How to develop a useful reviewer database

Ideally you should aim to have a pool of referees in a database with details of their specialist areas and up-to-date contact details, as well as some notes on quality (i.e. number of times they have peer reviewed, how reliable they are, whether they peer review within the timescale, quality of their previous review(s)).

Some reviewers will write several pages of notes and even annotate and mark up manuscripts, others will produce one line reports that don’t help the editors make a decision. It is important to have this information available when selecting appropriate reviewers.