer review as often as possible in order to become skilled at the process ( 11 ). The majority of students, fellows and trainees do not get formal training in peer review, but rather learn by observing their mentors. According to the APS, one acquires experience through networking and referrals, and should therefore try to strengthen relationships with journal editors by offering to review manuscripts ( 11 ). The APS also suggests that experienced reviewers provide constructive feedback to students and junior colleagues on their peer review efforts, and encourages them to peer review to demonstrate the importance of this process in improving science ( 11 ).

The peer reviewer should only comment on areas of the manuscript that they are knowledgeable about ( 23 ). If there is any section of the manuscript they feel they are not qualified to review, they should mention this in their comments and not provide further feedback on that section. The peer reviewer is not permitted to share any part of the manuscript with a colleague (even if they may be more knowledgeable in the subject matter) without first obtaining permission from the editor ( 23 ). If a peer reviewer comes across something they are unsure of in the paper, they can consult the literature to try and gain insight. It is important for scientists to remember that if a paper can be improved by the expertise of one of their colleagues, the journal must be informed of the colleague’s help, and approval must be obtained for their colleague to read the protected document. Additionally, the colleague must be identified in the confidential comments to the editor, in order to ensure that he/she is appropriately credited for any contributions ( 23 ). It is the job of the reviewer to make sure that the colleague assisting is aware of the confidentiality of the peer review process ( 23 ). Once the review is complete, the manuscript must be destroyed and cannot be saved electronically by the reviewers ( 23 ).

COMMON ERRORS IN SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

When performing a peer review, there are some common scientific errors to look out for. Most of these errors are violations of logic and common sense: these may include contradicting statements, unwarranted conclusions, suggestion of causation when there is only support for correlation, inappropriate extrapolation, circular reasoning, or pursuit of a trivial question ( 24 ). It is also common for authors to suggest that two variables are different because the effects of one variable are statistically significant while the effects of the other variable are not, rather than directly comparing the two variables ( 24 ). Authors sometimes oversee a confounding variable and do not control for it, or forget to include important details on how their experiments were controlled or the physical state of the organisms studied ( 24 ). Another common fault is the author’s failure to define terms or use words with precision, as these practices can mislead readers ( 24 ). Jargon and/or misused terms can be a serious problem in papers. Inaccurate statements about specific citations are also a common occurrence ( 24 ). Additionally, many studies produce knowledge that can be applied to areas of science outside the scope of the original study, therefore it is better for reviewers to look at the novelty of the idea, conclusions, data, and methodology, rather than scrutinize whether or not the paper answered the specific question at hand ( 24 ). Although it is important to recognize these points, when performing a review it is generally better practice for the peer reviewer to not focus on a checklist of things that could be wrong, but rather carefully identify the problems specific to each paper and continuously ask themselves if anything is missing ( 24 ). An extremely detailed description of how to conduct peer review effectively is presented in the paper How I Review an Original Scientific Article written by Frederic G. Hoppin, Jr. It can be accessed through the American Physiological Society website under the Peer Review Resources section.

CRITICISM OF PEER REVIEW

A major criticism of peer review is that there is little evidence that the process actually works, that it is actually an effective screen for good quality scientific work, and that it actually improves the quality of scientific literature. As a 2002 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded, ‘Editorial peer review, although widely used, is largely untested and its effects are uncertain’ ( 25 ). Critics also argue that peer review is not effective at detecting errors. Highlighting this point, an experiment by Godlee et al. published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) inserted eight deliberate errors into a paper that was nearly ready for publication, and then sent the paper to 420 potential reviewers ( 7 ). Of the 420 reviewers that received the paper, 221 (53%) responded, the average number of errors spotted by reviewers was two, no reviewer spotted more than five errors, and 35 reviewers (16%) did not spot any.

