Did the people who suggested the paper suggest any evaluators?
We prioritize our "evaluator pool" (people who signed up)
Expertise in the aspects of the work that needs evaluation
Interest in the topic/subject
Conflicts of interest (especially co-authorships)
Secondary concerns: Likely alignment and engagement with Unjournal priorities. Good writing skills. Time and be motivation to write review promptly and thoroughly.
Mapping collaborator networks through Research Rabbit
We use a website called Research Rabbit (RR).
Our RR database contains papers we are considering evaluating. To check potential COI, we use the following steps:
After choosing a paper, we select the button "these authors." This presents all the authors for that paper.
After this, we choose "select all," and click "collaborators." This presents all the people that have collaborated on papers with the authors.
Finally, by using the "filter" function, we can determine whether the potential evaluator has ever collaborated with an author from the paper.
If a potential evaluator has no COI, we will add them to our list of possible evaluators for this paper.
Note: Coauthorship is not a disqualifier for a potential evaluator; however, we think it should be avoided where possible. If it cannot be avoided, we will note it publicly.