What review types can be added to my Web of Science researcher profile?
The peer review types which can be added to your Web of Science researcher profile are:
What are Publisher-invited Reviews?
Publisher-invited reviews are those commissioned by a journal or conference during a manuscript’s path to publication (or not).
Currently, we can only process reviews of full-length manuscripts submitted to:
- Journals
- Conferences
- Pre-print servers
- Book series
- The review must be performed for a book series. Reviews for a book/chapter that's not part of a series/periodical will not be accepted.
This includes reviews conducted post-publication if commissioned by journals/conferences.
How do I add Publisher-invited Reviews?
On your Web of Science researcher profile, you can add reviews which are performed for journals, conferences or book series to your profile (with the privacy settings you choose). We can then verify your reviews, which can be used in promotion and funding applications.
There are three simple ways to populate your review record, most of which rely on you adding and verifying any email addresses you use to submit reviews to journals.
- Set up the automatic uploading of reviews performed for partnered journals
- Send review receipts to reviews@webofscience.com
- Add reviews manually through the forms on the site (further verification will be required)
Automatic addition of Reviews Performed for Partnered Journals
Reviews performed for partnered journals can be added to your profile as you submit them. Please ensure you opt-in for recognition while submitting your review on the partnered journal’s editorial management system. Once we receive your review, we’ll send you an email with a link to claim it.
You can skip the claiming part if you enable the automatic addition of reviews from partnered journals. To enable it, check that the “Automatically add reviews completed for partnered journals and funders" setting is turned on. You can do this via the ‘Peer review preferences’ tab of your profile settings.
Note: We can only match you to reviews submitted with emails that are verified against your Web of Science Researcher Profile account. You can add email addresses via your Account Settings in Web of Science.
If you want to add your reviews for partnered journals via integration but you do not want this to happen automatically, please follow these steps:
- Check the box on the review submission form asking if you want to add a record of the review to your Web of Science researcher profile
- Note: This option appears in the peer-review submission system the journal uses, such as ScholarOne or Editorial Manager.
- Follow the link in the confirmation email we send you
- Done - the review record will be added to your profile subject to the journal's privacy policy.
Send review receipts to reviews@webofscience.com
If you have reviewed for journals which are not partnered, you may still add verified records of those reviews to your profile.
To do this please send a review receipt to reviews@webofscience.com. A “Review receipt” is a form of confirmation of a previously completed review provided to you by a journal or conference.
The simplest and most accessible form of confirmation is an email from a journal or a conference confirming that they have received your completed review.
Valid review receipts should include: the full title of a journal, the date you completed the review and a way to identify you as the reviewer.
Follow our step-by-step guide:
- Go to your inbox and try one of these common search terms:
- “Thank you for reviewing (journal name)”.
- “Your review for (journal name)”.
- “Review received (journal name)”.
- Once you have found one ‘review receipt,’ open the email and see if there is any text that is likely to be used in all emails from that journal. For example, “Thank you for preparing a review report for…”
- Copy and paste the text into your search box to look for more review receipts.
- Forward each message you find without editing any to reviews@webofscience.com and you are done! We will verify your reviews and add them to your profile.
More information about what is accepted as a valid review receipt here.
Add reviews manually through the form on the site
You can manually add a review via the “Add a peer review” form. You can use these forms to add unverified publisher invited reviews which will appear on your profile with the privacy settings you specify.
Finding the form:
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On the sidebar navigation in the Web of Science click on
Profile > My Records > +Add Peer Reviews -
From your My peer review records page click on “+ Add a review”
Adding a new record:
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Ensure that you have “Publisher-invited review” option selected.
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Enter the title of the journal or conference and select the date you performed the review. These are required fields.
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Now you may search for publication details in the “Article” section of the form.
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Search by title or an identifier (DOI, Web of Science accession number, PubMed ID, or arXiv ID), we’ll retrieve any further details we can and give you a chance to update them to your satisfaction.
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You can then enter your review content and select your display preferences.
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Press ‘Create Review’ to finish.
You can then verify this review by forwarding the corresponding review receipt to reviews@webofscience.com with the “WOS_REVIEW_ID:” followed by a review’s ID copied into the email’s body.
You will find your review’s Review ID on the review’s edit page which you will be directed to after pressing ‘Create Review.’
Simply copy that ID into the body of your email when you forward your review receipt to reviews@webofscience.com
Note: You are unable to create new journal entries. If you would like to add a review for a journal not in our database through the forms on the site, please contact us with the journal title, URL and ISSN and any other relevant information and we will add it for you.
