Scientific peer review (also known as refereeing ) is the process of subjecting a writer's scientific, research, or ideas to the supervision of others skilled in the same field, before a paper describing this work is published in journals, conference proceedings or as a book. Peer reviews help publishers (ie, editor-in-chief, editorial board or program committee) decide whether work should be accepted, considered acceptable by revision, or rejected.
A peer review requires the community of experts in a particular (and often narrowly defined) field, who are qualified and able to conduct impartial reviews. Impartiality, especially working in a less defined or interdisciplinary field, may be difficult to achieve, and the significance (good or bad) of an idea can never be widely appreciated among its contemporaries. Peer review is generally considered necessary for academic quality and is used in most major scientific journals, but does not necessarily prevent the publication of invalid research. Traditionally, peer reviewers are anonymous, but there are currently a large number of open partner colleagues, where comments can be seen by readers, generally with peer reviewers' identities expressed as well.
Video Scholarly peer review
History
The first pre-publication peer-reviewed editorial notes were from 1665 by Henry Oldenburg, founding editor of the Royal Society of London Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
The first peer-reviewed publication is probably the Essay and the Medical Observations published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1731. The current peer-reviewed system evolved from this 18th-century process, beginning to involve external reviewers in the mid-19th century, and did not become commonplace until the mid-20th century.
Peer reviews became a touchstone of the scientific method, but until the late nineteenth century were often performed directly by editor-in-chief or editorial committees. The editor of a scientific journal at the time made a publication decision without seeking external input, ie an external review panel, providing the authors that had been established in their journalistic policy. For example, four revolutionary newspapers belonging to Albert Einstein Annus Mirabilis in the 1905 edition of Annalen der Physik were reviewed by editor-in-chief journal Max Planck and co-editor, Wilhelm Wien, the two Nobel laureates in the future and together an expert on the topic of this paper. On another occasion, Einstein was very critical of the external review process, saying that he did not allow editor-in-chief to show his script "to the specialist before printing," and informed him that he would "publish the newspaper elsewhere".
While some medical journals began to systematically appoint external reviewers, it is only since the mid-20th century that this practice has become widespread and that external reviewers have been given some visibility in academic journals, including thanks by authors and editors. A 2003 editorial in Nature states that, at the beginning of the 20th century, "the burden of proof is generally on the opposite of the advocates of new ideas." Nature instituted formal peer review only in 1967. In the 20th century, peer review also became common for science fund allocations. This process seems to have evolved independently from peer editorial reviews.
Gaudet, provides a social science view of the history of peer review which carefully tends to be under investigation, peer review here, and not only sees a superficial or self-evident similarity between inquisitions, censorship and peer review of journals. It was built on historical research by Gould, Biagioli, Spier, and Rip. The first Peer Review Congress met in 1989. Over time, a small number of papers devoted to peer review have been steadily declining, suggesting that as a field of sociological studies, has been replaced by more systematic bias and error studies. In line with the definition of 'common experience' based on peer review studies as a 'pre-construction process', some social scientists have seen peer studies without considering them as pre-construction. Hirschauer suggests that peer review of journals can be understood as a mutual accountability assessment among peers. Gaudet proposes that peer review of journals can be understood as a social form of boundary judgment - determining what can be considered scientific (or not) defined for a comprehensive system of knowledge, and following the inquisitions and censorship of its predecessors.
Pragmatically, peer review refers to the work done during the screenplay being sent. This process encourages authors to meet accepted disciplinary standards and reduce the dissemination of irrelevant findings, unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations, and personal views. Publications that have not experienced peer review tend to be regarded with suspicion by academics and professionals. Non-peer-reviewed jobs do not contribute, or contribute less, to academic credits of scholars like the h-index, though this is highly dependent on the field.
Maps Scholarly peer review
Justification
It is hard for writers and researchers either individually or in teams to see any errors or defects in complex work. This is not necessarily a reflection for those who care, but because with a new and possibly eclectic subject, the chances for improvement may be more pronounced for someone with special skills or who just see it with fresh eyes. Therefore, showing work to others increases the likelihood that weaknesses will be identified and corrected. For funding grants and publications in scientific journals, it is also usually a requirement that the subject is new and substantial.
The decision whether to publish a scientific article or what should be changed before publication, ultimately lies with the publisher (editor-in-chief or editorial board) whose manuscript has been submitted. Similarly, the decision whether or not to fund the proposed project lies with officials of the funding agency. These people usually refer to one or more reviewers' opinions in making their decisions. This is primarily for three reasons:
- Work load. A small group of editors/reviewers can not devote enough time to each of the many articles submitted to many journals.
- Various ideas. Whether the editor/assessor judges all submitted material, the approved material will only reflect their opinion.
