University of Michigan School of Information assistant professor Misha Teplitskiy has received an Amazon Research grant to study the benefits of the peer review system to reviewers. The award provides support to projects that have the “potential to impact both the research community and society.”

Teplitskiy’s project, titled “Learning by Reviewing” will study the learning opportunities of the peer review system,which assesses the quality of a manuscript or study before publication. 

“The peer review system is not sustainable,” Teplitskiy says. “The volume of research submitted for publication is growing a ton every year, but the number of reviewers isn't growing as fast. So it's getting increasingly hard to find reviewers.”

Traditionally, he says, the peer review process is regarded as a “one-way street” in which the reviewee receives feedback but the reviewer gains nothing. 

“This project is going to measure how much researchers learn from peer reviewing,” Teplitskiy says. “It's important to maintain the peer review system because it is the mechanism that ensures some level of integrity of what is published. It's arguably the mechanism that distinguishes scientific literature from, say, the blogosphere. Our hunch is that people actually gain a lot from reviewing,” he adds. 

Teplitskiy’s project will last one year. He’ll be using data from the Institute of Physics Publishing, a scientific-community publisher owned by the Institute of Physics.  

“I see this project as part of a broader goal of trying to develop a science of scientific evaluation,” he says. “This support helps move that agenda forward and I’m excited to partner with an organization that helps translate these findings into practices.” 

RELATED

Learn about Teplitskiy research interests by visiting his UMSI faculty profile. 

Learn about the Amazon Research Award and the 26 recipients.