Another criticism of peer review is that the process is not conducted thoroughly by scientific conferences with the goal of obtaining large numbers of submitted papers. Such conferences often accept any paper sent in, regardless of its credibility or the prevalence of errors, because the more papers they accept, the more money they can make from author registration fees ( 26 ). This misconduct was exposed in 2014 by three MIT graduate students by the names of Jeremy Stribling, Dan Aguayo and Maxwell Krohn, who developed a simple computer program called SCIgen that generates nonsense papers and presents them as scientific papers ( 26 ). Subsequently, a nonsense SCIgen paper submitted to a conference was promptly accepted. Nature recently reported that French researcher Cyril Labbé discovered that sixteen SCIgen nonsense papers had been used by the German academic publisher Springer ( 26 ). Over 100 nonsense papers generated by SCIgen were published by the US Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) ( 26 ). Both organisations have been working to remove the papers. Labbé developed a program to detect SCIgen papers and has made it freely available to ensure publishers and conference organizers do not accept nonsense work in the future. It is available at this link: http://scigendetect.on.imag.fr/main.php ( 26 ).

Additionally, peer review is often criticized for being unable to accurately detect plagiarism. However, many believe that detecting plagiarism cannot practically be included as a component of peer review. As explained by Alice Tuff, development manager at Sense About Science, ‘The vast majority of authors and reviewers think peer review should detect plagiarism (81%) but only a minority (38%) think it is capable. The academic time involved in detecting plagiarism through peer review would cause the system to grind to a halt’ ( 27 ). Publishing house Elsevier began developing electronic plagiarism tools with the help of journal editors in 2009 to help improve this issue ( 27 ).

It has also been argued that peer review has lowered research quality by limiting creativity amongst researchers. Proponents of this view claim that peer review has repressed scientists from pursuing innovative research ideas and bold research questions that have the potential to make major advances and paradigm shifts in the field, as they believe that this work will likely be rejected by their peers upon review ( 28 ). Indeed, in some cases peer review may result in rejection of innovative research, as some studies may not seem particularly strong initially, yet may be capable of yielding very interesting and useful developments when examined under different circumstances, or in the light of new information ( 28 ). Scientists that do not believe in peer review argue that the process stifles the development of ingenious ideas, and thus the release of fresh knowledge and new developments into the scientific community.

Another issue that peer review is criticized for, is that there are a limited number of people that are competent to conduct peer review compared to the vast number of papers that need reviewing. An enormous number of papers published (1.3 million papers in 23,750 journals in 2006), but the number of competent peer reviewers available could not have reviewed them all ( 29 ). Thus, people who lack the required expertise to analyze the quality of a research paper are conducting reviews, and weak papers are being accepted as a result. It is now possible to publish any paper in an obscure journal that claims to be peer-reviewed, though the paper or journal itself could be substandard ( 29 ). On a similar note, the US National Library of Medicine indexes 39 journals that specialize in alternative medicine, and though they all identify themselves as “peer-reviewed”, they rarely publish any high quality research ( 29 ). This highlights the fact that peer review of more controversial or specialized work is typically performed by people who are interested and hold similar views or opinions as the author, which can cause bias in their review. For instance, a paper on homeopathy is likely to be reviewed by fellow practicing homeopaths, and thus is likely to be accepted as credible, though other scientists may find the paper to be nonsense ( 29 ). In some cases, papers are initially published, but their credibility is challenged at a later date and they are subsequently retracted. Retraction Watch is a website dedicated to revealing papers that have been retracted after publishing, potentially due to improper peer review ( 30 ).

Additionally, despite its many positive outcomes, peer review is also criticized for being a delay to the dissemination of new knowledge into the scientific community, and as an unpaid-activity that takes scientists’ time away from activities that they would otherwise prioritize, such as research and teaching, for which they are paid ( 31 ). As described by Eva Amsen, Outreach Director for F1000Research, peer review was originally developed as a means of helping editors choose which papers to publish when journals had to limit the number of papers they could print in one issue ( 32 ). However, nowadays most journals are available online, either exclusively or in addition to print, and many journals have very limited printing runs ( 32 ). Since there are no longer page limits to journals, any good work can and should be published. Consequently, being selective for the purpose of saving space in a journal is no longer a valid excuse that peer reviewers can use to reject a paper ( 32 ). However, some reviewers have used this excuse when they have personal ulterior motives, such as getting their own research published first.

