See the imprint for the provider and operator of RQC.
Preamble
Purpose of Review Quality Collector (RQC)
RQC is a platform for the creation of reviewing receipts.
A reviewing receipt ("receipt") is a document that
certifies the quantity and quality of work
of a participant in scientific peer review.
As a secondary purpose, RQC is intended to provide data
for research on scientific peer review.
As another secondary purpose, RQC publishes summary statistics
on properties of the peer review system and its parts.
Non-Purposes of RQC
RQC is not concerned with other types of review than
scientific peer review.
RQC does not perform judgment, it merely organizes
and stores judgment performed by human beings and
processes such judgments in simple manners.
Definitions
People and parties involved and their roles
An Author is a person who appears in an authorship role
in a submission to a manuscript handling system.
A Reviewer is a person who has submitted one or more reviews
for submissions to a manuscript handling system.
A manuscript handling system (MHS) is a software system operated
by third parties that transmits review-related information to RQC.
An Organizer (conference RQC organizer) is a person who manages
and oversees one batch of review processes for the submissions to a
scientific conference (or workshop or similar event).
Terms of service
Who is allowed to use RQC
The public parts of the website are for the general public.
The non-public parts (protected by logins or authentication tokens)
are only for people involved in a scientific peer review process.
What you must do when using RQC
Everybody:
Obey the confidentiality of the data processed in RQC.
Protect your RQC authentication data (such as username/password
or access tokens embedded in links or transmitted otherwise).
As a Reviewer:
Make sure all review feedback you provide on RQC is well-considered
and fair.
As an Organizer:
When you first invite your reviewers,
state that you are going to use RQC for your conference
so that they can refuse participation
if they want their personal data to never reach RQC at all.
What you must not do when using RQC
Use the RQC logo, web site, or service for other than
RQC's intended purposes.
Behave in a manner that a majority of your peers
(specifically: 10 randomly picked peers)
would find clearly inappropriate.
Retrieve data from RQC en-masse.
RQC is a best-effort service
RQC is currently run as a university research project on a best-effort basis.
Although its availability in the past has been good,
we cannot guarantee any particular future service quality.
The document RQC past and future may be helpful
to get an idea of what to expect.
Using the RQC logo
You may use the RQC logo only in conjunction with correct
statements about RQC, in particular when you state that you
use RQC.
Also expressing opinions about RQC in the same context is acceptable
if and only if they are clearly marked as such.
The following process occurs separately for each conference
that uses RQC:
As a Reviewer, when personal data about you has been transmitted
from an MHS to RQC and the RQC review grading process begins,
RQC will notify you and ask you to opt into the process or
opt out of it.
Opting out means your personal data will be deleted from RQC.
Opting in means you allow RQC to store your data and you intend
to participate in the review grading process.
What personal data does RQC process? For what purpose?
RQC uses:
Reviewer person identification (name, email address)
in order to send notifications (invitation, reminders, receipt etc.)
during the RQC process and
in order to identify the reviewer on the reviewing receipt.
Organizer person identification (name, email address)
in order to send notifications (status reports etc.)
during the RQC process and
in order to identify the Organizer vis-à-vis RQC.
MHS information such as submission titles, who-reviewed-what-when,
and the actual review texts in order to drive the RQC process.
Review quality definitions in order to drive the RQC process.
Various information such as roles, opting status, and events
in order to control and improve the RQC process.
Who has the data? Who gets the data?
RQC is hosted at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
RQC data is stored in the Europen Union only.
Data privacy is governed by the EU GDPR.
Unless required by law,
users' personally identifiable information is not transmitted
to third parties except if the user directs RQC to do so.
How long is the data stored?
Unless a Reviewer opts out (in which case that Reviewer's data is deleted),
all data (with a few exceptions as described below) is stored indefinitely,
because RQC is meant to serve as an archive of review quality information,
so that a recipient of a reviewing receipt can validate the authenticity
of that receipt.
Review texts are not stored permanently unless a Reviewer donates them
to review quality research (anonymous use only).
Non-donated review texts will not be used outside the RQC process
and will be deleted 100 days after the end of that RQC process.
