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      Artificial intelligence in peer review: How can evolutionary computation support journal editors?

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          Abstract

          With the volume of manuscripts submitted for publication growing every year, the deficiencies of peer review (e.g. long review times) are becoming more apparent. Editorial strategies, sets of guidelines designed to speed up the process and reduce editors’ workloads, are treated as trade secrets by publishing houses and are not shared publicly. To improve the effectiveness of their strategies, editors in small publishing groups are faced with undertaking an iterative trial-and-error approach. We show that Cartesian Genetic Programming, a nature-inspired evolutionary algorithm, can dramatically improve editorial strategies. The artificially evolved strategy reduced the duration of the peer review process by 30%, without increasing the pool of reviewers (in comparison to a typical human-developed strategy). Evolutionary computation has typically been used in technological processes or biological ecosystems. Our results demonstrate that genetic programs can improve real-world social systems that are usually much harder to understand and control than physical systems.

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          Most cited references14

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          Peer review in a changing world: An international study measuring the attitudes of researchers

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            Peer review: still king in the digital age

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              How Long Is Too Long in Contemporary Peer Review? Perspectives from Authors Publishing in Conservation Biology Journals

              Delays in peer reviewed publication may have consequences for both assessment of scientific prowess in academics as well as communication of important information to the knowledge receptor community. We present an analysis on the perspectives of authors publishing in conservation biology journals regarding their opinions on the importance of speed in peer-review as well as how to improve review times. Authors were invited to take part in an online questionnaire, of which the data was subjected to both qualitative (open coding, categorizing) and quantitative analyses (generalized linear models). We received 637 responses to a total of 6,547 e-mail invitations sent. Peer-review speed was generally perceived as slow, with authors experiencing a typical turnaround time of 14 weeks while their perceived optimal review time is six weeks. Male and younger respondents seem to have higher expectations of review speed than females and older respondents. Majority of participants attributed lengthy review times to the ‘stress’ on the peer-review system (i.e., reviewer and editor fatigue), while editor persistence and journal prestige were believed to speed up the review process. Negative consequences of lengthy review times appear to be greater for early career researchers and can also have impact on author morale (e.g. motivation or frustration). Competition among colleagues were also of concern to respondents. Incentivizing peer review was among the top suggested alterations to the system along with training graduate students in peer review, increased editorial persistence, and changes to the norms of peer-review such as opening the peer-review process to the public. It is clear that authors surveyed in this study view the peer-review system as under stress and we encourage scientists and publishers to push the envelope for new peer review models.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Formal analysisRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: SoftwareRole: ValidationRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ValidationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ValidationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Data curationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                2017
                20 September 2017
                : 12
                : 9
                : e0184711
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Koszykowa 75, PL-00-662, Warsaw, Poland
                [2 ] School of Management, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, United Kingdom
                [3 ] Institute for the Application of Nuclear Energy (INEP), University of Belgrade, Banatska 31b, Belgrade-Zemun, Serbia
                [4 ] Sub-editor in the Journal of the Serbian Chemical Society, Karnegijeva 4/III, 11120 Belgrade, Serbia
                Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), SPAIN
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3952-0260
                Article
                PONE-D-16-51317
                10.1371/journal.pone.0184711
                5607159
                28931033
                de6a37d8-4440-4c6d-82ae-aeb87d5f88c9
                © 2017 Mrowinski et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 2 January 2017
                : 29 August 2017
                Page count
                Figures: 4, Tables: 0, Pages: 11
                Funding
                This publication is supported by the COST Action TD1306 "New frontiers of peer review" ( http://www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/tdp/TD1306). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Research Assessment
                Peer Review
                Physical Sciences
                Mathematics
                Optimization
                Physical Sciences
                Mathematics
                Applied Mathematics
                Algorithms
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Simulation and Modeling
                Algorithms
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Crystallographic Techniques
                Phase Determination
                Physical Sciences
                Mathematics
                Applied Mathematics
                Algorithms
                Evolutionary Algorithms
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Simulation and Modeling
                Algorithms
                Evolutionary Algorithms
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Computational Techniques
                Evolutionary Computation
                Evolutionary Algorithms
                Science Policy
                Science and Technology Workforce
                Careers in Research
                Scientists
                People and Places
                Population Groupings
                Professions
                Scientists
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Mathematical and Statistical Techniques
                Mathematical Functions
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Computational Techniques
                Evolutionary Computation
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                All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

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