RECENT INITIATIVES TOWARDS IMPROVING PEER REVIEW

F1000Research was launched in January 2013 by Faculty of 1000 as an open access journal that immediately publishes papers (after an initial check to ensure that the paper is in fact produced by a scientist and has not been plagiarised), and then conducts transparent post-publication peer review ( 32 ). F1000Research aims to prevent delays in new science reaching the academic community that are caused by prolonged publication times ( 32 ). It also aims to make peer reviewing more fair by eliminating any anonymity, which prevents reviewers from delaying the completion of a review so they can publish their own similar work first ( 32 ). F1000Research offers completely open peer review, where everything is published, including the name of the reviewers, their review reports, and the editorial decision letters ( 32 ).

PeerJ was founded by Jason Hoyt and Peter Binfield in June 2012 as an open access, peer reviewed scholarly journal for the Biological and Medical Sciences ( 33 ). PeerJ selects articles to publish based only on scientific and methodological soundness, not on subjective determinants of ‘impact ’, ‘novelty’ or ‘interest’ ( 34 ). It works on a “lifetime publishing plan” model which charges scientists for publishing plans that give them lifetime rights to publish with PeerJ, rather than charging them per publication ( 34 ). PeerJ also encourages open peer review, and authors are given the option to post the full peer review history of their submission with their published article ( 34 ). PeerJ also offers a pre-print review service called PeerJ Pre-prints, in which paper drafts are reviewed before being sent to PeerJ to publish ( 34 ).

Rubriq is an independent peer review service designed by Shashi Mudunuri and Keith Collier to improve the peer review system ( 35 ). Rubriq is intended to decrease redundancy in the peer review process so that the time lost in redundant reviewing can be put back into research ( 35 ). According to Keith Collier, over 15 million hours are lost each year to redundant peer review, as papers get rejected from one journal and are subsequently submitted to a less prestigious journal where they are reviewed again ( 35 ). Authors often have to submit their manuscript to multiple journals, and are often rejected multiple times before they find the right match. This process could take months or even years ( 35 ). Rubriq makes peer review portable in order to help authors choose the journal that is best suited for their manuscript from the beginning, thus reducing the time before their paper is published ( 35 ). Rubriq operates under an author-pay model, in which the author pays a fee and their manuscript undergoes double-blind peer review by three expert academic reviewers using a standardized scorecard ( 35 ). The majority of the author’s fee goes towards a reviewer honorarium ( 35 ). The papers are also screened for plagiarism using iThenticate ( 35 ). Once the manuscript has been reviewed by the three experts, the most appropriate journal for submission is determined based on the topic and quality of the paper ( 35 ). The paper is returned to the author in 1-2 weeks with the Rubriq Report ( 35 ). The author can then submit their paper to the suggested journal with the Rubriq Report attached. The Rubriq Report will give the journal editors a much stronger incentive to consider the paper as it shows that three experts have recommended the paper to them ( 35 ). Rubriq also has its benefits for reviewers; the Rubriq scorecard gives structure to the peer review process, and thus makes it consistent and efficient, which decreases time and stress for the reviewer. Reviewers also receive feedback on their reviews and most significantly, they are compensated for their time ( 35 ). Journals also benefit, as they receive pre-screened papers, reducing the number of papers sent to their own reviewers, which often end up rejected ( 35 ). This can reduce reviewer fatigue, and allow only higher-quality articles to be sent to their peer reviewers ( 35 ).

According to Eva Amsen, peer review and scientific publishing are moving in a new direction, in which all papers will be posted online, and a post-publication peer review will take place that is independent of specific journal criteria and solely focused on improving paper quality ( 32 ). Journals will then choose papers that they find relevant based on the peer reviews and publish those papers as a collection ( 32 ). In this process, peer review and individual journals are uncoupled ( 32 ). In Keith Collier’s opinion, post-publication peer review is likely to become more prevalent as a complement to pre-publication peer review, but not as a replacement ( 35 ). Post-publication peer review will not serve to identify errors and fraud but will provide an additional measurement of impact ( 35 ). Collier also believes that as journals and publishers consolidate into larger systems, there will be stronger potential for “cascading” and shared peer review ( 35 ).

