Introducing Reviewer Hub

Showcasing our new reviewer engagement platform

Recognizing and rewarding the invaluable work that our reviewers do has been high on our agenda for many years. A landmark event was the Peer Review Challenge that we issued back in 2012. This community-wide competition posed the question “what can we do to acknowledge your peer review activities?”. Amongst the many fantastic suggestions that we received, there was one from (then) Associate Professor Simon Gosling of the University of Nottingham(opens in new tab/window). At the time he submitted his idea, reviewers saw very little in the way of recognition. He and his fellow peers might have been acknowledged in the form of an annual "thank you" note from editors, but that might well have been the extent.

Simon’s winning idea revolved around introducing a new system of “Elsevier badges” for reviewers representing different levels of acknowledgement and benefits. Two years later, the idea took shape as what has become known as the Reviewer Recognition Platform – a platform that soon developed into full-blown reviewer platform where reviewers could view their refereeing stats, pick up badges and certificates (including certificates of excellence awarded by editors) and more.

Having gained a good deal of experience through launching and developing the Reviewer Recognition Platform, we are now proud to present its successor: the Reviewer Hub(opens in new tab/window) - our new Editorial Manager (EM)-based reviewer engagement platform that brings together all the information that a reviewer could wish for.

The Hub has found a home within the Elsevier for Reviewers area and currently offers the following functionalities:

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  Volunteer to review: through The Hub, you can indicate your interest and availability to review for any other Elsevier journal and so enhance your reviewer profile and visibility.

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  Complimentary access to ScienceDirect and Scopus: The Hub enables you to claim your 30-day complimentary access with a single click commencing at any time convenient for you within the six months after you have accepted your review invitation.

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  Pending invitations: The Hub displays all your current review invitations across the different Elsevier journals and provides direct access to EM to accept or decline invitations.

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  Reviews in progress: The Hub displays all your pending reviews across the different Elsevier journals including reviewing deadlines and further action points.

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  Review history and acknowledgments: The Hub will show your complete reviewing history from all Elsevier journals and enables you to claim rewards such as certificates.

To access the new Reviewer Hub, you’ll find a deep link in the emails that you receive from the editorial system. Of course, you can also always log in directly to The Hub(opens in new tab/window) to activate your free ScienceDirect / Scopus access, have a look at your pending assignments or claim your reviewer certificates. The Hub’s precursor, the Reviewer Recognition Platform will be decommissioned by the end of 2020. You will find more information about the differences between these two platforms on the FAQ posted in our Publishing Support Center(opens in new tab/window). Our work to recognize and reward referees is not finished, of course. We will continue to develop the Reviewer Hub and other resources to meet the needs of our reviewers. To ensure we’re focussing on creating tools that will really help you in your referee work, we need to hear from you. The Elsevier Publishing Lab is one way for us to keep in close contact  and make sure we develop the right innovations. Why not consider joining the Publishing Lab and helping to shape the tools for a new generation of researchers? We are excited having launched this new platform and we hope you share our enthusiasm. If you have any feedback, questions or suggestions for the new Reviewer Hub, we’d like to hear them! Please share your comments below.