What are Community Reviews?
Community reviews are those written about articles that you have read and wish to share your thoughts on. These are often known as post-publication reviews. These are self-motivated reviews rather than those commissioned by journals. Such reviews do not require verification.
Writing Community reviews is a good way to demonstrate your expertise to editors, other reviewers, and authors. It is also a great way to log the literature you have read, to join and further the conversation about new research and is a great way for early career researchers to practice manuscript analysis.
You are free to add community reviews you have written on other platforms if you own the copyright.
How do I add Community Reviews?
Here's how you can add a community review to your profile, or write a new one:
- Select 'Add a review' from your Peer Reviews page or the Sidebar Navigation.
- Ensure "Community review" is selected at the top of the page.
- Search for publication details in the “Article” section of the page.
- Search by title or an identifier (DOI, Web of Science accession number, PubMed ID, or arXiv ID) and we’ll retrieve any further details we can and give you a chance to update them to your satisfaction.
- Enter the content of your Community Review into the final text box provided.
- Check to see your review complies with our guidelines.
- Select from “Show I wrote this review” or “Do not associate me with this review”.
- Hit the 'Create review' button to publish your review.
You can also use your Web of Science Researcher Profile to cross-post Community Reviews you've written elsewhere. Simply add them through the forms on the site and link to their original place of publication within the review's content.
What are Grant Reviews?
Every year, governments and organizations spend billions of dollars funding research. Researchers and subject matter experts play a critical role in helping these organizations decide which research they should fund by reviewing research grant applications. Reviewing research grant applications is both an indicator of one’s expertise and standing in their field, and an important contribution to the wider research community that deserves recognition.
If you have reviewed grant applications for a funding organization partnered with Web of Science, you can add a verified record of this work to your profile as evidence of your expert contributions helping funders determine which research they should fund.
Can I add Grant Reviews to my profile?
You cannot currently add grant reviews for funders to your Web of Science researcher profile. You can however let us know that you have reviewed for those funders and that you would like to receive recognition for that work on the Web of Science. Depending on the user engagement, we can convey that information to funders to encourage them to submit your review information to the platform.
You can use the ‘Request Recognition from a Funder’ button on your Grant Reviews page or from the Sidebar Navigation by clicking Grant Reviews +Add.
Please then enter the funder’s name and the year you performed the grant review. Next please select which type of grant review you performed for the funder and then please click on the “Request recognition” button. We will then contact funders to request that they add these reviews to your profile if an integration becomes available.
What is the difference between a "panel grant review" and an "individual grant review"?
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Panel grant review (i.e. the reviewing of multiple grant applications)
A funder brings together a range of experts across a discipline to review multiple grant applications. These experts will evaluate each grant application in turn and decide on funding across multiple applications. These experts may be appointed to a specific funding round or for a period.
In addition to reviewing multiple proposals, a grant panel review involves discussion between other panel members to leverage the expertise of the whole panel. These discussions can take place in person, or via teleconference.
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Individual grant review (i.e. the review of a specific grant application)
A funder commissions experts (usually 2 to 3) in the relevant field to provide a detailed review for a specific grant application or proposal
Adding reviews using reviews@webofscience.com
- What counts as a valid review receipt?
- Most common reasons why an email can be rejected as a review receipt
- My review record was added with an incorrect date
- Specifics of adding conference reviews
- How to add review from an interactive review process? (e.g. Frontiers)
- How to leave processing notes
- Are reviews of revisions considered separate reviews?
- Can I add reviews for rejected or unpublished manuscripts?
What counts as a valid review receipt?
A review receipt is some sort of confirmation from a journal that you have completed a review. It can be one of the following:
- Email you get from a journal after completing your peer review, either thanking you for your review or notifying you of the editor's decision. Email receipts must be unedited and contain the email headers with the date it was sent to the reviewer. Unfortunately, an invitation to review or acceptance of a review assignment does not always lead to reviews being performed, thus we cannot accept these as review receipts.
- Screenshot(s) (in .pdf or .jpg format) of the reviews in your journal’s peer-review submission system. Please ensure journal name, dates of reviews and your name or login are present in the screenshot.
- Review certificates containing details of a particular peer-reviewed article. Kindly avoid conflating them with certificates for general contribution to journal or conference reviewing. Only a certificate issued for a specific review is considered valid.
Each review receipt must contain:
- The name of the journal you reviewed for.
