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How would an employer verify that I'm telling the truth that I've peer reviewed 35 papers? Let's say I take 15 hours to review a paper, making detailed notes,

How would an employer verify that I'm telling the truth that I've peer reviewed 35 papers? Let's say I take 15 hours to review a paper, making detailed notes, and over multiple revisions. Which I've done. Let's say my co-worker reviews 10 papers taking one hour total, each with "looks good to me." How does my employer determined which is appropriate "community service"? You know how much @$%@*$% crap I get in my email asking to be a reviewer for junk journals from fields completely outside of mine? And that's in addition to requests mostly in my field for topics I am not qualified to peer review. How does my employer know I'm not inflating my "community service" through worthless volunteering?

chrisseaton 5y ago
> How does my employer determined which is appropriate "community service"? Research is a small community. Within your field most people know each other and know who's contributing reviews and who isn't. If someone's being a jerk in the community everyone knows about it.
- eesmith 5y ago
  How are people supposed to figure this out? I've been in my field for 20 years. I only know a handful of people who are contributing reviews. (Some have have told me told me directly, regarding a specific paper they reviewed. Some refuse to be anonymous in their reviews.) It's not just "being a jerk". There's a whole range of network effects which also confound the issue. Suppose I am the world experts on $SPECIALIZED_TOPIC, but it isn't a hot topic, and only three people in the world publish in the area. I'm a reviewer on all ten papers published on $TOPIC in a year. Suppose my co-worker works in $DEEP_AI_TOPIC, with thousands of papers published per month, and reviews 100 papers in a year. How does my employer weigh information about our respective peer review contributions? Or, suppose my co-worker and I are equally competent, but my co-worker was in grad school with the editor, so the editor is more likely to send papers to my co-worker. Also, the industry researchers I know tell me their respective employers have increasingly de-emphasized community service, including in conference organization, where there's no issue of anonymity.

chrisseaton 5y ago

> How does my employer determined which is appropriate "community service"? Research is a small community. Within your field most people know each other and know who's contributing reviews and who isn't. If someone's being a jerk in the community everyone knows about it.

eesmith 5y ago
How are people supposed to figure this out? I've been in my field for 20 years. I only know a handful of people who are contributing reviews. (Some have have told me told me directly, regarding a specific paper they reviewed. Some refuse to be anonymous in their reviews.) It's not just "being a jerk". There's a whole range of network effects which also confound the issue. Suppose I am the world experts on $SPECIALIZED_TOPIC, but it isn't a hot topic, and only three people in the world publish in the area. I'm a reviewer on all ten papers published on $TOPIC in a year. Suppose my co-worker works in $DEEP_AI_TOPIC, with thousands of papers published per month, and reviews 100 papers in a year. How does my employer weigh information about our respective peer review contributions? Or, suppose my co-worker and I are equally competent, but my co-worker was in grad school with the editor, so the editor is more likely to send papers to my co-worker. Also, the industry researchers I know tell me their respective employers have increasingly de-emphasized community service, including in conference organization, where there's no issue of anonymity.