Quality control and peer review with University of Groningen Press

University of Groningen Press (UGP) is an electronic-first, open access publisher. All book manuscripts that are submitted to be published with UGP undergo thorough quality control. However, not all of them have to pass a formal peer review, such as non-academic publications, specific reports or proceedings or student publications. For these publications UGP runs its imprint “Campus Publications”.

First steps
Authors/editors receive an open access books toolkit to learn about the process of open access book publishing as well as information about Creative Commons licensing, under which all books will be published. A first review regarding formal criteria and the general quality of content is conducted based on the book proposal form and the manuscript (if already available). The UGP Board and trained staff members, who are either publishing experts or librarians, are responsible for the first review. Manuscripts might be subject to a similarity analysis check. Together with UGP’s Board, they decide whether the manuscript should be forwarded to formal peer review, meets the minimum standard for “Campus Publications” or should be rejected.

External peer review
Publications that will undergo a formal peer review are submitted to two independent and external experts. Reviewers are selected based on their area of expertise in relation to the content of the book. To this end, UGP uses bibliometric analysis as a starting point. Reviewers are invited to comment either on the whole book or on chapters in an edited collection. The reviewers’ comments will be assessed by UGP’s Board and are shared anonymously with the authors/editors. UGP staff ensures that authors and editors meet the requirements resulting from the review process. If authors or editors are unwilling to meet these requirements publications can only appear within the imprint “Campus Publications”. The UGP Board will take a decision about accepting, revising or declining the book.

Publications of UGP are published open access on the press’s website.
UGP staff and its Board continually discuss means to improve the procedures for quality control. The review process is evaluated regularly.