What does a PCI Psychology recommender do?
A PCI Psychology recommender is a role analogous to an action editor at traditional journals. Recommenders are expected to manage the full evaluation process for any manuscripts they choose to handle. This includes reading the manuscript, finding and managing reviewers, reading the reviews, and writing decision letters for authors.
The primary difference from traditional journals is in the final step of the process for preprints that have been reviewed positively (rejections proceed in the same manner as for traditional journals). Rather than making a final decision to accept the manuscript for publication, recommenders prepare a “recommendation” for the preprint based on the reviews. Recommendations are short editorial reviews based on the reviewers’ and recommender’s assessments.The recommendations are between 300-1000 words and typically include a brief statement about the nature of the paper, how it fits into the broader literature, and what makes it particularly valuable or noteworthy. This text also contains references (referring at least to the article recommended). These recommendations are publicly available, citable documents that are assigned DOIs, hosted on the PCI website, and linked to the preprints. They are then made available to journal editors when making decisions about whether to publish the preprint in their journal and to the general public when seeking to understand the scientific evaluation of the work.
Recommenders typically handle submissions either within or close to their own specialty. They are expected to comply with PCI Psychology's policies and code of conduct, and are eligible for selection as a member of the Managing Board. See PCI Psychology's Guidelines for Recommenders for more information.
The necessary time commitment for this role varies depending on how many manuscripts each recommender agrees to handle. Manuscripts are not assigned to recommenders as is the case with traditional journals, but rather serving as a recommender is an active choice made by individuals. Thus, there is no obligation for recommenders to handle a certain number of manuscripts per year, and the number handled can vary from zero to several a year.
Interested in becoming a recommender at PCI Psychology?
Please fill out this form to show your interest in becoming a PCI Psychology recommender and/or managing board member!
The Managing Board of PCI Psychology usually selects people who have completed a PhD, conduct independent research, and have a reasonable amount of experience as reviewers. Previous experience as editor is recommended, but interested researchers with no editing experience will be considered for an apprenticeship model in which the co-recommend several articles with more senior editors before becoming full fledged recommenders.
PCI has signed the Joint Statement of Principles of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communication, which we at PCI Psychology fully support this. We aim to have strong representation across fields of research, geographic regions, genders, and other areas in which some groups of people have been traditionally underrepresented in academia.
