A nonprofit engineering society that publishes five peer reviewed journals and special issues with guest editors wanted to ensure that the editorial and peer review process was consistent and rigorous and reflected best practices to ensure research integrity.
GOALS
The goal of this project was to create a personalized dashboard for the existing manuscript submission system that would check for red flags and other issues, focusing on significant problems. This tool would be of value to editorial staff, peer review managers, and editors and help detect and possibly prevent potential issues early in the process. The current flags were modified to provide information relevant to the society and allow real problems to be investigated.
APPROACH
Maverick evaluated the types of issues found and which of those were meaningful and possibly involve a breach of research integrity. This information was used to create a modified list of red flags that would provide realistic assessments of major issues. Based on this information and feedback from the editorial staff, Maverick created a modified/refined dashboard and reviewed current tools and workflows that support research integrity and peer review.
RESULTS
The modified dashboard, supported by real-life examples, formed the basis of a workshop for editors that was designed to acquaint them with guidelines for monitoring manuscripts and how to use available tools. This interactive session was recorded and will be shared at subsequent editorial board meetings.
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