A platform for Collaborative
Community Review
Pilcrow is an application that facilitates a new approach to the peer review process for scholarly communications.
Pilcrow provides an environment for a peer review practice with transparency, collegiality, and ongoing developmental conversations.
Pilcrow is founded on creating supportive and engaging experiences for authors, reviewers, and editors. It is structured to encourage peer review rooted in a shared commitment to improving the work through candid and collegial feedback. Pilcrow enables editorial teams to develop an inclusive, supportive space where ideas are explored and refined collaboratively.
THE APPLICATION
Pilcrow Features
ABOUT
About Pilcrow
Pilcrow is an application specifically designed to facilitate a collaborative and collegial approach to review—whether this be review of an academic article as part of the peer review process for publication or review of an early draft of a work among colleagues.
History
Pilcrow emerged to support the Public Philosophy Journal’s collaborative community review process—an approach to peer review that explicitly centers values of thick collegiality and dialogue as part of the review process itself. Building on the PPJ’s mission to break down hierarchies in academic publication, collaborative community review focuses on development of work and frames review as an ongoing dialogue between reviewers and the authors.
Pilcrow was created to support the mission of the PPJ—as such, it strives both to make review platforms accessible for journals operating outside of a traditional publishing ecosystem, such as open-access journals not affiliated with a major publisher. It also seeks to think critically about both openness and accessibility in review—opening up review platforms beyond just standard academic peer review to other forms of work, such as developing work with colleagues or providing recognition for other forms of academic work.
FEATURES
Designed for collegial, developmental review
Pilcrow is designed to facilitate a collegial and collaborative approach to peer review — centering values in the review process, and providing modifiable criteria for review.
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Collaborative Inline Review
Multiple reviewers leave comments in the same document — and can respond to each other’s comments — framing peer review as ongoing dialogue.
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Stage-by-Stage Tracking
Support for multiple stages in the review process. Status is clearly communicated to both authors and reviewers at every step.
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Modifiable Review Criteria
Specify particular criteria for use in the review, modifiable by publication or project. Tag individual comments with specific criteria.
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Transparent Participation
A closed review system that allows for open review among participants — reviewer names can be disclosed to all associated with a submission.
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Streamlined for Open Access
A framework designed for open-access journals operating outside a traditional publishing ecosystem, with no major publisher affiliation required.
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Record of Review
An exportable record of multiple stages of the review process, giving reviewers documentation of their scholarly labor for professional use.
USING PILCROW
How it Works
Flexible review beyond traditional publication
Pilcrow can also facilitate review and dialogue around a wide variety of projects, such as sharing early drafts of work with colleagues, sharing a draft blog post, or fielding abstract submissions for a conference.
- Hand-select reviewers for a project
- Modify review criteria to meet the needs of a specific project
- Allow collaboration between multiple reviewers in the same document
- Use cases: reviewing abstract submissions for a conference, conducting peer review in a class, workshopping early drafts of work
FUTURE
Future Directions
Current projects underway for Pilcrow focus on expanding intelligibility of academic review, as well as creating space for review of a wider scope of projects.
FUTURE
Funding
Pilcrow is a collaboration between MESH Research at Michigan State University and the Public Philosophy Journal at the University of Oregon.
The project is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (Grant #G-1910-07239).
Questions? Feedback? Want to Give Pilcrow a Try?