Peer Community Journal

1. What is Peer Community Journal?

2. What articles are published by the Peer Community Journal?

3. What is the evaluation process?

4. What does the Peer Community Journal do?

5. What does the Peer Community Journal not do?

6. Is Peer Community Journal an overlay journal?

7. Governance of the Peer Community Journal

9. Support for Peer Community Journal

1. What is Peer Community Journal?

1.1 Main features

This journal, created and funded by the not-for-profit and non-commercial “Peer Community In” (PCI) organisation, publishes PCI-recommended articles in open access, without further peer review, at no cost to the authors. PCI-recommended articles are articles evaluated and accepted by the thematic PCIs. On acceptance, the thematic PCI publishes a recommendation text encouraging readers to read, use, and cite the article, hence the name "PCI-recommended article".

The evaluation of articles, by peer review, is performed by each thematic PCI. Once an article has been evaluated, accepted and recommended by a PCI, the authors can opt to publish it in Peer Community Journal.
Peer Community journal is run by researchers for researchers and is funded by public research institutions. It is:

Unique = it is a single journal for all PCIs
Free = it is a diamond open-access journal (free for both authors and readers)
Exclusive = it publishes only articles recommended by PCI
Unconditional = it can publish any PCI-recommended article in its recommended version
Opt-in = it publishes articles only if the authors wish it
Immediate = there is almost no delay between submission and publication
Community-based = it is run by scientists for scientists

Peer Community Journal is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and was awarded the DOAJ Seal for best practices in open access publishing. It is also indexed in several other databases, such as Google Scholar, Scopus, Dimensions, Europe PMC, and Semantic Scholar - see all databases indexing Peer Community Journal. In addition, Peer Community Journal is compliant with Plan S, indexed in the Journal Checker Tool, and is currently being evaluated by international scientific databases for further indexation.

1.2 Open access policy

Peer Community Journal is a diamond open access journal. It is free for both authors and readers.

The articles published by Peer Community Journal are published under a CC-BY license.

Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions.

According to the submission and evaluation procedures (see below), the submitted version and the accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript) must be deposited in an open repository. In addition, the published version (Version of Record) can be deposited in an open repository.

1.3 Timeliness and publication volume

Peer Community Journal operates under a continuous publication schedule with one volume per year - volume 1 corresponding to the year 2021.

2. What articles are published by Peer Community Journal?

Acceptance of an article for publication in the journal is conditional on the recommendation by one of the original thematic PCI of the article:

An article that has been accepted and recommended by a thematic PCI will be accepted unconditionally for publication by the journal. This means that once a thematic PCI accepts an article, it is automatically accepted by Peer Community Journal without further conditions.
An article that has not been recommended by a thematic PCI cannot be submitted to Peer Community Journal.

Peer Community Journal publishes articles dealing with all fields covered by the current thematic PCIs. It will also publish articles based on registered reports dealing with all physical sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

The articles must describe empirical or theoretical studies, and be based on observations from experiments or nature, or previously acquired data. They may also report the results of verbal, computer or mathematical models. Studies of methodologies are also appreciated. Perspectives, reviews and opinions and comments on previously published articles are also welcome.

Peer Community Journal publishes only articles of high scientific quality that are methodologically and ethically sound. To this end, Peer Community Journal:

Requires data, computer codes and mathematical and statistical analysis scripts to be made available to reviewers and recommenders at the time of submission and to readers after publication
Welcomes reproductions of studies
Welcomes submissions based on preregistrations (whether or not reviewed)
Welcomes articles reporting negative results, provided that the questions addressed and the methodology are sound
Does not accept submissions presenting financial conflicts of interest. Other conflicts of interest must be minimal and declared

3. What is the evaluation process?

For each article, the evaluation process is performed by one of the original thematic PCIs. This evaluation is very similar to article evaluation in ‘traditional’ journals. Just like journal editors, the recommenders appointed by the PCI handle preprints: they are responsible for finding reviewers, collecting reviews, and making editorial decisions based on reviews. After one or several rounds of review, they should decide whether to reject or accept the article. Note that recommenders suggest editorial decisions and the managing board of the PCI validates (or not) the decision. Preregistration recommendation works similarly, with one recommender appointed to handle the preregistration and a few reviewers to judge the value of the proposed study.

