Ensuring Quality and Status: Peer Review Practices in Kriterium, A Portal for Quality-Marked Monographs and Edited Volumes in Swedish SSH

Abstract

Although established forms of peer review are often criticized for being slow, secretive, and even unfair, they are repeatedly mentioned by academics as the most important indicator of quality in scholarly publishing. In many countries, the peer review of books is a less codified practice than that of journal articles or conference papers, and the processes and actors involved are far from uniform. In Sweden, the review process of books has seldom been formalized. However, more formal peer review of books has been identified as a response to the increasing importance placed on streamlined peer-reviewed publishing of journal articles in English, which has been described as a direct challenge to more pluralistic publication patterns found particularly in the humanities. In this study, we focus on a novel approach to book review, Kriterium, where an independent portal maintained by academic institutions oversees the reviewing of academic books. The portal administers peer reviews, providing a mark of quality through a process which involves reviewers, an academic coordinator, and an editorial board. The paper studies how this process functions in practice by exploring materials concerning 24 scholarly books reviewed within Kriterium. Our analysis specifically targets tensions identified in the process of reviewing books with a focus on three main themes, namely the intended audience, the edited volume, and the novel role of the academic coordinator. Moreover, we find that the two main aims of the portal–quality enhancement (making research better) and certification (displaying that research is of high quality)–are recurrent in deliberations made in the peer review process. Consequently, we argue that reviewing procedures and criteria of quality are negotiated within a broader discussion where more traditional forms of publishing are challenged by new standards and evaluation practices.

The Uptake and Impact of a Label for Peer-Reviewed Books

“…Moreover, the GP does not evaluate the quality of the reviews. This is different from e.g., the Kriterium label in Sweden, where the reviewers are appointed by an academic coordinator, who in turn is appointed by the board governing the label (Hammarfelt et al, 2021). This exempts the publisher from the work associated with peer review and places the quality assurance in the hands of the label.…”

“…A quality label for scholarly book publications has also been established in Sweden: Kriterium, a label that was established in a bottom-up way (Hammarfelt et al, 2021 ). The Kriterium board manages the peer review process itself, appointing an academic coordinator, who in turn picks two reviewers and oversees the review process.…”

“…For an evaluation of the strength of the actual reviews in the peer review dossiers and whether there has been an evolution in this, a review of the dossiers should be undertaken. This was done for 24 books with the Kriterium label by Hammarfelt et al ( 2021 ).…”

Understanding challenges of GDPR implementation in business enterprises: a systematic literature review

“…We included articles published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, while excluding studies from books and book series. Books are subject to a less codified review practice than journal articles or conference papers (Hammarfelt et al , 2021), and therefore, can potentially introduce author bias and varying degrees of reliability and validity.…”

“…We included articles published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, while excluding studies from books and book series. Books are subject to a less codified review practice than journal articles or conference papers (Hammarfelt et al, 2021), and therefore, can potentially introduce author bias and varying degrees of reliability and validity. Additionally, we excluded non-English documents (in Bosnian, Croatian, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Slovakian and Spanish languages) to ensure a clear understanding IJLMA 66,3 of each eligible article's content.…”