The theme of Peer Review Week 2024 is the Intersection of Innovation and Technology. This reflects the rapid advances in technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), that have shifted the academic landscape in recent years. Whilst there are challenges around advancing research integrity, recent innovations have led to automating repetitive tasks, improving ethical and grammar checks, and streamlining multi-step processes, all of which can benefit overworked reviewers.

In response to this year’s theme, we will highlight two tools that MDPI has developed to support research integrity, easing reviewers’ workloads and improving their efficiency.

Eureka – Reviewer Recommender

Eureka is an artificial intelligence tool designed to assist in the reviewer selection process.

Because of the high demand for reviewers, and the importance of the process, finding the right reviewers for a paper is essential for maintaining research integrity.

Eureka utilises natural language processing and machine learning to extract the core concept and themes from a manuscript based on its title and abstract. It then uses a similar process to search for comparable, previously published articles and reviews. From these, Eureka extracts potential reviewers from our internal databases with extensive publication records within the field of the manuscript and presents information in an easy-to-read dashboard.

In a recent interview, Difan Lin, Project Manager of Eureka – Reviewer Recommender, described the aims behind developing the tool:

We want the tool to be able to increase the matchmaking ability, streamline the reviewer finding part of the editorial process, and be able to send more targeted reviewer requests. In addition, the tool should assist us in upgrading the quality of our reviewer reports and be able to assess the needs and requirements of the whole editorial process.

MDPI strives to improve the experience of both authors and reviewers. Eureka ensures that authors get the best reviewers possible, whilst also ensuring that reviewers receive requests to review the right articles for them based on their area of expertise.

Online proofreading

Online Proofreading is a platform that allows external authors and MDPI internal employees to work together on finalising articles during the proofreading process. So far, the platform has been used successfully on several MDPI journals.

Tracy (Yue) Wu, Department Manager of IT/Senior IT Project Manager, described the impulse behind the platform as “simplifying the proofreading process”. He goes on to explain

During traditional offline proofreading, emails are generally sent back and forth with authors to figure out which part in the article needs to be edited, and sometimes it takes days for a reply. For Online Proofreading, we can invite authors to access the system along with MDPI employees to edit the articles together, which saves time, is more interesting, and allows for more communication.

Online Proofreading is accessed through SuSy, MDPI’s in-house submission system. The platform can be seen as an expansion of SuSy, which already streamlines various parts of the publication process, like the peer review. The Online Proofreading platform expands SuSy to also include:

• English editing, Academic Editor proof reading, and author proof reading.
• Editing tables and uploading figures.
• Adding, editing, deleting, and swapping references in real time.
• Editing and viewing equations.
• Previewing papers as PDFs.

All changes are tracked, with previous versions being viewable throughout the process. Further, authors can directly respond to comments made on their manuscripts.

MDPI is interested in serving the scientific community and advancing science in a sustainable and transparent manner. Online Proofreading reflects this mission by further simplifying the editorial process and ensuring authors are involved every step of the way.

If you want to learn more about Online Proofreader, visit the announcement or the manual for the tool.

Advancing research integrity

Peer Review Week 2024 is centred around Innovation and Technology. As a pioneer in open science for over 25 years, MDPI has led the way with innovations to advance science and support research integrity.

Both Eureka – Reviewer Recommender and Online Proofreading highlight MDPI’s commitment to providing a platform for researchers to be as efficient as possible whilst advancing research integrity. This is vital at a time when the peer review process is under strain. Reviewers must be provided with everything they need to conduct their work.

MDPI is committed to supporting reviewers and preserving the highly valuable peer review process.

For Peer Review 2024, we are publishing a range of content to celebrate the peer review process and everyone involved. If you want to learn more, please click here.