Learning Objects

Peer review is a formal process whereby a journal article is scrutinised and appraised by recognized academics or authorities/experts in an appropriate field, who may recommend that the article be accepted as it stands, or that specific revisions be made, or that the article be rejected for publication. 

Source:
'journal, academic' 2009, in S. Wallace (ed), A Dictionary of Education. (online Oxford Reference).

A refereed journal is one that uses the peer review process to select articles for publication. Sometimes these journals are also referred to as peer reviewed journals. It is important to note, however, that even though a journal may be considered 'refereed' or 'peer reviewed', non peer reviewed content such as editorials and reviews may also be included in the journal.

A journal article is assigned peer review status if it has undergone the peer review process. Because of this approval process, peer reviewed articles are considered to have academic credibility and are therefore appropriate as sources of information for some university assessment tasks.

A peer reviewed journal article is published in a refereed journal.

Searching the Library's journal databases can increase your access to peer reviewed journal articles. Discover It! can be used to search across most of these databases.  Examples of these databases holding peer reviewed journal articles include:

• Scopus
• most Ebscohost databases (e.g. Academic Search Complete, ERIC)
• Emerald
• Expanded Academic ASAP via Infotrac
• A+ Education
• Humanities International Complete
• PsychARTICLES

Note: Not all articles in journal databases will be peer reviewed. In some databases, however, it is possible to limit the search to peer reviewed articles.  Discover It! also allows you to limit to peer reviewed journal articles. Look for a check box or drop down option on the search screen, for example:

Discover It!
Expanded Academic ASAP
CINAHL with Full Text (Ebscohost database)

Peer reviewed articles are published in refereed journals. Where a database does not provide the option to limit searches to peer reviewed articles, an alternative approach is to check whether an article has been published in a refereed journal. Whilst this doesn't guarantee that a specific article has been peer reviewed, being able to identify if the journal is refereed is an important part of assessing the article.

A refereed journal is one that uses the formal peer review process to select articles for publication. These journals are sometimes also called peer reviewed journals.

An academic/scholarly journal is one that publishes articles written by academics or researchers primarily for a university or research audience. These latter journals may be publised by a university, a scholarly society or commercial academic publisher but the articles contained within them do not undergo the formal peer review process. 

There are several ways to identify refereed journals:

• Print copies of journals will usually state if the journal is refereed. This information can usually be found under 'Instructions for authors', or in the section which lists the journal details and editors.
   
• Many journals have their own website.  A journal website will usually indicate if the journal is refereed/peer reviewed.
   
• The Ulrichsweb database provides information about most journals, including whether or not they are refereed.  To use Ulrichsweb to check if a journal is refereed:

1. 1. Access Ulrichsweb via the Library's Databases page.
   2. In the Search box, enter a journal title, ISSN or a search term:

3.  Select the relevant journal title on the results page (sometimes there may be more than one journal with the same title). If the journal is refereed, a 'referee's shirt' symbol will appear beside the title; the refereed status will also appear in the basic description when you click on the title.