Peer Review Summary
Peer review is a strategy used in reviewing the work of other authors or a group of a team in an effort of minimizing errors in the final report. Peer reviewing of scholarly work also helps in the implementation of a standardized policy, which requires the review of an academic material by various individuals with expertise in the given area. Furthermore, a peer review is essential for the creation of public policy whereby the implementers of public policy base their judgment on the reviewed policy before government implementation. However, the process of peer review might differ or create complications based on the criterion used. For instance, a peer review is based on three aspects known as time, checklist, and measurement. Time could alter decision making as the reviewers may lack enough time for reviewing the public policy before implementation. Therefore, the aspects of peer review are essential and require expertise to implement a strong public policy.
Effects of Time as an Aspect of Peer Review
Time is an important aspect in the creation of public policy through a peer review. The peer review group ensures that they have enough time to cover the entire project before handing over their findings to the policy implementers. Therefore, a peer review should have an ample time before submitting the results to the officials. The process of reviewing the public policy before implementation should be based on the size of the policy whereby review should be in stages. The work to be reviewed should pass different reviewers and would be time-consuming.
Furthermore, time affects the implementation of public policy. For example, the process of a public policy creation entails the problem identification and the accurate definition of the policy (Mintrom & Luetjens, 2015). Therefore, the peer review would consume much time which is placed to create a public policy probably meant to help find a solution towards a problem facing an organization. Additionally, the time could pose a threat towards the implementation of the public policy because of the steps followed by the final version. For instance, the process of peer review is followed by various reviews of the public policy within a short time. The short time could omit basic errors and fail to recognize omission of valuable information before the implementation of the public policy. However, the peer review team helps in reviewing and checking the availability of key points in the public policy.
The best criterion to use in the peer review should be based on the assumption that the work is reviewed solely by every member of the team. For instance, the entire policy is reviewed by every member of the review team, which is then passed to the other reviewer and offers the feedback to the author. The author accumulates the overall reviews from the different reviewers and points out the mistakes highlighted by the authors. Furthermore, the strategy is cost saving and important because it comprises different opinions of every member of the reviewing team.
Effects of Checklist as an Aspect of Peer Review
The peer review process should have a checklist procedure that helps in avoiding frequent defects in the public policy. For instance, the best checklist is known as the “short checklist” which consists of small and limited checklists that are valuable towards the development of a stable public policy. The checklist could contain the checking of general assurance, the documentation, the contents, the financial statements, and risk assessment. Therefore, the process of a checklist is important in reviewing the process of public policy making.
Checklist as an aspect in peer review consumes time and uses other resources in the process of implementing a suitable public policy. The chosen procedure of checklist would interfere with the process of policy implementation. For example, the identification of policy options in the public policy creation would be affected by the chosen peer reviewing checklist (Mintrom & Luetjens, 2015). Additionally, the process of identifying the alternatives and other options in the policy making would be affected by the checklist procedure whereby various peer reviewers would not have the knowledge to determine the best alternatives for the problems in the public policy (Mintrom & Luetjens, 2015). Similarly, the time consumed in reviewing the checklist aspect should be invested in other areas of the implementation of the public policy.
Measurement Aspect of Peer Review
The best method of measuring the process of peer review is through the keeping of records that pertains the scores gained by every peer reviewer. For example, the peer review process would have a score sheet filled by every peer reviewer whereby the paper would have questionnaires that need to be filled. Furthermore, the author would receive the scores of every peer reviewer and base his or her conclusion with the results (Mason & Brown, 2013). However, the process of obtaining the scores of every peer reviewer is time-consuming and hectic whereby creating a delay towards the implementation of the public policy. Additionally, some of the scores obtained from the peer reviewers may not contain reliable truth and would affect the final decision of the public policy.
Conclusion
The process of creating a public policy and policy development is relevant to the assumption that the authors use different sets of peer reviewers before policy implementation. Therefore, the process involves problem identification which is based on the need for an organization to define the problem facing their entity. The problem identification is followed by the identification of alternatives and other options as well as the selection of alternatives. Finally, the process is then followed by the evaluation of the solutions to the problem hence; the need for the inclusion of peer review team to facilitate the validity of the public policy.
References
Mason, C., & Brown, R. (2013). Creating good public policy to support high-growth firms. Small Business Economics, 40(2), 211-225. doi: 10.1007/s11187-011-9369-9
Mintrom, M., & Luetjens, J. (2015). Creating public value: Tightening connections between policy design and public management. Policy Studies Journal. doi/10.1111/psj.12116