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Peer review has become fundamental in assisting editors in selecting credible, high quality, novel and interesting research papers to publish in scientific journals and to ensure the correction of any errors or issues present in submitted papers. Though the peer review process still has some flaws and deficiencies, a more suitable screening method for scientific papers has not yet been proposed or developed. Researchers have begun and must continue to look for means of addressing the current issues with peer review to ensure that it is a full-proof system that ensures only quality research papers are released into the scientific community.

• Open access
• Published: 25 April 2024

Big five personality traits of medical students and workplace performance in the final clerkship year using an EPA framework

• Harm Peters   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1441-7512 1 ,
• Amelie Garbe 1 ,
• Simon M. Breil   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5583-3884 2 ,
• Sebastian Oberst   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1388-2749 1 ,
• Susanne Selch 3 &
• Ylva Holzhausen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8710-8257 1  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  453 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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The qualities of trainees play a key role in entrustment decisions by clinical supervisors for the assignments of professional tasks and levels of supervision. A recent body of qualitative research has shown that in addition to knowledge and skills, a number of personality traits are relevant in the workplace; however, the relevance of these traits has not been investigated empirically. The aim of this study was to analyse the workplace performance of final-year medical students using an Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA) framework in relation to their personality traits.

Medical students at the end of their final clerkship year were invited to participate in an online survey-based, cross-sectional field study. In the survey, the workplace performance was captured using a framework consisting of levels of experienced supervision and a defined set of 12 end-of-undergraduate medical training EPAs. The Big Five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness) of the participating medical students were measured using the Big Five Inventory-SOEP (BFI-S), which consists of 15 items that are rated on a seven-point Likert scale. The data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

The study included 880 final-year medical students (mean age: 27.2 years, SD = 3.0; 65% female). The levels of supervision under which the final-year clerkship students carried out the EPAs varied considerably. Significant correlations were found between the levels of experienced supervision and all Big Five dimensions The correlations with the dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness were positive, and that for the neuroticism dimension was negative (range r  = 0.17 to r  = − 0.23). Multiple regression analyses showed that the combination of the Big Five personality traits accounted for 0.8–7.5% of the variance in supervision levels on individual EPAs.

Conclusions

Using the BFI-S, we found that the levels of supervision on a set of end-of-undergraduate medical training EPAs were related to the personality traits of final-year medical students. The results of this study confirm the existing body of research on the role of conscientiousness and extraversion in entrustment decision-making and, in particular, add the personality trait of neuroticism as a new and relevant trainee quality to be considered.

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The assignment of professional tasks at a certain level of autonomy to individual trainees by clinical supervisors is a central phenomenon and characteristic of workplace learning in medical education and beyond in health profession education. The concept of Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) draws on this tradition to conceptualize learning and assessments in the clinical workplace [ 1 ]. A growing body of research provides a better understanding of the often numerous explicit and implicit factors that influence why one trainee is entrusted with performing a specific task while another trainee is not. These factors include the personal qualities of trainees. For example, qualitative research has shown that certain personality traits of trainees play a role in supervisors’ entrustment decisions [ 2 ]. Yet, this relationship has not been systematically investigated. Such an investigation could confirm, complement and extend our understanding of which trainee qualities influence the entrustment decision-making processes of supervisors. The purpose of this study was to analyse the workplace performance of final-year medical students using an EPA framework in relation to their personality traits measured by an established Big Five questionnaire.

