AMS and peer review

The credit for the modern version of the peer-review process goes to the British Royal Society, with the founding of its journal Philosophical Transactions in the 1600s. Today, peer review is pervasive in science, informally as well as formally. Scientists get feedback from their colleagues on a day-to-day basis, and when they give talks at conferences. The formal process, though, starts with submission of paper to a journal. In the AMS, a submitted manuscript undergoes a journey that takes it from the AMS Headquarters to the Editor's office, to (usually) three reviewers, who evaluate the manuscript. Armed with this information, the editor decides whether to send the paper back for more revisions, accept it, or reject it. Usually a published manuscript undergoes two sets of revisions before final acceptance. This process is compared to that for other journals, and solutions to difficulties that sometimes arise are discussed. The review process doesn't stop here, however: new research on the same topic can refine or dispute the results of a published paper. Furthermore, when work has significant policy relevance, the U.S. National Academies will sometimes convene a panel of experts to review it. Like other organizations, the AMS is taking steps to clarify authors' responsibilities and to ensure that important datasets are available to the community.