Improving peer review with CARMA

We propose to test and improve the quality of peer review through CARMA (Community‐based Assessment of Review Materials): an online repository of review materials that will include all intermediate versions of published manuscripts, associated reviews, and author replies to reviewer comments. CARMA would add the content of reviews to the public scientific record without compromising the anonymity of reviewers. The benefits to the relevant stakeholders are as follows: • For readers, CARMA would reveal the actual impact of peer review on scholarly manuscripts; • CARMA would encourage reviewers to provide thorough evaluations without jeopardizing their candor; • Editors could utilize CARMA for quality assurance by soliciting ratings of reviews from their readership; • For publishers, implementing CARMA would incur minimal costs, and could increase revenues. Whatever the present quality of peer review, making this process more transparent would be in the best interest of meritocratic scholars and society at large.