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Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (
peers
Peers may refer to:
People
* Donald Peers
* Edgar Allison Peers, English academician
* Gavin Peers
* John Peers, Australian tennis player
* Kerry Peers
* Mark Peers
* Michael Peers
* Steve Peers
* Teddy Peers (1886–1935), Welsh international ...
). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant
field
Field may refer to:
Expanses of open ground
* Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes
* Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport
* Battlefield
* Lawn, an area of mowed grass
* Meadow, a grass ...
. Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
,
scholarly peer review
Scholarly peer review or academic peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed (usually anonymously) by experts (or "peers") in the same field. Peer review is ...
is often used to determine an
academic paper
Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally pub ...
's suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g.,
medical peer review
Clinical peer review, also known as medical peer review is the process by which health care professionals, including those in nursing and pharmacy, evaluate each other's clinical performance. A discipline-specific process may be referenced accordin ...
. It can also be used as a teaching tool to help students improve writing assignments.
Henry Oldenburg
Henry Oldenburg (also Henry Oldenbourg) FRS (c. 1618 as Heinrich Oldenburg – 5 September 1677), was a German theologian, diplomat, and natural philosopher, known as one of the creators of modern scientific peer review. He was one of the fo ...
(1619–1677) was a German-born British philosopher who is seen as the 'father' of modern scientific peer review.
Professional
Professional peer review focuses on the performance of professionals, with a view to improving quality, upholding standards, or providing certification. In academia, peer review is used to inform decisions related to faculty advancement and tenure.
A prototype professional peer review process was recommended in the ''
Ethics of the Physician'' written by
Ishāq ibn ʻAlī al-Ruhāwī (854–931). He stated that a visiting physician had to make duplicate notes of a patient's condition on every visit. When the patient was cured or had died, the notes of the physician were examined by a local medical council of other physicians, who would decide whether the treatment had met the required standards of medical care.
Professional peer review is common in the field of health care, where it is usually called ''
clinical peer review
Clinical peer review, also known as medical peer review is the process by which health care professionals, including those in nursing and pharmacy, evaluate each other's clinical performance. A discipline-specific process may be referenced accordin ...
''. Further, since peer review activity is commonly segmented by clinical discipline, there is also physician peer review, nursing peer review, dentistry peer review, etc.
Many other professional fields have some level of peer review process: accounting, law, engineering (e.g.,
software peer review
In software development, peer review is a type of software review in which a work product (document, code, or other) is examined by author's colleagues, in order to evaluate the work product's technical content and quality.
Purpose
The purpose ...
,
technical peer review In engineering, technical peer review is a type of engineering review. Technical peer reviews are a well defined review process for finding and fixing defects, conducted by a team of peers with assigned roles. Technical peer reviews are carried out ...
), aviation, and even forest fire management.
Peer review is used in education to achieve certain learning objectives, particularly as a tool to reach higher order processes in the affective and cognitive domains as defined by
Bloom's taxonomy. This may take a variety of forms, including closely mimicking the scholarly peer review processes used in science and medicine.
Scholarly
Government policy
The
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
has been using peer review in the "Open Method of Co-ordination" of policies in the fields of
active labour market policy
Active labour market policies (ALMPs) are government programmes that intervene in the labour market to help the unemployed find work. Many of these programmes grew out of earlier public works projects, in the United States particularly those imp ...
since 1999. In 2004, a program of peer reviews started in
social inclusion
Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...
. Each program sponsors about eight peer review meetings in each year, in which a "host country" lays a given policy or initiative open to examination by half a dozen other countries and the relevant European-level
NGOs
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...
. These usually meet over two days and include visits to local sites where the policy can be seen in operation. The meeting is preceded by the compilation of an
expert report An expert report is a study written by one or more authorities that states findings and offers opinions.
In law, expert reports are generated by expert witnesses offering their opinions on points of controversy in a legal case and are typically sp ...
on which participating "peer countries" submit comments. The results are published on the web.