- The date you completed the review (at least the month and year of review completion, if not the full date).
Please note:
- Non-English review receipts are accepted.
- Each review receipt must contain the journal name and the date of the review.
- A reviewer certificate, acknowledging a reviewer for their overall contribution to the journal does not show which reviews have been performed or on which dates they were completed; thus, we cannot use a review certificate to verify and add an individual review.
- You can send us more than one review receipt in the email (bulk uploads will take longer to process than individual receipts)
- We aim to process review receipts within 72 hours, but this can sometimes take longer.
Most common reasons why an email can be rejected as a review receipt
- Email is an invitation to perform a review.
- Email is an acceptance of review assignments.
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Email is a reminder to submit a review.
The abovementioned email types do not confirm review completion. -
Email is a general reviewing certificate from a journal/conference.
We verify specific reviews completed by users rather than general information about overall reviewer activity for a journal. - You are not clearly identified as the reviewer.
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Review receipts where reviewer name is different from your profile's name.
If the reviewer's name and your profile name do not match, the verification of your review records can take more time, or the review receipt may be rejected as we are unable to associate the review with you personally. - Copy-pasted text information from the journal's editorial management system.
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Emails that were edited and information redacted (i.e. email header, text in the body of the email, etc.)
We require reviewers to send full and unedited review receipts, including the original structure, header, etc. If you want to send us a certificate or a list of completed reviews from the journal’s Editorial Management System (EMS), it should be provided in non-editable file format (.jpg or .pdf). You have control over your peer review display preferences. By default, review display preferences are configured as:-
- Privacy: Show journal/conference
- Content: Hide review content.
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Invitations to add your historical reviews to your Web of Science researcher profile.
Please follow instructions in the email you received. - A screenshot of the journal's editorial management system where the stage of the review process or your role is not clear.
- A screenshot of the journal's editorial management system where the review is assigned to you and not yet complete.
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A screenshot of the journal's editorial management system where the date of review completion is not mentioned.
Please ensure that the screenshots you provide include all the necessary details. -
Review performed for journal that is already integrated.
If you receive this email, it means you sent in a review receipt for a review you completed for one of our partnered journals. To reduce the double-up in verification, we do not process this receipt as the review can be added to your profile via journal integration.
Please note that some journals may take longer than others to send us reviews through integration. Certain publishers prefer to send us reviews up to a month after review completion or after the manuscript has been published. If your record still hasn't appeared in your profile after a month, please resend your review receipt and kindly notify us about this issue by leaving a comment such as a request for your receipt to be ‘manually processed’ in the same email. -
Journal name is not mentioned.
Sometimes review receipts include the name of a journal group, collection, or publisher, but do not specify the title of the particular journal for which the review was performed. Kindly ensure that the journal's name is clearly indicated. -
An email or attachment containing the review content, without any confirmation of your review being submitted to the editor or review submission system.
A valid review receipt is an acknowledgment from a journal or a conference confirming the receipt of a review. Thus, review content alone cannot serve as a confirmation that your review was received.
My review record was added with an incorrect date
We verify reviews with the date mentioned in the confirmation of review we received from you. In some cases, this date can be later than the actual date of the review completion. For example, your record could have been verified with the date you received a certificate, or when the handling editor made a decision on the publication of the article, or even the date you received an email informing you that the article was published. It all depends on the type of review receipt you send us.
If you want the record to have the exact review date, just send us a review receipt with that date, and it will be used for adding your record.
Specifics of adding conference reviews
Date
Please note that the date a conference was held is not the same as a "review date". To add a record for a conference review we require a receipt ("Thank you for reviewing" email or a screenshot from the journal’s Editorial Management System (EMS) with the date the review was received by the organizers of the conference.
Name
Please ensure that your review receipt includes the full name of the conference. Often, confirmations contain only a conference abbreviation, which can lead to difficulties in determining which specific conference your provided review pertains to, as the same abbreviation might refer to completely different conferences. To avoid errors or requests for additional information, kindly ensure that the conference name is mentioned in the receipt you forward to us or leave a comment with the tag ‘PROCESSING NOTE’ followed by the full conference name.
Workshops
Reviews completed for Workshops will be added to your profile under the main conference to which the specified workshop relates.
A lot of reviews performed for the same conference
It is insufficient to provide a review receipt that includes only a number of reviews completed for a specific conference without details of the reviewed papers. This is because the review completion dates for each review could be close or the same. To prevent duplicate records from being accidentally created, we require the manuscript/submission ID or the title of each manuscript you reviewed to be present in the review receipt.
