Reviewing articles as a way of professional evaluation of scientific texts: organizational and ethical aspects

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to summarize the organizational and ethical aspects, problems and prospects of peer reviewing. To do this, from September 2019 to January 2020, a survey of Ukrainian scientists registered in Facebook groups “Ukrainian Scientific Journals”, “Ukrainian Scientists Worldwide”, “Pseudoscience News in Ukraine”, “Higher Education and Science of Ukraine: Decay or Blossom?” and others was conducted. In total, 390 researchers from different disciplines participated in the survey. The results of the survey are following: 8.7% of respondents prefer open peer review, 43.1% – single-blind, 37.7% – double blind, 9.2% – triple blind, 1.3% used to sign a review prepared by the author. 75.6% of respondents had conflicts of interest during peer reviewing. 8.2 % of reviewers never reject articles regardless of their quality. Because usually only editors and authors see reviews, it can lead to the following issues: reviewers can be rude or biased; authors may not adequately respond to grounded criticism; editors may disregard the position of the author or reviewer, and journals may charge for publishing articles without proper peer review.