3.1 At submission, PCI

Considers all types of articles (experimental work, theory, review, opinion, etc.)
Does not impose any format or restrictions in terms of article length, number of figures or tables
Considers anonymous submissions
Welcomes reproductions of studies
Welcomes preregistration submissions and preprint submissions based on preregistrations (with or without prior review)
Welcomes preprints reporting negative results, provided that the questions addressed and the methodology are sound
Checks articles for plagiarism with IThenticate
Checks articles for the absence of conflict of interest (see the definition of a conflict of interest)
Makes sure that raw data, codes and scripts are available
Checks that the article is readable (figures)
Checks the compliance of the article with ethical standards
Helps authors to suggest appropriate recommenders to handle their article
Informs authors within 20 days if no recommender can be found to handle the article

3.2 During evaluation, PCI

Evaluates only articles considered interesting by at least one of the many recommenders
Provides explicit guideline for the recommender handling the preprints (https://peercommunityin.org/2020/10/28/pci-recommender-guide/)
Organizes rigorous peer review (https://peercommunityin.org/2020/10/22/pci-reviewer-guide/) for selected articles
Tries to keep delays as short as possible by sending reminders to reviewers and recommenders to ensure that the necessary tasks are completed promptly
Verify that the rules of the code of conduct of PCI are followed
Provides technical assistance to authors, recommenders and reviewers
Allows authors to follow the evaluation process of their article online
Makes sure that recommenders obtain at least two reliable review reports before making editorial decisions on the original version of the article
Makes sure that recommenders make an editorial decision that is reliable and respectful to the authors

Several safeguards exist during evaluation:

When they accept an invitation to handle the evaluation of a preprint, recommenders have to certify that they do not have any COI with the authors or with the content of the article;
When they accept an invitation to review a preprint, reviewers have to certify that they do not have any COI with the authors or with the content of the article
Recommenders in charge of the evaluation of an article must check that reviewers have no COI with the authors of the article or with the content of the article. In particular, they must check that the reviewers have not co-authored articles during the last 4 years with the authors of the submission with a PCI internal tool
The Managing Board of each thematic PCI checks that the recommender in charge of the evaluation process of an article is not in COI with the authors or with the paper's content. In particular, it checks that the recommender has not co-authored articles during the last 4 years with the authors of the submission with a PCI internal tool
Transparency is a tool to avoid COIs. The reviews and the recommendation of an article published in Peer Community Journal are published on the thematic PCI website, and can be accessed through their DOI that is mentioned on the Peer Community Journal website. Anyone can see and report any COI between the recommender or reviewers (if they signed their review) and the authors or the content of the article

3.3 At the revision stage, PCI

Communicates regularly with the authors to ensure that the revision process is performed correctly and promptly for the preprint concerned
Allows the authors as much time as they need to revise their article

3.4 In case of acceptance, PCI

Publishes an open-access citable recommendation with a DOI relating to the entire editorial process (reviews, editorial decisions, author's replies)
Creates OpenCitations and machine-readable metadata for recommendations

If the article is not recommended, PCI provides authors with transferable reviews

4. What does the Peer Community Journal do?

The Peer Community Journal:

Publishes unconditionally, free of charge, exclusively, and immediately (as soon as possible) in open access. any article accepted and recommended by a PCI. This publication occurs only if the authors choose to publish their accepted article in the Peer Community Journal.
Provides a link between the published article and its evaluation, formal acceptance and recommendation on the corresponding thematic PCI website
Aims to offer the authors of PCI-recommended articles the opportunity to publish in a journal
Publishes articles on a rolling basis in thematic sections corresponding to the themes covered by the current PCIs
Archives the published articles in CLOCKSS
Keeps control of the publishing process within the scientific community

To see what each PCI does before recommendation, please consult the help/How does it work section of each PCI

5. What does the Peer Community Journal not do?

It does not provide any language, copyediting or typesetting services. It only checks the accuracy of references
It has no other editorial policy than to accept any PCI-recommended articles and only PCI-recommended articles
It does not charge fees to authors or readers
It does not play the citation metrics (impact factors, etc.) game and does not display citation metrics on its website

6. Is Peer Community Journal an overlay journal?

Peer Community Journal is not an overlay journal. Why? because authors submitting their articles to PCI can use all preprint servers and open archives that currently exist (arXiv, bioRxiv, OSF preprints, HAL, etc.), and some of them:

Do not accept deposits of formatted articles or versions of record
Do not provide any information about the publication of the article in a journal

7. Governance of the Peer Community Journal

Peer Community Journal belongs to, and is published and funded by the PCI organisation.
Peer Community Journal is a member of the Centre Mersenne for Open Scientific Publishing.
Peer Community Journal is web-published by Centre Mersenne (for sections related to Science, Technology, and Mathematics) and UGA Editions (for sections related to Humanities and Medicine).
The Peer Community Journal is endowed with:

An editorial board composed of all the managing boards of all the thematic PCIs. The editorial board is responsible for the evaluation of articles by each PCI before their transfer to and publication in Peer Community Journal. It checks and validates editorial decisions made by recommenders (rejection, request of modification or acceptance) and recommendation of articles. The editorial board of Peer Community Journal is the ultimate decision maker for the accepted articles and is accountable for the published content.
An executive board composed by the members of the board of the PCI organisation. The executive board:
- is legally responsible for the publication of articles
- manages the logistics, funding, administrative aspects and promotion of the journal
- checks all articles before publication in Peer Community Journal and verifies that articles have the right structure, that data scripts and codes are available, that funding and conflicts of interest are properly disclosed, and that articles have the right format
- when it has knowledge of potential misconduct regarding a paper published in Peer Community Journal, the executive board will ask an ad hoc committee of editors to investigate the case. The ad hoc committee will advise the executive board, and based on COPE's recommendations, the executive board will decide on what action to take.
A managing co-ordinator who is responsible for controlling the workflow for article publication.

How a new thematic PCI becomes a section in the Peer Community Journal?

Once the creation of a new thematic PCI is validated by a vote of the members of the PCI organisation (see next point), the creation of a corresponding section in Peer Community Journal is automatically approved at the same time. Once the new PCI is created, the managing board of the new thematic PCI integrates the editorial board of Peer Community Journal.
When a group of researchers wishes to establish a thematic PCI, they first draft a project describing the creation of this new thematic PCI and submit it to the PCI organisation. A vote by the members of the PCI organisation then occurs to decide whether to accept the creation of the new PCI. The members of the PCI organisation include the Editorial Board, the Executive Board, and the Managing Co-ordinator of Peer Community Journal.
The PCI organisation is responsible for ensuring the quality of both new thematic PCI and current ones. The PCI organisation has the authority to close a thematic PCI if it does not meet a sufficient standard of quality. Additionally, two partners assist the PCI organisation in conducting posterior quality checks of the thematic PCIs’ work: The Scientific Council of MathDoc (the French National Document Coordination Unit for Mathematics, CNRS and Université Grenoble Alpes) and UGA Editions (Université Grenoble Alpes Publisher). They can alert PCI to any detected problems (though this has never occurred).

8. Publication ethics

Peer Community Journal follows strong ethical principles. Read more on the journal's publication ethics.

9. Support for Peer Community Journal

Peer Community Journal is supported by more than 100 universities and major research organisations worldwide: see the full list here. Financial support from these universities and organisations covers the publication and running costs of the journal, thus ensuring an open-access publication at no cost to the authors.

10. Contact us

To get in touch with the journal, please use the following e-mail address: contact@peercommunityjournal.org