Those of us working in publish or perish environments, such as advanced research institutes and universities, are conscious about getting published in peer-reviewed or refereed journals. In our university, to get tenure or permanency, a key requirement is to have at least two publications in a peer-reviewed journal. However, some faculty members who are unable to get their work published in such journals would insist that the definition be stretched to include papers in conference or workshop proceedings. Although the rules are firm on “refereed publications only”, they would argue that their paper has undergone review from the workshop organizers. Can a paper in a conference proceedings be considered peer-reviewed?

In the academic ranking of world universities, two of the major criteria are: the number of times articles written by researchers or faculty members of a university are cited in the footnotes or bibliographies of Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) journals. Thomson Reuters has a master journal list of journals covered in the scientific databases.

So what is a peer-reviewed journal anyway? A shallow web search will turn up definitions provided by university libraries around the world. Consider these definitions:

The glossary of library terms of St. Catherine’s College provides a range of definitions for these terms:

Journal-A work that is published at a regular interval, under the same title, and is intended to appear indefinitely. Journals are often published by a society, association, or institution and contain articles about research carried out in a particular subject area. Journals are often intended for a scholarly audience. Journal articles usually undergo some kind of review before being accepted for publication. Journals may be described as:

Refereed Journal-Journals that contain articles that have been reviewed by a panel before being accepted for publication.

Peer reviewed journal-Journals that publish articles only after they have been examined by one or more experts in the field with which the article deals.

Here’s the Florida State University Libraries’ definition:

Peer reviewed or refereed journal: a journal in which articles have been evaluated by an independent expert or experts in the field of research before acceptance for publication (see refereed journal).

The Laurier Library of Canada defines it as:

Peer reviewed journal: Peer reviewed or refereed journals contain articles that have been evaluated by experts in the field before publication.

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