Institutional standard / review
Review & Peer-Review Status
A controlled vocabulary for review status, designed to prevent internal review, editorial review, software verification, and external peer review from being conflated.
“Reviewed” and “peer reviewed” are not synonyms.
Review & Peer-Review Status
A controlled vocabulary for review status, designed to prevent internal review, editorial review, software verification, and external peer review from being conflated.
“Reviewed” and “peer reviewed” are not synonyms.
Status vocabulary
Xenopsychology uses review labels conservatively. When a stronger status is not documented, the weaker accurate label is preferred.
- Draft — not approved for public scholarly release.
- Working Paper — public author-approved scholarly work; not externally peer reviewed unless separately stated.
- Institutional Standard — a versioned Xenopsychology policy or methodology approved for institutional use; not externally peer reviewed unless separately stated.
- Observatory Record — an empirical record that passed the Observatory review and publication gate; not automatically externally peer reviewed.
- Externally Reviewed — independent review occurred, but the process does not necessarily meet the standard represented by “peer reviewed.”
- Externally Peer Reviewed — used only when a documented independent scholarly peer-review process supports the designation.
- Superseded / Withdrawn — retained or referenced for record integrity but no longer the current scholarly version.
Review disclosure
Where external review exists, Xenopsychology should identify the venue or review process when practical. Anonymous or confidential peer review may be described without disclosing protected reviewer identities.
What does not count as peer review
- AI critique or model feedback;
- internal editorial discussion;
- code or build verification;
- fact checking alone;
- reader comments without a defined review process;
- the existence of citations or an academic writing style.