editorial

The honor of being an academic peer

El honor de ser par académico

Open access

How to cite: Vergara-Amador E. The honor of being an academic peer. Rev Col Or Tra. 2023;37(3):e103. English. doi: https://doi.org/10.58814/01208845.103

Cómo citar: Vergara-Amador E. [El honor de ser par académico]. Rev Col Or Tra. 2023;37(3):e103. English. doi: https://doi.org/10.58814/01208845.103

Copyright: ©2023 Sociedad Colombiana de Cirugía Ortopédica y Traumatología. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original author and source are credited.

To be invited to participate in the peer review process of an article submitted to a biomedical journal means to be recognized as an expert in the subject matter of the article since, through peer review, journals aim to improve the quality of their content. Moreover, there is no greater satisfaction for authors as researchers than to have their article accepted for publication by their peers.

The publication of a study in indexed biomedical journals is a process that involves several stages. First, it is verified that the submission complies with the indications to the journal’s authors; then, in accordance with the journal’s editorial policy, the article is reviewed by the editor, the editorial committee and/or the editorial coordinator; afterwards, and in case it has been adjusted following the comments made in said review, it is sent to peer reviewers for its evaluation, and their remarks are considered as the main arguments to decide whether to accept or reject the article for publication. These reviews, particularly the last one, are paramount for an objective selection of the articles to be published.

In the case of the Revista Colombiana de Ortopedia y Traumatología (RCOT), and following this principle, the selection of peer reviewers, both national and international, is based on their academic and research background in the topic or topics addressed in the article to be evaluated. It should also be noted that during the peer review process, a space is created for the exchange of ideas between peers and authors, mediated by the journal's editorial team, which seeks to improve the quality of the article.

While there are different peer review modalities (blind, double-blind, open), RCOT uses double-blind peer review, i.e., the peer does not know who the authors of the article are, nor do the authors know who evaluated their article. This gives the peer reviewer absolute freedom to comment on the contents of the manuscript and request corrections without entering into a direct debate with the authors or conflicts of authority, which in turn allows for a more objective decision on the acceptance or rejection of the article, which, as mentioned above, although made by the editorial team, is based on the analysis of all the evaluations received.

In view of the foregoing, it could be said that peer reviewers play a very important role in the publication of a scientific article and, as a biomedical publication, the publication process in the RCOT is no exception.

Finally, we should remember that in most indexed journals peer reviewers carry out this evaluation ad honorem, since they are aware of their contribution to the dissemination of quality scientific knowledge, as is the case of the author of this editorial. Therefore, experts who are appointed as peer reviewers of the articles submitted to RCOT have a significant role to play in the publication process of the contents of our journal.

Enrique Vergara Amador

Editor-in-Chief

Revista Colombiana de Ortopedia y Traumatología

Full Professor. Orthopedics and Trauma Unit, Faculty of Medicine,

Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

emvergaraa@unal.edu.co