- Limited skills. The editor/assessor may not be deemed sufficiently skilled in all fields covered by a single journal or funding agency to adequately assess all materials submitted.
Reviewers are often anonymous and independent. However, some reviewers may choose to override their anonymity, and in other limited circumstances, such as a formal complaint check against the referee, or court order, the identity of the reviewer may have to be disclosed. Anonymity can be done unilaterally or reciprocally (single or double review).
Because reviewers are typically selected from experts in the field discussed in the article, peer review processes help to keep some unauthorized or unfounded claims from research bodies and published knowledge. Scholars will read articles published outside their limited area of ​​detailed expertise, and then rely, to some extent, on peer-reviewed processes to provide reliable and credible research that they can build for further or related research. Significant scandals occur when a writer is found to have falsified the research included in an article, like other scholars, and the field of study itself, probably relying on invalid research.
For US universities, peer reviewing of books before publication is a requirement for full membership of the Association of American University Presses.
Procedures
In the case of a proposed publication, the publisher (editor-in-chief or editorial board, often with the help of a relevant editor or associate) sends an initial copy of the author's work or idea to a researcher or expert who is expert in his field (known as "referee" or "reviewer"). Communication is usually through email or through web-based manuscript processing systems such as ScholarOne. Depending on the field of study and in specialized journals, there is usually one to three referees for the given article. For example, Springer states that there are two or three reviewers per article.
The peer-reviewed process involves three steps:
Step 1: Evaluate the table. The editor evaluates the script to assess whether the paper will be forwarded to the journal referee. In this phase many articles accept "desk reject," that is, the editor chooses not to forward the article. Authors may or may not receive explanatory letters.
Desk rejection is meant to be an efficient process so that editors can move through non-live scripts quickly and provide an opportunity for writers to pursue more suitable journals. For example, the European Accounting Review editor subjects each manuscript to three questions to decide whether a script moves forward to become a referee: 1) Is the article appropriate to the purpose and scope of the journal, 2) is the content of the paper (eg literature review, method, conclusion ) is sufficient and does the paper make a valuable contribution to a larger set of literature, and 3) does it follow technical formats and specifications? If "no" for all this, the script accepts the rejection on the table.
The table's rejection rate varies by journal. For example, in 2017 researchers at the World Bank set rates of rejection from several global economic journals; table rejection rates range from 21% (Economic Lacea) to 66% (Journal of Development Economics). The American Psychological Association publishes a refusal rate for some major publications in the field, and although they do not determine whether the refusal is an evaluation before or after the table, their figure in 2016 ranges from a low of 49% to a high of 90%.
Step 2: Blind review. If the paper is not rejected, the editor sends the manuscript to the referee, selected for their expertise and distance from the author. At this point, the referee may refuse, accept without change (rarely) or instruct the author to revise and resubmit.
The reasons vary for acceptance of articles by editors, but Elsevier publishes an article in which three editors weigh on factors that drive acceptance of the article. These factors include whether the text: giving "new insights into important issues," will be useful to practitioners, advancing or proposing new theories, raising new questions, having the right methods and conclusions, presenting good arguments based on literature, and telling stories nice. An editor notes that he likes the papers he "hopes he does" himself.
The referees each returned the job evaluation to the editor, noting weaknesses or problems together with suggestions for improvement. Typically, most referees' comments are finally viewed by the author, although a referee may also send a 'for your eyes only' comment to the publisher; Scientific journals observe this convention almost universally. The editor then evaluates the referee's comments, or his own opinion of the manuscript before giving the decision back to the author, usually with the referee's comments.
Evaluation of referees usually includes explicit recommendations on what to do with the manuscript or proposal, often chosen from the options provided by the journal or funding agency. For example, Nature recommends four actions:
- to accept unconditional submissions or proposals,
- accept if the author fixes it in a certain way
- to reject it, but push revisions and reapply laws
- to reject it immediately.
During this process, the role of the referee is an advisor. The editor (s) are usually not obliged to accept the opinion of the referee, although he will most often do so. In addition, referees in scientific publications do not act as a group, do not communicate with each other, and are usually unaware of their identity or evaluation. Advocates argue that if reviewers of a paper are not known to each other, the editor (s) can more readily verify the objectivity of the review. There is usually no requirement that the referee reach a consensus, with a decision more often made by the editor based on his best judgment of the argument.
In situations where many referees disagree substantially on job quality, there are a number of strategies for reaching a decision. This paper can be rejected outright, or the editor can choose which review points to write by the author. When the publisher receives a very positive and very negative review for the same manuscript, the editor will often ask for one or more additional reviews as a tie breaker. As another binding strategy, publishers can invite authors to reply to referees' criticism and allow for enforced denials to break ties. If the publisher does not feel confident to consider verification, the publisher may request a response from the referee who made the original criticism. An editor can communicate back and forth between the author and a referee, which essentially allows them to argue a point.