A valuable and practical reconceptualization of workplace performance has been achieved through an EPA framework [ 1 ]. This framework builds on three main components: (1) professional activities, i.e., authentic task characteristics of a profession; (2) levels of supervision, which indicate the proficiency of a trainee in carrying out a professional activity; and (3) entrustment decisions, which link the first two components and are made by supervisors when managing patient care [ 2 , 3 ]. Within the EPA framework, workplace performance increases by the number of EPAs a trainee can carry out and the level of autonomy, a trainee can carry out a professional tasks. Consider, for example, two trainees in their final year of study who have the same supervisor. Trainee A is regularly entrusted with taking medical histories independently, with only the key findings checked afterwards. For Trainee B, the supervisor takes on a much more active role, and the medical histories are checked together with the supervisor. Why are some trainees trusted more than others? Ongoing line research has identified a range of factors that determine under which level of supervision a trainee is entrusted to perform a particular task under particular circumstances by a clinical supervisor [ 4 , 5 ]. The personal qualities of individual trainees have been found to be particularly important factors [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Here, Ten Cate and Chen [ 2 ] recently used a qualitative approach to synthesize the varying entrustment-related qualities of trainees reported in the literature into five categories: agency (proactive towards work, teams, safety, and personal development), reliability (conscientious, predictable, accountable, and responsible), integrity (truthful, benevolent, and patient-centered), capability (specific knowledge, skills, experience, and situational awareness) and humility (recognizes limits, asks for help, and is receptive to feedback) (the A RICH framework). These five categories should be considered when making A RICH entrustment decision [ 2 ].

Beyond knowledge and skill aspects, many of the qualities in the A RICH framework fall into the area of trainees’ personality traits (i.e., relatively enduring patterns of interindividual differences in thinking, feeling, and behaving, e.g., some individuals are more reliable, humble, or proactive than others). Personality traits are often divided into five overarching factors (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness). This so-called five-factor (Big Five) model of personality has demonstrated reliability and validity across numerous populations [ 10 , 11 , 12 ] and can be mapped to the qualities mentioned by ten Cate and Chen. That is, extraversion might be mapped to agency, consciousness to reliability, and agreeableness to integrity and humility. However, we believe that the personality traits of neuroticism and openness are not directly reflected in the A RICH framework.

Research has shown that individual differences in the Big Five traits are related to important outcomes such as learning and (academic) performance [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. In medical education, the importance of personality traits for performing well in medical school and for good medical practice is increasingly recognized [ 17 , 18 ]. Exploring the relationship between personality and performance in the workplace (based on the EPA framework) could complement and extend our understanding of the entrustment-related qualities of trainees as well as learning and assessment in the clinical workplace. However, the empirical relationship between specific trainee personality traits and supervisor entrustment decisions has not been examined. Such an analysis could be useful from both theoretical and practical points of view. Theoretically, this approach could show whether the aspects developed qualitatively in the A RICH framework can be supported empirically. Practically, this approach could help to identify personality traits that affect trainees’ learning and supervisors’ entrustment decisions in the workplace.

The aim of this study was to analyse the relationship between the workplace performance of final-year medical students and their personality traits, resulting in the following research question: Are individual differences in medical students’ Big Five personality traits related to their workplace performance? To address this question, personality traits and workplace performance were measured by conducting an online, cross-sectional field study. This was done using a framework consisting of levels of experienced supervision and a defined set of EPAs, both adjusted for undergraduate medical training.

This study was conducted as part of the German national research project “Studierendenauswahlverbund” (STAV) on the selection of medical students for entry into medical school [ 19 ]. In Germany, undergraduate medical education programs take six years to complete. The first 5 years cover basic and clinical sciences, followed by a final clerkship year with three rotations (3.5 months each): one rotation in internal medicine, one rotation in surgery and one elective rotation. The aim of the final clerkship year is for medical students to actively participate in the clinical workplace under the instruction, supervision and responsibility of a physician [ 20 ]. There are currently no mandatory formative or summative workplace assessments in place during the final clerkship year.

Study design

This was an online-administered, cross-sectional field study. The study protocol was approved by the local psychological ethics committee (LPEK) at the Center for Psychosocial Medicine at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (application number: LPEK-0042).

Questionnaire development

The questionnaire, developed by the STAV research team through an iterative and collaborative process, was sent to final-year medical students in Germany. The questionnaire covered sociodemographic characteristics, personality traits and workplace performance in professional activities, among other reported content areas. The questionnaire was piloted by members of the STAV research team.

