Continuing Education Credits for Peer Reviewers

Unlike journals, such as Lancet, which reward their reviewers with free subscription for journals, most of the small journal reviewers undertake their job just for prestige. If there are no credits for all the meticulous work they do, many may not be willing to undertake the job.

We all know the reviewers undertake the job for any one of the following in big journals. (In parentheses, I have shown how they are inapplicable to small journals)

1. To get financial reward (not possible for small journal with economic constraints)

2. To get complimentary subscription for the same journal (many small journals are already open access)

3. To know ground-breaking research ahead of everyone (small journals very rarely publish groundbreaking or cutting edge research)

4. To get the satisfaction of assisting science to grow (in this materialistic world, who can be free of this altruistic attitude especially in a setting of economic constraints of a developing nation?)

5. To update in one's own field (In today's milieu, when there are hundreds of journals and the Internet, this cannot be true especially for small journals.)

When it cannot be the above 5 reasons, it can be for academic continuing education credits—which is what is at the center of my question. If there are no recognized credits for reviewers, and if reviewers refuse to undertake an honorary job, will it not cause great damage to the peer review system?

Is there any journal that issues a credit certificate to reviewers so that they can claim some CME credits?

I join Dr Rakesh in suggesting that WAME, as an organization, consider issuing a policy statement defining the relative credits of authors, editors, and reviewers so that individuals concerned may use it for persuading their respective institutions for career promotions, etc. This, I believe, will have an indirect effect on the quality of the peer review system.

V Raveenthiran
Associate Editor, Indian Journal of Surgery
________________________
The Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health offers CE credits to our reviewers. I know other journals do this as well. We offer a set number of credits for each review. Reviewers track their credits, then submit an annual report so that a certificate can be issued. We only issue certificates for those who request them. My experience as a reviewer for another journal was that they automatically sent an e-mail issuing credits after each review. We are a society journal and receive approval from these credits from the society.

Francie Likis
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health
________________________
While I appreciate the idea of "compensation" is some way even via CME credits to reviewers, I would also not want to disregard the fact that many reviewers are happy to review manuscripts simply based on altruistic purposes. This does not necessarily mean that they cannot be recognized overtly. I doubt that in developing nations, the majority of reviewers would ask for overt "compensation". I may be wrong, but how do we know? I may be right, too.

Adamson Muula
________________________

I agree that many reviewers do this work without expectation or need for compensation. Only a small number of our reviewers request the CE certificates.

Francie Likis
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health
________________________
I live and work in Venezuela, where there may be over a hundred scientific journals on health sciences including medicine, nursery, dentistry, pharmacy, biochemistry, physiatry and rehabilitation, family medicine, etc. As far as I know, none of the reviewers in those journals ask for compensation. Some ask for an acknowledgement or complimentary letter just for their records or for their institution’s records (prestige?). Many of our journals work on a very tight budget and have no means for that sort of compensation. We do not publish a list of our reviewers as suggested by ISO (I think!!), instead we do give complimentary letters and free subscriptions to our reviewers.

Pedro José Salinas
Editor-in-Chief, MedULA, Journal of the Faculty of Medicine

________________________
Here in Iran, the national, and in some instances international, journals issue a certificate that can be useful in academic promotions for reviewers. Some of these journals also provide a small financial reward, which really is not much.

S Zahedi Asl
________________________
Most reviewers in Nigeria do not receive any form of compensation. At the very best, their names may be published in the reviewers' list at the end of the year. However, very few journals send stipends/tokens to the reviewers, but this is a very small amount.

Yomi Ogun
________________________

Regarding the compensation for the work of the reviewers: We immediately send reviewers  a certificate via e-mail that can be printed. The certificates have a value in credits of CME.

Domingo Braile
Editor, Brazilian Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery