Elsevier Pilots PeerChoice in Chemical Physics Letters

AMSTERDAM, June 21, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

- Reviewers Choose Articles in Innovative Peer Review Pilot

Elsevier announced the launch of PeerChoice, a new pilot peer review program for Chemical Physics Letters where reviewers now have the freedom to choose which articles they would like to review. By choosing articles matching their expertise and interest, efficiency and effectiveness of the peer review process will be increased. The PeerChoice pilot will initially run for three months, starting in June.

PeerChoice reverses the traditional model in which the Editor selects articles for a reviewer to review. Using high-end software, the reviewer will be able to select the article that matches his academic competency and current interest, while committing to a timely review. This will significantly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the review process. Current checks and balances in the peer review process remain in place to ensure the usual high quality of the process.

"We aim to support the research community in the fundamentally important task of peer review in scientific publication," remarked Martin Tanke, Managing Director of Elsevier's Science and Technology Journals. "That's why we're continuously looking for new, innovative ways to enhance the peer review process. By developing new technologies, but also by listening to the needs of our reviewers and authors - the 2009 Peer Review Survey, which we conducted with our partner Sense About Science, showed that a significant number of reviewers were sometimes hesitant to review an article because of a lack of expertise in that particular field. In addition, researchers made clear they want to improve peer review by improving article relevancy and speeding up turnaround time. PeerChoice can contribute to solving both issues."

Professor David Clary, Editor of Chemical Physics Letters, said, "The community of authors, reviewers and editors for Chemical Physics Letters is a dynamic and engaged one, and as such, the perfect environment to experiment with a new empowerment model in which reviewers can choose to review online the articles most interesting and relevant for them."

About Chemical Physics Letters

Chemical Physics Letters (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/ journaldescription.cws_home/505707/description#description) is an international rapid communications journal publishing the results of frontier research in chemical physics and physical chemistry, molecular sciences, materials science and biological systems. The Journal celebrated its 40th year of publication in 2007. The Editors of the Journal are currently Professors David Clary (University of Oxford, UK), Mitchio Okumura (California Institute of Technology, USA), Richard Saykally (University of California, Berkeley, USA) and Villy Sundstrom (Lund University, Sweden). The Editors are supported by an Advisory Editorial Board of about 100 leading scientists. For more information: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/cplett

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About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet (http://www.thelancet.com) and Cell (http://www.cell.com), and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com), Scopus (http://www.scopus.com), Reaxys (http://www.reaxys.com), MD Consult (http://www.mdconsult.com) and Nursing Consult (http://www.nursingconsult.com), which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite (http://www.scival.com) and MEDai's Pinpoint Review (http://www.medai.com), which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.com) employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC (http://www.reedelsevier.com), a world-leading publisher and information provider. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

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SOURCE Elsevier