• Personality traits

Personality traits were measured via self-reports using the German Big Five Inventory-SOEP (BFI-S) [ 21 ]. This instrument is based on the BFI [ 22 ] and was developed as a short economic version for use with the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). The scale consists of a total of 15 items and measures extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness, all measured with three items each. The BFI-S items are rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“does not apply at all”) to 7 (“applies perfectly”).

Workplace performance measured using an EPA framework

Workplace performance refers to the number of professional activities that a trainee can carry out and the level of supervision needed to carry out the respective professional activity. As the basis, a set of 12 core end-of-training EPAs previously developed for undergraduate medical education students at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany, was used [ 23 ]. The EPA descriptions used in the survey are shown in Table  1 .

Participants were asked to indicate the level of supervision while carrying out each of the respective professional activity at least 3 times. The levels of supervision were adapted to undergraduate medical education [ 24 ]. The 5 levels were as follows:

Level 1: I did not perform the task.

Level 2: I carried out this task in co-activity with a supervisor.

Level 3: I carried out this task autonomously, and all findings were double-checked.

Level 4: I carried out this task autonomously, and key findings were double-checked.

Level 5: I carried out this task autonomously, and key findings were discussed afterwards.

The questionnaire was administered using the online software LimeSurvey (version 2.62.2; Limesurvey GmbH, Hamburg, Germany). Final-year medical students from all German medical faculties were invited by email via the listservs of the respective medical faculties. Invitations were sent to reach students within or shortly after their last rotation in the final clerkship year. Before data collection, the students were informed in writing about the purpose of the study and had to provide informed consent.

Statistical analysis

The statistical analysis was performed using SPSS (version 29.0; IBM, Ehningen, Germany; Armonk, Released 2022). The SPSS analysis code can be found in Appendix 1 . Descriptive statistics were calculated for sample size, participant age and gender, the scores on the BFI-S dimensions and the level of supervision for each end-of-undergraduate medical training EPA.

Inferential statistical analysis included the calculation of Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson and Spearman correlations and multiple regression. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated for the scores on the BFI-S dimensions. Pearson correlations were computed for each EPA and each Big Five dimension to analyse the relationship between the BFI-S scores and EPA framework-based workplace performance. To check for the robustness of the results and given that the EPA scale is ordinal, we additionally computed Spearman´s rank-order correlations. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses were conducted to analyse the joint relationship between the five personality traits and the level of supervision for each EPA. For all correlations and multiple regressions, we did not include individuals (per EPAs) who reported supervision level 1. This was because we could not determine whether the students were not capable of performing the EPA or whether they had not yet had the opportunity to perform the EPA.

Study participants

A total of 1,111 students from 35 medical faculties completed the STAV survey. The data were included in the analysis if the participating students were in their last final-year clerkship rotation or had just finished the last rotation. In total, data from 880 participants were included in the study. The mean age of the included final-year medical students was 27.2 years (SD = 3.0), 568 (65%) students were female, and 312 (35%) students were male.

Characteristics of the personality traits

The descriptive statistics as well as the Cronbach’s coefficient for the respective Big Five dimension are shown in Table  2 .

Characteristics of workplace performance using an EPA framework

Figure  1 shows the variation in the levels of supervision under which the final year clerkship students carried out the 12 EPAs. Nine of the 12 professional activities were performed by 75% of the students under supervision levels 3–5, i.e., autonomously without direct supervision. These EPAs ranged from “take a medical history, perform a physical examination and summarize the results in a structured manner” (99%) to “write and transmit a patient report” (93%). The frequencies of supervision levels without direct supervision (levels 3–5) were lower for “recognize an emergency situation and act upon it” (51%), “undertake an evidence-based patient case and initiate patient-specific implementation” (53%), and “compile a treatment plan and initiate implementation” (68%). The levels of supervision correlated significantly amongst all EPAs (see the Appendix 2 ).

