Have you ever envisioned a peer review process that is more transparent and collaborative? Imagine a setting where authors and reviewers engage in direct, constructive, real-time discussions to enhance scholarly dialogue. Live Reviews make this possible. Designed to facilitate open and interactive exchanges, Live Reviews provide preprint authors with timely feedback from a diverse panel of experts while offering the research community an innovative approach to constructive peer review.
What is a Live Review?
Live Reviews are interactive video calls facilitated by PREreview and open to all. The guided discussions help participants provide constructive feedback on preprints, often in collaboration with vision-aligned journals or community groups.
For over a year, JMIR Publications has partnered with PREreview to integrate this collaborative approach into their peer review process, giving preprint authors a space to exchange ideas and refine their work. Authors are encouraged to join, introduce their research, and clarify aspects of their manuscript. Though Live Reviews focus on discussion rather than formal rebuttals, authors have that opportunity during communications with the journal editors and/or openly by using the recently added commenting feature on PREreview.org.
Following the event, a subset of participants helps compile feedback into a review report, published on PREreview.org within two weeks. Like all community reviews on the platform, Live Reviews receive a DOI, a CC BY 4.0 license, and metadata linking them to the original preprint. Here are examples of Live Review reports, including those published with JMIR Publications.
Open Science and Community Involvement
JMIR Publications is dedicated to providing authors with a community-focused and innovative path from preprint to publication. From a medRxiv preprint to the PREreview Live Review session to a JMIRx Med published article, this process supports open science and encourages scientific community involvement, which are essential values of both PREreview and JMIR Publications.
Offering an open and community-engaged peer review option is aligned with JMIR Publications’ mission: Through leading-edge thinking, community involvement, and continuous innovation, we help leaders in the health technology space to collaborate and disseminate their ideas and research results.
After a Live Review, a JMIR Publications editor works with the author(s) to improve the preprint toward publication of the final manuscript. The author(s) can revise their work using reviewer comments from the Live Review, preparing it for publication as a peer-reviewed manuscript in JMIRx Med or JMIRx Bio. Peer reviews and author responses are also always openly published alongside the final published manuscript. As part of a paid partnership, JMIR Publications currently covers the cost of PREreview Live Review for authors. Editorial review, revision, and publication in a JMIRx journal are also currently free for authors who opt in for Live Review.
As the first preprint overlay journal that is indexed in PubMed and PubMed Central, JMIRx Med offers authors the ability to publish their final revised manuscript in the journal. JMIR Publications recently launched JMIRx Bio as the latest preprint overlay journal covering a broader field of the life sciences, which is also eligible for publication of preprints that have undergone PREreview Live Reviews.
What we heard from participants
Over the last year, PREreview and JMIR Publications have been offering one Live Review a month. A total of 170 community members participated and 66 offered valuable anonymous feedback after the event. This feedback is crucial to help the team iterate over and improve their practices and processes. Below we share the aggregated results from the feedback we received so far as well as quotes from participants.
Collaborative
One of the primary goals of facilitating Live Reviews is to showcase ways the research community can lead an open, constructive, and joyful review process in collaboration with others.
“I was impressed with the event and would like to share the joy [by inviting my colleagues to attend future events].”
“[Attending the Live Review] will help my colleagues improve on their review skills as well as collaborate with other researchers.”
The majority of the survey respondents (77%) agreed with the statement “This event improved my ability to collaborate with others.”
“I found the opportunity to give feedback to the authors to be one of the most interesting and useful aspects of the event. It provided a direct avenue for engaging with the research presented and offering constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement.”
“The entire community/crowd-based peer review process is novel in my experience. The synchronous social aspect gives psychological motivation to push through and contribute simultaneously with others who are also contributing. The fact that others are typing in their comments gives a little inner competition”
Educational
Many respondents recognized that Live Reviews are also an opportunity for learning in community with peers.
“I found it extremely useful, especially as an educational exercise on this type of review process; only rated it a 3 because in my context I would not have the need/prompt to do this on a regular basis.”
“[...] I consider this as a training, and all young scholars should be well equipped with skills like this on their journey to becoming experts on their respective fields.”
Inclusive and participatory
In organizing and facilitating these events, the PREreview team takes extra care in making sure participants are offered different ways to participate and are presented with several options to be credited for their contributions. Survey respondents found the format useful and inclusive, and many highlighted the presence of the authors as one of the most positive aspects of the Live Review.
