Interactive Public Peer Review^TM

To foster scientific discussion and to enhance the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality assurance, in 2001 Copernicus Publications started with an innovative two-stage publication process, the so-called Interactive Public Peer Review^TM. The respective journals are comprised of the fully peer-reviewed journal itself and an access-reviewed discussion forum.

In the first stage, manuscripts that pass a streamlined access review are immediately posted as preprint in the respective discussion forum. They then undergo an interactive public discussion, during which the referees' comments (anonymous or attributed), additional community comments by other members of the scientific community (attributed), and the authors' replies are posted.

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 the scientific discussions, the preprints and comments are archived and fully citable including DOI.