Frequency of levels of supervision (levels 1–5) under which final-year clerkship students carried out end-of-undergraduate medical training EPAs. Frequencies are expressed as a percentage of all reported levels of supervision for each EPA. The supervision levels ranged from “I did not perform the task” (level 1) to “I carried out this task autonomously, and key findings were discussed afterwards” (level 5)

Relationship between the personality traits and workplace performance using an EPA framework

Significant Pearson correlations were found between the level of supervision under which final-year clerkship students carried out the EPAs and their scores on the BFI-S for all 5 Big Five traits (Table  3 ). There were 8 EPAs with significant correlations for extraversion, 4 for agreeableness, 8 for conscientiousness, 10 for neuroticism, and 4 for openness. All the correlations were positive, except that for neuroticism, which was negative. The correlations were all small to moderate in size ( r  = 0.17 to r = -0.23). Similar results were observed for the Spearman’s rank correlations (see the Appendix 3 ). In both analyses, significant correlations with at least one Big 5 dimension were found for all EPAs, except for EPA 5 (“perform general procedures of a physician”).

Multiple regression analysis also revealed that the BFI-S dimension scores significantly predicted workplace performance for 11 of the 12 EPAs (excluding EPA 5; see Table  4 ). Here, the amount of explained variance varied across the EPAs, ranging from 0.8% (EPA 6: “seek consent for medical procedures and diagnostics”) to 7.5% (EPA 12: “undertake an evidence-based patient case discussion and initiate patient-specific implementation”. Across all EPAs, the conscientiousness and neuroticism dimension scores were regularly associated with the level of supervision.

Worldwide, medical curricula are increasingly structured around the entrustment of EPAs [ 25 , 26 , 27 ]. Understanding the factors that influence entrustment decisions is important, as they have the potential to stimulate transparent discussion and reflection between supervising doctors and trainees. Personal qualities of trainees play a key role, and this study complements and extends previous, mostly qualitative, research on the personality traits that are related to the decisions to entrust trainees with professional patient-care tasks. The final-year medical students varied widely in the extent to which they had actually performed a set of end-of-undergraduate medical training EPAs, and this variation showed no ceiling effect. Using a quantitative, empirical approach, we found that individual differences in the Big Five traits were related to the level of supervision under which final-year clerkship students carried out end-of-undergraduate medical training EPAs. For the personality traits, the highest number of positive correlations was found for (low) neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion. That is, trainees who reported being relaxed and without worry (i.e., low neuroticism), thorough and efficient (i.e., conscientiousness), and communicative and sociable (i.e., extraversion) were generally able to carry out EPAs with less supervision and greater autonomy. The findings and implications of this study in the context of the literature is discussed in the following sections.

The results of this study showed that the favorable Big Five traits were associated with better performance in almost all EPAs, accounting for between 0.8% and 7.5% of the variance in levels of supervision as a measure of workplace performance. The strongest effects of personality traits were found for EPA 12 (“undertake an evidence-based patient case discussion and initiate patient specific implementation”), EPA 4 (“compile a treatment plan and initiate implementation”), and EPA 3 (“interpret test results and initiate further steps”). Weaker effects were found for the other EPAs where the majority of trainees reached the highest level of supervision and for which there was low variance. These findings further support the assumption that the personality traits of trainees play an important role in their workplace performance [ 2 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ].

Of all the Big Five traits, individual differences in neuroticism showed the highest number of correlations with the levels of experienced supervision for the performance of the end-of-undergraduate medical training EPAs. Individuals high in neuroticism tend to become anxious, worried and irritable more easily or intensely than others [ 28 ]. In the context of busy clinical workplaces, this personality trait may translate into difficulties coping with stress and anxiety, responding to feedback and criticism and solving problems, especially under stress, which can affect individuals’ ability to perform professional tasks effectively. It could also be that students with high neuroticism levels were less self-confident and sought more reassurance when performing tasks. Although these findings are in line with a meta-analysis highlighting the negative relationship between neuroticism and job performance [ 16 ], the relevance of neuroticism is a new finding in the area of entrustment decision-making.

