Public Peer-Review

To foster scientific discussion and to enhance the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality assurance, Copernicus Publications started in 2001 with an innovative two-stage publication process containing the Public Peer-Review. These interactive journals comprise of the fully peer-reviewed journal itself and an access-reviewed discussion forum.

In the first stage, manuscripts that pass a rapid access-review are immediately typeset and published in the discussion forum in an onscreen format. They are then subject to Interactive Public Discussion, during which the referees' comments (anonymous or attributed), additional short comments by other members of the scientific community (attributed) and the authors' replies are published.

In the second stage, the peer-review process is completed and, if accepted, the final revised papers are published in the journal. To ensure publication precedence for authors, and to provide a lasting record of scientific discussions, the discussion forum and the journal are both ISSN-registered, permanently archived and fully citable.