Brieflands | Reviewer Recognition: Web of Science Researcher Profiles

Publons is now part of Web of Science

Clarivate has retired Publons as a separate website. Reviewer records and profiles now live in Web of Science Researcher Profiles, and existing Publons profiles were migrated across. This page keeps the Brieflands guidance for reviewers and editors-in-chief in one place, and records how the integration worked from 2021. For the current status of automatic review transfer in a specific journal, please contact support.

Peer review is the mechanism that validates research, yet for most of its history the work of reviewing went unrecorded. Reviewer recognition services exist to change that: they turn a completed review into a verifiable output a researcher can show in a CV, a funding application or a promotion case, without breaching the confidentiality of the review itself.

Brieflands became an official Publons partner and deployed the integration in three of its journals from 2021: Hepatitis Monthly, Jundishapur Journal of Microbiology, and Health Scope. Reviews completed in those journals could be added to a reviewer’s profile automatically.

For reviewers: adding a review to your profile

There are two cases — the review you are finishing now, and reviews you completed in the past.

A review you are submitting now

When you submit a review in a Brieflands journal, you are asked whether to add it to your reviewer profile. Confirm that request and the review is transferred for you.

Reviews you completed earlier

Historical reviews are uploaded from your own profile rather than from the journal. The screenshot below shows where to do this.

How reviews are added through the journal integration

For editors-in-chief: managing your journal

An editor-in-chief cannot self-register for the journal dashboard — access is issued by the publisher.

Publisher requests access

Each journal has its own dashboard. Through the dashboard access settings, the publisher obtains a direct link known as the Journal Admin Access Link.

Publisher sends the link

The publisher sends that link to the editor-in-chief. Without it, the editor-in-chief cannot reach the journal dashboard.

Editor-in-chief activates

Using the link, the editor-in-chief registers, activates the account, and gains access to the journal management tools.

The videos above were produced by Brieflands during the Publons period. The screens they show have changed since the move to Web of Science Researcher Profiles, but the sequence — publisher issues access, editor activates, reviews are claimed — still describes how the service works.

Why reviewer recognition matters

Reviewing has historically been invisible work. Anonymous review models meant the effort was neither reported nor credited, which weakened the incentive to review at all. A verified reviewer record addresses that directly: it gives reviewers evidence of their contribution, gives editors a way to find and assess reviewers, and gives publishers a means of recognising the people their journals depend on. Brieflands supports it for a further reason — a public record of review activity makes reviewer conflicts of interest easier to detect.

Archive: Publons overview slides (2021)

Retained for reference. These describe the Publons service as it was presented to reviewers before the move to Web of Science.

All knowledge base articles