Open Peer Review Traits in Open Access Journals: An Analysis based on DOAJ

Open peer review is one of the pillars of open science to promote transparency and collaboration in scientific journals through the process of the selection of manuscripts submitted for publication. Previous studies have shown that there is no universally accepted definition of open peer review, but traits that can be combined and implemented in various ways, resulting in models of evaluation with different degrees of openness. This study aims to identify the open peer review traits implemented by scientific journals from different disciplines. To investigate this question we will follow two steps. First, we will collect in the Directory of Open Access Journals a sample of journals that claim to themselves the status of open peer review journals. Then, we will access the website of the collected journals and identify in their peer review policies which open peer review traits they are implementing. These traits will be recognized according to the terminology and definitions established by Ross-Hellauer (2017). As a result, we expect to provide an overview of the degrees of openness in open peer review journals according to their disciplines.