Abstract
Background
It is commonly reported by editors that it has become harder to recruit reviewers for peer review and that this is because individuals are being asked to review too often and are experiencing reviewer fatigue. However, evidence supporting these arguments is largely anecdotal.
Main body We included this paper because we find the area interesting and worthy of study, but the findings are pretty inconclusive.
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Conclusions
The proportion of review invitations that lead to a review being submitted has been declining steadily for four of the six journals examined here, but reviewer fatigue is not likely the primary explanation for this decline.
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Keywords
Peer review, Reviewers, Reviewer fatigue, Scholarly journals
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Fox CW, Albert AYK and Vines TH (2017) Recruitment of reviewers is becoming harder at some journals: a test of the influence of reviewer fatigue at six journals in ecology and evolution. Research Integrity and Peer Review. 2(3)
DOI: 10.1186/s41073-017-0027-x
Publisher (open access): http://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41073-017-0027-x