“The global nature of the participants, including from African countries, is the most novel aspect. Very useful to hear the authors perspectives, which in itself is a novel feature for peer reviewing a manuscript.”
“Presence of both authors and reviewers on the same platform. It reduces the gap between authors and reviewers, so authors are confident that they have done a great job, now they need a bit extra effort to accomplish it.”
“The fact that it allows members to speak freely what's in their minds. Equally inviting the authors of the reviewed manuscript was a fascinating development and intrigued me most.”
“the variable comments with different scientific backgrounds, the voice comments, overall the today event was amazing”
Timely and efficient
Another aspect that was highlighted in several comments was the fact that Live Review allows for a more timely and efficient peer review process.
“[...] The group setting pushes me to get the review done as opposed to a peer review assignment that may languish in my to-do list. Also appreciate being able to contribute to the scientific literature in this small supporting way.”
“As a reviewer, sometimes I felt stuck, so I couldn`t meet the deadline. However, such a type of event acts as a catalyzer to enhance the review.”
“[...] it is the best model of peer review I have ever known where reviewer and author discuss.”
“I think this is a great initiative! I think it can improve the quality of the reviews, while decreasing the burden on the reviewer.”
Challenges
When asked to share challenges, most respondents reported they did not encounter any. However, a few respondents shared that the time of the event—usually set for 4 or 5pm UTC—was too early or too late for those joining from Asia and Oceania.
“The time is very late in the day for me. If we could rotate the time zone so it's more equitable.”
Other reported challenges included issues with internet connectivity and the difficulty related to editing the collaborative document used to take notes during the Live Review on a phone. Finally, the pace of facilitation was at times too fast to allow meaningful engagement.
“[...] I thought I could have a seamless participation using a mobile phone. I was wrong.”
“Yes, I occasionally felt the facilitator's speed to be a little too fast. Understanding would be improved and more deliberate participation would be possible with a little slower tempo.”
We also heard from authors at the end of the Live Review:
“I am wowed by all the fantastic comments I’ve been receiving…I must say, all the comments on the live review are really useful and it opens my eye to a lot of new ideas that I wasn’t thinking of.”
“Thank you so much. I am very very very happy with the extent of the review put forth during this live review. Some of the comments are very key and I’m really happy that people took out their time to look at this manuscript, to review, and to also make comments for its improvement.”
“I want to appreciate everyone for this open and sincere critique. I can now see the beauty of open review. We have gained more insight… all the comments are quite relevant and can enrich the manuscript, and can also add value in subsequent researches and work… The open review process is novel. Thank you.”
What’s next and stay connected
PREreview and JMIR Publications are committed to offering one Live Review a month for at least another six months to a year. The feedback from participants, reviewers, authors and those who join to simply listen motivates us to continue to iterate on the process and think of ways to support the scaling of this approach beyond our organizations.
You are invited to join the growing community of researchers embracing a more open and interactive approach to peer review. Here’s how you can get involved:
- Sign up to our mailing list to hear about upcoming Live Review events – Contribute your expertise, connect with peers, and help shape the future of scientific publishing.
- Check out PREreview resources, including templates to be adapted by anyone who wants to facilitate their own Live Reviews.
- Register for the webinar on March 19 – Gain deeper insights into Live Reviews, hear directly from authors and reviewers about their experiences, and help us improve our approach.
A sincere thank you to everyone who has participated in the Live Reviews and contributed to making peer review more transparent, inclusive, and engaging. Your insights and feedback continue to strengthen this initiative and advance open science!
To stay updated and learn more:
Follow PREreview on BlueSky, Mastodon, and LinkedIn
Follow JMIR Publications on Bluesky, Twitter/X and LinkedIn
Subscribe to the PREreview newsletter
Explore past Live Review reports resulted from this collaboration
Let’s continue to build a more collaborative and constructive peer review ecosystem—together!
About this blog post
This blog post was published on PREreview.org and on JMIR Publications websites, and co-authored by Daniela Saderi, PhD, PREreview Co-founder and Executive Director, Amy Schwartz, PhD, Scientific Editor, JMIR Publications, and Tiffany Leung, MD, MPH, FAMIA, Scientific Editorial Director, JMIR Publications.
