Free and transparent preprint peer-review and recommendation by and for researchers in Paleontology.

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Summary

Peer Community in Paleontology (PCI Paleo) is a community of researchers working in Paleontology who peer review and recommend research articles publicly available from open archives (such as PaleorXiv or bioRxiv). Papers recommended by PCI Paleo are finalized, peer-reviewed articles that can be used and cited, like any other article published in a conventional journal.

Not all submitted manuscripts are considered for evaluation. Our editors (called recommenders) select submissions they find interesting for the community, then initiate the evaluation process. Not all evaluated manuscripts are recommended. The aim of PCI Paleo is to publicly highlight and recommend works that deserve to be considered as finalized research articles of high quality. The peer review process of PCI Paleo is very similar to that of conventional journals, except that it is totally transparent (see below).

PCI Paleo values free access, transparency, and discoverability. Peer-reviewed articles, recommendations, decisions, reviews, and comments are all freely accessible online and published under Open Access licenses. Peer-reviewed articles and recommendations are fully citable and assigned permanent digital object identifiers (DOIs).

The purpose of PCI Paleo is not to offer a free peer-reviewing service to authors who simply want to improve their draft before submitting it to a journal. Therefore, PCI Paleo will only consider submissions of finalized articles (i.e., which have reached a stage of development deemed sufficient for submission to a journal).

Evaluation model

  • PCI Paleo promotes high quality: PCI Paleo recommends and promotes remarkable articles in Paleontology.

  • PCI Paleo is free and open: There are no charges for authors and readers. Recommendations, decisions, reviews, and comments are all published under a CC BY-ND License. All peer-reviewed articles are deposited in open online archives.

  • PCI Paleo is transparent: Reviews and recommendations are freely available on the PCI Paleo website. Recommendations are signed by the recommenders. Reviews may remain anonymous at the discretion of the reviewers.

  • PCI Paleo is not exclusive: Articles may be recommended by different Peer Communities in X (a feature of particular interest for articles relating to multidisciplinary studies) and may even be published in conventional journals afterwards, although PCI Paleo recommendations should in the end stand on their own.

Which manuscripts can be recommended?

PCI Paleo recommends articles dealing with all fields of Paleontology. PCI Paleo primarily considers original research articles. Other types of contributions (e.g., reviews, data papers, method/software papers) may also be considered pending they are of major interest for the community and presented in a comprehensive and objective way.

PCI Paleo does not provide any editing or proofing services, and no specific formatting is required before submitting a preprint to PCI Paleo. When an article is recommended by PCI Paleo after the peer review process, it is formatted and clearly labelled as peer-reviewed. This final version includes a link to the recommendation and peer review reports on PCI Paleo.

PCI Paleo also welcomes anonymous submissions.

PReF

Sciety uses the PReF (preprint review features) descriptors to describe key elements of each Group's evaluation activities, helping readers to interpret and compare their evaluations. Learn more.

Review requested by
Authors
Reviewer selected by
Editor, service, or community
Public interaction
No
Inclusion of author response
Yes
Decision
Binary decision
Review coverage
Complete paper
Reviewer identity known to
Editor or service
Competing interests
Checked

People

  • Jérémy Anquetin (Jurassica Museum, Porrentruy, Switzerland) [Founder and manager]
  • Faysal Bibi (Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany)
  • Guillaume Billet (Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris, France) [Founder and manager]
  • Andrew A. Farke (Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, Claremont CA, USA)
  • Franck Guy (University of Poitiers, Poitiers, France)
  • Leslea J. Hlusko (University of California, Berkeley CA, USA)
  • Melanie Hopkins (American Museum of Natural History, New York NY, USA)
  • Cynthia V. Looy (University of California, Berkeley CA, USA)
  • Jesús Marugán-Lobón (Universidad autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain)
  • Ilaria Mazzini (IGAG-CNR, Roma, Italy)
  • P. David Polly (Indiana University, Bloomington IN, USA)
  • Caroline A.E. Strömberg (University of Washington and Burke Museum, Seattle WA, USA)

Read more about Peer Community in Paleontology.

Content license

Authors of comments, reviews and recommendations retain copyright© under CC BY-ND.