CONTENTS

Peer review display preference options in brief

Your Web of Science researcher profile allows you to track, verify and showcase your peer review activity without compromising your anonymity or infringing upon journal policies.  


By default, the content of the review will not be publicly displayed, and only the journal title will be shown on reviewer profiles. 


You can change these default settings from the Peer Review Preferences tab of your Profile Settings. 


The eventual display of your reviews depends not only on your own preferences but on those of journals and authors as well. You cannot reveal more information about your reviews than a journal allows and authors may preclude the display of your reviews’ content even if you wish to publish them.  


Where a publisher or journal has more restrictive privacy or content settings than a reviewer’s, the publisher/journal settings will take precedence. For example, if a reviewer has indicated they want to sign and publish the content of their reviews, but the journal’s policy is for reviews to remain blind and unpublished, then we will honor the journal’s policy. 


If a reviewer’s settings are stricter than a journal's, for example, the journal allows published reviews, but the reviewer has opted to keep their reviews unpublished then the reviewer’s settings will be honored.  


No matter what privacy settings are in place, we never display information about the manuscript until the manuscript has been published. Typically, this means we require a DOI or a URL for the manuscript before a review can be signed or the review content can be made public. 

What are the publisher-invited peer review display preference options? 

We've developed a comprehensive range of options to make sure you can track and verify your review efforts without ever infringing on journal policies or compromising reviewer preferences for anonymity or openness.

 

We call these attributes your ‘Publisher-invited peer review display preferences.


When you sign up, your default review preference settings are configured as:

  

  • Privacy: 
    • Show journal  
  • Content: 
    • Hide review content 

 



You can change these default settings from the Peer Review Preferences tab of your Profile Settings. 

The options are: 


1. Privacy 
 

Your privacy setting determines how you are linked to the reviewed publication, its journal, and the publisher. 
 

  • Do not show this review on my profile 
    • You will never be publicly linked to the journal, publisher, or publication.  These reviews are not included in your profile counts or lists. 
  • Show publisher only 
    • Only display the publisher's name on your profile. You will never be publicly linked to the journal or publication. 
       
  • Show journal/conference  
    • Only display the journal's name on your profile. You will never be publicly linked to the publication. 
       
  • Show journal/conference & article title 
    • Display a link to the publication on your profile. The publication will show you as a reviewer if you made the content of your review publicly available.  

Any option above which precludes your being publicly linked to the article or journal may still allow your review content to be publicly but anonymously displayed if you elect to publish its content and the journal/publisher/author preference allows it. 
 

2. Content  

Your content setting determines whether review content is publicly displayed on article record and review content pages. The options are: 


  • Hide review content  
    • The content of your review will never be publicly displayed. 
       
  • Display review content  
    • The content of your review will be displayed on article record and review content pages. 

 

No matter what privacy settings are in place, we never display information about the manuscript until the manuscript has been published. Typically, this means we require a DOI or a URL for the manuscript before a review can be signed or the review content can be made public. 

How to change your default Publisher-invited peer review display preferences

You can change your default settings from the Peer Review Preferences tab of your Profile Settings. 


Once you have selected your preferences, please ensure to save changes. 

From now on any review added to your profile will have these display settings.  


If you wish to add these display settings to all existing publisher-invited reviews, you may turn on the toggle which allows this then please ensure to save changes. 




How to select your peer review display preferences for individual reviews


When adding a new review record via the Add a peer review form you can select your display preferences before creating the record.  

To do this: 


  • Navigate to the form 
  • Enter the required review information 
  • Select your preferences in the “manage display preferences” section of the form 
  • Click “Create Review” 



 


If you wish to change the display preferences of an individual review that has already been added to your profile, you can do this via the management page for that review.  

To do this: 


  • Navigate to your Peer Review Records page 
  • Click on the ‘edit’ option for the relevant review 



  • Scroll down to “Manage display preferences”  





  • Select your preferences for this review and then press save 

Your author preference

Here you can choose the display settings for reviews of publications which you’ve authored. As an author, you have the option to permit or prohibit reviewers from publishing the content of their reviews of your manuscripts. Your preference is always consulted before we display a review publicly.  


Select your preference between: 

  • Allow (let reviewers publish their work) and  
  • Disallow (do not let reviewers publish their work).  
     

If you wish to update the preferences across all your manuscripts at once, then also select the “Apply these settings to all of your existing publications” checkbox. 


Any new publications added to your profile will have this default preference set when it is created.  

Grant review display preferences 

Here you may choose whether to show grant reviews on your profile or not. 

The options are:  


  • Show grant reviews 
  • Do not show grant reviews 

 

Simply select the setting you want and then don’t forget to press ‘save changes’ at the bottom of the page. 

Publisher and Journal Review Permissions 

 
Some publishers require that you attain permission from the journal or the author before you make the content of your review public or sign your name to your review(s). 


If a journal is indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection you can view its policy on the Web of Science Master Journal List. The Master Journal List is free to use when you are signed in and you can use your Web of Science researcher profile credentials to access. 

Search for the journal by title or ISSN and then click on “View profile page” where you can then scroll down to the Peer Review Information section to view the journal’s policy. 

 

If you wish to make the content public or sign your name to a review for a journal that restricts you from doing so, please contact your editor and ask them to get in touch with us. 

  

Until permission is granted, you cannot reveal information that is restricted by the publisher/journal policy. For example:  


  • A journal may restrict privacy to "Show journal" 
    If you elect to "Show journal and article title" but the journal has restricted privacy to "Show journal", the "Show journal" permission will be used when displaying your review. 
      
  • An author or journal may disallow making review content publicly available 
    If you elect to display your review content publicly, but an author of the publication or the journal disallows public review content, the "Hide review content" permission will be used when displaying your review.