Position on Peer Review

This core area involves the timely review and evaluation of scientific work by one’s professional colleagues. In conducting peer review, issues such as offering constructive, thorough, non-personal bias, attention and respect for confidentiality and timeliness are stressed. Additional issues in this core area include: ethical obligations for reviewers of manuscripts; the importance of meeting deadlines when conducting peer review; assessing the quality and appropriateness of research methods; examining how quality research may be compromised; how to judge or evaluate the importance of research; and how to conduct confidential peer reviews in the case of grant proposals, manuscripts for scientific publication and personnel matters.

Because qualified manuscript review is essential to the publication process, educators have an obligation to do their fair share of reviews. A manuscript sent for review should be treated as a confidential document. In no instance should a reviewer excerpt information from the document being reviewed and use it for his or her own benefit prior to publication, award or presentation. The quality of a manuscript must be objectively judged on its own merit and the intellectual independence of the author(s) should be respected. Personal criticism is never appropriate. A reviewer should not evaluate a manuscript authored or co-authored by a person with whom the reviewer has a personal or professional connection if the relationship would bias judgment of the manuscript. Any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published manuscript should be noted.