The Big Five dimensions of extraversion and conscientiousness showed positive correlations with the levels of experienced supervision in a high number of the 12 EPAs, indicating higher levels of trainee autonomy. The personality trait of conscientiousness refers to individuals who tend to be highly thoughtful, organized, mindful of details, and responsible, indicating impulse control and goal-directed behaviours. The extraversion dimension refers to talkativeness, assertiveness, and energy. For conscientiousness, these findings are in line with previous research, highlighting trainee conscientiousness as a central factor in entrustment decision-making, particularly early work by Kennedy and colleagues [ 6 ]). The high number of correlations between the Big 5 score for conscientiousness and the levels of supervision across the EPAs is also consistent with previous research on personality traits and academic achievement and job performance across many occupational sectors [ 13 ]. In addition to the personality traits of extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, we found positive correlations between the levels of experienced supervision and the Big Five agreeableness and openness dimension scores, although these were lower in number and related to individual EPAs.

Our findings provide some support for the A RICH framework [ 2 ]. That is, the three dimensions of extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness overlap with the qualities of integrity, reliability, humility, and agency. However, agreeableness was significant for only a few EPAs, although it is prominently represented by two qualities in the A Rich framework. Moreover, neuroticism, which was found to be the most important predictor of workplace involvement, is not (yet) covered by the A RICH framework on trainee qualities that enable entrustment decisions by clinical supervisors [ 2 ].

This study has several implications. Individual differences in personality traits were considered as a new perspective for understanding the factors that clinical supervisors weigh in their decisions to entrust trainees with responsibility in patient care. Future research could extend this research, for instance, by investigating the relationship between personality traits and the explicit level of entrustment that trainees receive in the workplace, studying other trainee cohorts and different clinical contexts, and focusing on specific facets of personality (e.g., investigating which part of an individual´s neuroticism affects entrustment decisions). Further lines of research may investigate how the personality traits of clinical supervisors influence their entrustment decisions and how the interplay between the personality traits of both trainees and supervisors affects entrustment decision-making. A particularly relevant finding is the strong role of neuroticism in entrustment decisions, which should be further explored in future quantitative and qualitative research. These findings also have implications for the training and development of medical trainees. Although there are already approaches to selecting and training (future) medical students regarding emotional stability [ 29 , 30 ], the findings suggest that even more attention should be given to the emotional stability (or lack thereof) of students and physicians.

This study has some limitations. First, although we managed to recruit a large sample, the context in which the participating students were evaluated was the final clerkship year in Germany. Therefore, future research should investigate the transferability of these findings to other contexts and countries. Second, the study was not based on explicit entrustment decisions by clinical supervisors but rather on the levels of supervision experienced in the workplace and reported by the students. This may have made it unclear whether the supervisors had less confidence in the trainees and therefore preferred to “double check” or whether the trainees themselves had less confidence and therefore preferred to “double check”. Future research should disentangle these two (not mutually exclusive) explanations. Third, the BFI measure is based on a short scale, which has lower internal consistency than longer scales and did not allow us to account for facet differences within the Big Five dimensions. Here, future studies could use longer scales to assess each dimension more thoroughly.

In conclusion, this study introduced personality traits as a new perspective for understanding the role of individual trainees’ personal qualities in clinical supervisors’ decision-making. We found that the level of supervision on a set of end-of undergraduate medical training EPAs was related to the personality traits of final-year medical students. In relation to the existing body of research, the results of this study confirm the role of conscientiousness in entrustment decision-making. In addition, the findings indicate that the personality trait of neuroticism should be considered as an important trainee quality in the context of entrustment decision-making.

Data availability

The data of this study will be made available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all the medical students who participated in the STAV survey and all the staff members of the STAV research team for their support and participation in discussions.

This work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany) (project number: 01GK1801).

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All the authors made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the study and the interpretation of the data. AG was responsible for the data acquisition, and AG, SMB and YH were responsible for the data analysis. HP, AG SMB, and YH drafted the manuscript. All the authors were involved in critically revising the manuscript draft. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Peters, H., Garbe, A., Breil, S.M. et al. Big five personality traits of medical students and workplace performance in the final clerkship year using an EPA framework. BMC Med Educ 24 , 453 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05434-x

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05434-x

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