Integrating Community Live Reviews into Academic Publishing: Five Case Studies

Academic peer review is fundamental for scientific knowledge dissemination, and various initiatives are exploring how the peer-review process could be more open, efficient and rewarding. We report five case studies where a live community-based review session was integrated into the editorial workflow of an academic journal (Current Research in Neurobiology; CRNEUR). Five manuscripts, submitted as preprints, underwent Live Review—a structured collaborative review session led by PREreview, an open science project advancing openness in scholarly evaluation. With each case, PREreview team members facilitated a 90-minute online discussion where registered participants provided real-time discussion and worked together on an online structured peer-review document. Authors could join as observers or to answer questions, and journal editors could join as observers. Participants then volunteered to write up the session notes into a final review and summary statement. Review participants had the option to sign the review. The finalized review was then published on PREreview’s open preprint review platform approximately two weeks after the Live Review session. The published review was assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for participating reviewers to obtain credit for their reviewing effort. The published review was then incorporated into CRNEUR’s editorial process to inform editorial decisions. Results suggest that the speed of this community review can be as rapid as the standard peer-review process for CRNEUR during the same time period, and a small sample size survey of the Live Review pilots attendees showed agreement on several questions including the review being respectful, time efficient and scientifically rigorous. We discuss how live, community-based review approaches could be further developed, scaled and sustained.