Improving the peer review process with information technology

Peer review is the engine of scholarship where new knowledge is legitimized. Despite technological advances in publishing and communication, the process of review has not changed since it became prevalent over 100 years ago. This paper describes how information technology can be used to improve the peer review process. Taking a combined design science and natural science approach, we design and test a prototype system based on the principles of structured communication. Through an exploratory study, we find that our proposed system is viewed more favorably by both authors and reviewers across several dimensions, including fairness, convenience, and value.