peer review – R3ciprocity Blog

In this age of communicating and sharing information online, confidentiality is often a real concern. At r3ciprocity.com we take confidentiality seriously and work hard to protect the users of the platform and their information. When you upload your writing to be proofread by another r3ciprocity.com user you can be confident that you will get great quality proofreading and that your information is secure. Confidentiality is maintained on r3ciprocity.com by proofreaders/editors agreeing to a comprehensive confidentiality agreement. This clearly sets out what they can and cannot do with documents uploaded by other users and holds them legally responsible for any breach in confidentiality. R3ciprocity.com also maintains confidentiality by giving users full control over what information is in their profile, carefully managing the assignment of documents to proofreaders and abiding by all confidentiality laws and regulations. Confidentiality and your profile R3ciprocity.com protects you, your identity and your information from the moment you create your profile. You can create a profile using an email address or sign up through Facebook, Google Plus or LinkedIn. Your email address and other information is never shared with either third parties or other r3ciprocity.com users. The only information r3ciprocity.com users will ever know about you is what you choose to share in your profile. This is set up to be as personalized or anonymous as you like. Adding a user name, description and profile picture are all optional but are a great way to share a little about yourself with other users of the platform. You can use your own name as part of user name or choose to be anonymous on the platform with a pseudonym or no user name at all. To learn more about creating your r3ciprocity.com profile and getting started on the platform check out How To Log-In To R3ciprocity.com (2019). Confidentiality and your proofreader When you upload a document to r3ciprocity.com to be proofread and click Send to review your document joins the queue of documents waiting to be proofread. This queue of documents is then assigned in order to r3ciprocity.com proofreaders when they Request a job. Assignment of documents to proofreaders is done entirely through this queue system. Writers can pay additional credits to get their work moved up in the queue using the Boost in queue function. This guarantees that their work will be edited faster. Proofreaders can pass on a document they are given that they do not wish to edit using the Skip this one function. Other than this, however, writers and proofreaders have no way of choosing which other user they will be matched with. The queue system and the volume of activity on the platform means that it is unlikely for a proofreader to edit the work of a particular writer more than once. This benefits both parties. The proofreader gets the opportunity to practice their skills on lots of different styles of writing and the writer gets feedback from different proofreaders on how they can improve their writing. This system also helps maintain confidentiality and protects the privacy of writers by avoiding a situation where a proofreader is given access to multiple documents by the same writer. Confidentiality is also maintained by the use of the comment box. During the review process the proofreader uses the comment box to explain changes they have made to the document they have been editing and provide helpful feedback for the writer. After the review has been done the writer can use the comment box to send a message back to their proofreader. This is a place for writers to respond to the proofreader and the changes they made to the document. The writer also gives their proofreader a star rating out of five, showing how satisfied they were with the proofreader’s work. The writer and proofreader can only communicate via these comment boxes. This keeps their communication professional, focused on the document and ensures the confidentiality of both people. It also keeps their communication to the r3ciprocity.com platform where r3ciprocity.com admin can monitor interactions and act if necessary. The Confidentiality Agreement When you upload a document to the platform and send it for review you are agreeing to the platform allowing a verified r3ciprocity proofreader access to that document. It is necessary for the proofreader to have access to your document in order for them to edit it and provide comments to help you improve the quality of your writing. However, no one else on the platform or anywhere else will ever have access to your document and the confidentiality agreement restricts what the proofreader can do with your document and the information it contains. Once you have sent your document for review you will an option on your My Documents page to view the confidentiality agreement and tick to confirm that you have read and understood it. Your proofreader will not have access to your document until they have agreed to the terms of this agreement. The reviewer will agree to the following statement: By clicking OK, I agree to maintain confidentiality in regards to any and all documentations received from the document owner related to his/her work. Furthermore, I agree: 1.To not make copies of any computerized documents, unless specifically requested to do so by the document owner. 2.To store all documents and materials in a safe, secure location as long as they are in my possession. 3.To delete all electronic files containing documentation from my computer hard drive and any back-up devices. I am aware that I can be held legally responsible for any breach of this confidentiality agreement, and for any harm incurred by individuals if I disclose information contained in the documentation and/or files to which I will have access. This confidentiality agreement is in place to ensure that any document uploaded to r3ciprocity.com is not misused in any way by the proofreader who has been given access to it. People who proofread through r3ciprocity.com care about helping people improve their writing and the vast majority would maintain confidentiality with or without this agreement. However, this agreement ensures that everyone who uploads their document for review is protected. Activity on the r3ciprocity.com platform is monitored through the use of time stamps and other features. R3ciprocity.com has zero tolerance for breaches in confidentiality and fully investigates any reported misuse of information uploaded to the platform. Any user found to be plagiarizing, copying or misusing material any way will lose their access to the platform. Confidentiality and what you can do R3ciprocity.com is committed to maintaining confidentiality at all times. However, if you are uploading a document to the platform to be proofread/edited, there are some things you can do to protect yourself and your information. REMOVE FROM YOUR DOCUMENT BEFORE UPLOADING: Your name, the name of your institution, any student or university ID numbers, any sensitive or personal information, anyone else’s real name and identifying information. Your proofreader, by necessity, will be given access to all the information in your document. Check your entire document before uploading (including headings and footnotes) for any information you are not happy to share and remove these before uploading. It is common practice in academic work to protect identities using false names or identifiers. For example, someone writing an essay on child development might discuss the developmental milestones of Child A and Child B. Doing this makes it much more difficult to identify the children involved. If you are concerned about protecting the identity of someone you name in your writing consider doing the same thing and changing their name to protect their identity before you upload the document to the r3ciprocity.com platform. This will allow you to focus solely on the purpose of why you are letting someone else read your work – getting great quality proofreading and feedback on your writing. Get your writing proofread today! Go to How To Get Feedback On Your Writing On R3ciprocity.com for a step by step guide on uploading your work for review. Do you have what it takes to become a r3ciprocity.com proofreader? For more information including top tips for great proofreading go to How Do You Perform A Test Review on R3ciprocity.com? We work hard to ensure that every experience you have on r3ciprocity.com is a good one but if you have any comments, feedback or concerns about a proofreader or anything on the r3ciprocity.com platform do not hesitate to contact us. Send us a message via your profile or email contact@r3ciprocity.com. For more information about the exciting and innovative r3ciprocity project check out these posts: Why r3ciprocity.com is a great place to find an online proofreader Why are we building this proofreading software? How do you get feedback on your writing in grad school?