Conference using the Easychair platform
The Easychair platform provides an opportunity to add submissions to users' watchlists. This means the user will receive all reviews and comments about the submissions they are subscribed to, including the ones provided by the other reviewers, in the same form as their own review receipts. For this reason, we sometimes request additional confirmation (for example in the form of a screenshot from the Easychair editorial system) where your role and review submission can be clearly identified.
How to add review from an interactive review process? (e.g. Frontiers)
The Frontiers journals use an interactive review process that consists of three main steps:
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Independent review
At the start of the process all reviewers submit independent review reports. This is a traditional peer review. -
Interactive review
Editors then activate interactive review mode where editors and authors communicate with each other. -
Final report
Once the interactive review is finalized, it forms a “final report”.
We are unable to process receipts from the interactive review process at reviews@webofscience.com.
This is because the interactive review process consists of multiple comments over the course of a few days or even weeks and are usually not full-format reviews.
You can still add and verify the independent and final review records through reviews@webofscience.com by forwarding us one of the following:
- The “Thank you for review” letter received on the independent review step.
- The “Thank you for review” letter received on the final reports step.
- A screenshot of the peer-review submission system containing information about your review(s) along with the date(s) of independent and/or final review reports completion.
Please ensure the emails include the date(s) of the independent review or final report, the journal title, and some way to identify you as the reviewer.
If you wish to provide any instructions or notes regarding the processing of the review receipt you are submitting, please indicate them in the following format: “PROCESSING NOTE: [your text]” when forwarding the review receipt to the reviews@webofscience.com.
For any other inquiries not related to the submitted confirmation please go to our Global Customer Support Center page where you can submit your inquiry.
Are reviews of revisions considered separate reviews?
Each round of peer review of a single manuscript is considered separately. If you review a manuscript for a second or third time, we will assign you a separate review record for each.
When multiple reviews of one manuscript have been performed by a single author we concatenate them on the detail page (if the paper and review are both published).
To make sure you get separate review records for each round of review for non-integrated journals, be sure to forward each "Thank you for reviewing' email you receive to reviews@webofscience.com for each round of review performed.
Can I add reviews for rejected or unpublished manuscripts?
Yes, you can. You get the same credit for your review, regardless of whether the manuscript is published or not.
However, in order to maintain the author's privacy, we don't display any information about the manuscript until it is published. This means that your reviews of unpublished manuscripts will remain blind and the content cannot be displayed publicly.
In many cases rejected manuscripts cascade to other journals and are eventually published. At that point we allow you to sign your reviews and make the review content publicly available.
How do I edit and delete reviews?
To edit or delete one of your peer review records please first navigate to your Peer review records page.
You can get to this page from your profile by first clicking on the "Peer Review" tab and then the "Manage" button.
You can also navigate to this page via the sidebar navigation: click on Profile > My Records > Peer Reviews
From here you will find your publisher-invited and community reviews listed under the "Peer Review" tab and your grant reviews under the “Grant Review” tab. If you have a lot of records, please feel free to use the quick filters to refine your results.
Editing:
If you wish to edit a review, please click on the ‘edit’ button on the relevant record. Here you will be able to add any missing article details, add your review content and alter your display settings.
Deleting:
If you wish to delete, then please click on the ‘delete’ button and then confirm your request.
How to verify reviews as a co-reviewer
There are two ways to verify reviews performed together with a co-reviewer. If the researcher that the journal requested a review from is on Web of Science, they may edit their verified review, navigate to the 'Actions' tab and send you a collaborator link. Otherwise, the researcher that the journal requested a review from can forward their co-reviewer the review receipt (confirmation from the journal of review completion) and include a note to confirm co-reviewing activity.
The co-reviewer must then forward this to reviews@webofscience.com to be verified from an email address verified to their Web of Science researcher profile.
Can I add reviews of manuscripts on pre-print servers?
Yes. Any manuscript you read on arXiv, bioRxiv, preprints, engrXiv, or any other pre-print server is ripe for reviewing on Web of Science researcher profile.
To do this:
Add your review through the review forms as a Community review. Some pre-print servers mint DOIs for their publications, if not you can add the paper by its title and then contact us to link it to the correct paper.
Which review types are currently not supported?
Unfortunately, we currently do not support reviews for books/book chapters (that are not part of a series/periodical), fellowship programs, and other types of reviews that do not count as one of the supported reviews above.
We look forward to providing support for more review types in the future.