My Last Review

I have decided to stop reviewing papers for academic journals (I will still do for conferences I am involved with). The reason is that the academic publishing system is exploitative. Reviewers don't get paid, or any other form of compensation, for reviewing. In theory this is something you do, as you will then have your papers reviewed. But in practice there are many free riders. My gesture is a tiny one, but then I remember when I decided to stop giving lectures and that gained traction.

Authors submit papers and expect others to review them, but are not required to review. The authors receive a benefit from published papers, and a financial benefit when this results in a job, or research grant. Some publications are for profit and the published receives revenue from subscribers. The ones missing out from this are reviewers, who get no credit, or payment. So I will stop doing this. 

The system could be easily fixed. Reviewers could receive a voucher for each four papers they review, entitling them to priority processing for one paper submitted. For for-profit publications, they could simply be paid.

Publications could also invest in automated tools to take some of the drudgery out of reviewing. This would check for plagiarism (especially self plagiarism, where autoes submit the same paper, or ones with just a few changes, to multiple publications). Systems could also check references in papers.