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Are peer-review activities related to reviewer bibliometric performance? A scientometric analysis of Publons

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Abstract

This study attempts to analyse the relationship between the peer-review activity of scholars registered in Publons and their research performance as reflected in Google Scholar. Using a scientometric approach, this work explores correlations between peer-review measures and bibliometric indicators. In addition, decision trees are used to explore which researchers (according to discipline, academic status and gender) make most of the reviews and which of them accept most of the papers, assuming that these are reasonable proxies for reviewing quality. Results show that there is a weak correlation between bibliometric indicators and peer-review activity. The decision tree analysis suggests that established male academics made the most reviews, while young female scholars are the most demanding reviewers. These results could help editors to select good reviewers as well as opening a new source of data for scientometrics analyses.

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Notes

  1. However, this practice could affect the efficiency of the service and the owners ask to be contacted for future studies or use the publicly available API (https://publons.com/api/).

  2. Data on this study are publicly available in http://hdl.handle.net/10760/29799.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cybermetrics Lab, Madrid, Spain

    José Luis Ortega

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  1. José Luis Ortega
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Correspondence to José Luis Ortega.

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Ortega, J.L. Are peer-review activities related to reviewer bibliometric performance? A scientometric analysis of Publons. Scientometrics 112, 947–962 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2399-6

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