Journal of Systems Thinking Preprints

Preprints for the Journal of Systems Thinking (JoST) (ISSN 2767-3847) open for review.

Review by academic peers is an essential part of the scholarly publishing and communication process. By sharing their expert opinion, researchers evaluate and improve the research of their peers. But traditional blinded peer review systems can suffer from a lack of transparency, recognition, and accountability.

The Journal of Systems Thinking is set to change this.

The Journal of Systems Thinking has chosen a novel open peer review system based on rapid posting of a preprint, open review, discussion and revision and then final publication in the Journal. The identity of the reviewers and their comments are visible at all times. This means that reviews have to be constructive, courteous, and well-written. Reviews are published with a Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY (4.0) license and also receive a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) from CrossRef, similar to a formal research publication. This means that reviews are re-usable, citable, and permanent records of your reviewing activities, and therefore all of your review activities can be integrated with ORCID, Publons, and ImpactStory, helping to build your profile as a researcher.

You can learn more about open peer review on ScienceOpen here: https://about.scienceopen.com/peer-review-guidelines/

Checklist for Reviewers

• Did you register with ScienceOpen and ORCID? If not, follow the instructions here.
• Did you link your ScienceOpen profile to ORCID publication history? Reviewers should have published at least five scientific articles.  To ensure that this condition is met, ScienceOpen has partnered with the non-profit ORCID. If you have questions about updating your ORCID profile to reflect your prior publications, feel free to contact us here. 
• Did you do your best to minimize bias? When writing a review, you must officially declare that you have no “competing interests” that might compromise your independent assessment. Please read our statement on competing interests.
• Are you aware that your review and/or comments are published alongside the original article under your full name with your corresponding ORCID? Your comments will be visible to the public

The Review Report

Reviews consist of two parts listed below.

General Factors Ratings

Please provide a rating from one star (poor) to five stars (excellent)

• Level of importance:

Is the publication of relevance for the academic community and does it provide important insights? Does the work represent a novel approach or new findings in comparison with other publications in the field?

• Level of validity:

Is the hypothesis clearly formulated? Is the argumentation stringent? Are the data sound, well-controlled and statistically significant? Is the interpretation balanced and supported by the data? Are appropriate and state-of-the-art methods used?

• Level of completeness:

Do the authors reference the appropriate scholarly context? Do the authors provide or cite all information to follow their findings or argumentation? Do they cite all relevant publications in the field?

• Level of comprehensibility:

Is the language correct and easy to understand for an academic in the field? Are the figures well displayed and captions properly described? Is the article systematically and logically organized?

The Written Review Report

After assigning the manuscript rating (see above), reviewers may submit a written review (up to 10,000 characters).  Reviews should stick to the aims and objectives set out above.  Try to structure your review as a list of major points followed by minor points and conclude with an overall impression of the manuscript. Keep in mind that the audience for the review includes both authors and readers (see above). 

Who is Able to Select and Invite Reviewers?

Authors are free to invite suitable reviewers for their own manuscript – as long as they are in accordance with our Peer Review Policy. There are no limits on the number of invited reviews. Editors or other ScienceOpen members may invite additional peers to review your work. Unsolicited comments and reviews make up an important component of our public peer review system.