The
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE or UNECE) is one of the five regional commissions under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It was established in order to promote economic cooperation and i ...
, through
UNECE Environmental Performance Reviews
The UNECE Environmental Performance Review (EPR) (French: Examen des performances environnementales – EPE) is an assessment process to evaluate the progress made by individual countries in improving their environmental policies. The EPRs are car ...
, uses peer review, referred to as "peer learning", to evaluate progress made by its member countries in improving their environmental policies.
The State of California is the only U.S. state to mandate scientific peer review. In 1997, the Governor of California signed into law Senate Bill 1320 (Sher), Chapter 295, statutes of 1997, which mandates that, before any
CalEPA Board, Department, or Office adopts a final version of a rule-making, the scientific findings, conclusions, and assumptions on which the proposed rule are based must be submitted for independent external scientific peer review. This requirement is incorporated into the
California Health and Safety Code Section 57004.
Medical
Medical peer review may be distinguished in four classifications:
#
Clinical peer review
Clinical peer review, also known as medical peer review is the process by which health care professionals, including those in nursing and pharmacy, evaluate each other's clinical performance. A discipline-specific process may be referenced accordin ...
is a procedure for assessing a patient's involvement with experiences of care. It is a piece of progressing proficient practice assessment and centered proficient practice assessment—significant supporters of supplier credentialing and privileging.
# Peer evaluation of clinical teaching skills for both physicians and nurses.
# Scientific peer review of journal articles.
# A secondary round of peer review for the clinical value of articles concurrently published in
medical journals.
Additionally, "medical peer review" has been used by the
American Medical Association
The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016.
The AMA's sta ...
to refer not only to the process of improving quality and safety in health care organizations, but also to the process of rating clinical behavior or compliance with professional society membership standards. The clinical network believes it to be the most ideal method of guaranteeing that distributed exploration is dependable and that any clinical medicines that it advocates are protected and viable for individuals. Thus, the terminology has poor standardization and specificity, particularly as a database search term.
Technical
In
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
, technical peer review is a type of engineering review. Technical peer reviews are a well defined review process for finding and fixing defects, conducted by a team of peers with assigned roles. Technical peer reviews are carried out by peers representing areas of life cycle affected by material being reviewed (usually limited to 6 or fewer people). Technical peer reviews are held within development phases, between milestone reviews, on completed products or completed portions of products.
Pedagogical tool
Peer review, or student peer assessment, is widely used in secondary and post-secondary education as part of the writing process. This collaborative learning tool involves groups of students reviewing each other's work and providing feedback and suggestions for revision. While widely used in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and
composition
Composition or Compositions may refer to:
Arts and literature
*Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography
*Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...
classrooms, peer review has gained popularity in other disciplines which require writing as part of the curriculum. These other disciplines include those in the
social
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
and
natural science
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
s. Peer review in classrooms helps students become more invested in their work, and the classroom environment at large. Understanding how their work is read by a diverse readership before it is graded by the teacher may also help students clarify ideas, and understand how to persuasively reach different audience members via their writing. It also gives students professional experience that they might draw on later when asked to review the work of a colleague prior to publication.
Critics of peer review in classrooms say that it can be ineffective due to students' lack of practice giving constructive criticism, or lack of expertise in the writing craft at large. As a response to these concerns, instructors may provide examples, model peer review with the class, or focus on specific areas of feedback during the peer review process.
Instructors may also experiment with in-class peer review vs. peer review as homework, or peer review using technologies afforded by learning management systems online.
See also
*
Objectivity (philosophy)
*
Academic publishing
Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally pu ...
*
Scientific literature
: ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.''
Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scie ...
*
Peer critique
Peer critique, a specialized form of critique, is the common practice of writers reviewing and providing constructive criticism of each other's work before that work is turned in for credit or professional review. Writers in many genres and profess ...
References
Further reading
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External links
Monument to peer review, Moscow
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peer Review
Broad-concept articles