Even in these cases, publishers do not allow some referrers to negotiate with each other, although each reviewer may often see previous comments submitted by other reviewers. The purpose of this process is explicitly not to reach consensus or to persuade anyone to change their opinion, but to provide material for informed editorial decisions. A preliminary study of the referees' disagreement found that the agreement was greater than coincidental, if not greater than coincidental, on six of the seven attributes of the article (eg literature review and final recommendation to publish), but the study was small and carried out in only one journal. At least one study has found that reviewer disagreement is uncommon, but the study is also small and only in one journal.
Some journals have begun posting on Internet history of pre-publishing individual articles, from original submission to reviewers' reports, author comments, and revised manuscripts. For example, the British Medical Journal and some of Nature's publications, such as Natural Communications.
Traditionally, reviewers are often anonymous to the author, but these standards vary both with time and with academics. In some academic areas, most journals offer the reviewer of choice to remain anonymous or not, or the referee may choose to sign the review, thereby releasing anonymity. The published papers sometimes contain, in the thank you part, thanks to named or unnamed referees who help improve the paper. For example, the journal Nature provides this option.
Sometimes authors may exclude certain reviewers: one study conducted at the Journal of Dermatology Investigations found that excluding reviews doubled the likelihood of article acceptance. Some scholars feel uncomfortable with this idea, arguing that it distorts the scientific process. Others argue that it protects against a biased ref has in some way (eg professional rivalry, revenge). In some cases, authors may choose referees for their manuscripts. mSphere, the open access journal in microbial science, has moved on to this model. Editor-in-Chief Mike Imperiale says the process is designed to reduce the time it takes to review papers and allow authors to select the most appropriate reviewers. But the scandal by 2015 shows how the reviewers who voted for this can encourage fraudulent reviews. Fake reviews submitted to the Journal of Renin-Angiotensin Aldosterone System on behalf of reviewers recommended by the author, led to the journal to eliminate this option.
Step 3: Revisions. If the script has not been rejected during the peer review, the manuscript returns to the author for revision. During this phase, I discuss the concern raised by reviewers. Dr. William Stafford Noble offers ten rules to respond to reviewers. The rules include:
- "Give an overview, then quote the full review"
- "Be polite and respectful of all reviewers"
- "Accept errors"
- "Create self-help"
- "Respond to any points raised by reviewers"
- "Use typography to help reviewers navigate your responses"
- "Whenever possible, start your response for each comment with a direct answer to the raised point"
- "If possible, do what the reviewer asks"
- "Be clear about what changed relative to previous version"
- "If necessary, write a response twice" (ie write the version for "venting" but then write the version the reviewer will see)
Recruit referees
In a journal or book publisher, the task of selecting reviewers usually falls into the editor. When a manuscript arrives, an editor asks for reviews from other experts or experts who may or may not have declared a willingness to referee for the journal or the book's division. Institutions usually recruit panel or review committees prior to application arrival.
The referee should notify the editor of any potential conflict of interest. Individual journals or editors can invite scriptwriters to name names of people they deem qualified to be referees of their work. For some journals, this is a submission requirement. Authors are sometimes also given the opportunity to name natural candidates who must be disqualified, in which case they may be required to provide justification (usually expressed in a conflict of interest).
Editor asks the author input in choosing the referee because academic writing is usually very special. Editors often oversee many specializations, and can not be experts in all of them. But once the editor chooses a referee from a pool of candidates, the editor is usually obliged not to disclose the identity of the referer to the author, and in the scientific journals, to each other. Policies on such matters differ among academic disciplines. One of the difficulties with respect to some texts is that, there may be some scholars who actually qualify as experts, those who have done similar work with those under review. This can frustrate the anonymity of the reviewer and avoid conflict of interest. Low-priced and prestigious pricing journals and institutions that provide less money especially defects relate to recruiting experts.
The potential obstacle in recruiting referees is that they are usually unpaid, especially since it itself will create a conflict of interest. In addition, review takes time from their main activities, such as his own research. For recruitment candidates, most of the potential referees are the writers themselves, or at least readers, who know that the publishing system requires experts to contribute their time. Serving as a referee can even be a requirement of grants, or membership of a professional association.
Referees have the opportunity to prevent work that does not meet the field standards from being published, which is the position of some of the responsibilities. The editor has a special advantage in recruiting a scholar when they have oversaw the publication of his work, or if the scholar is the one who hopes to submit the manuscript to the publishing entity of the editor in the future. Giving institutions, alike, tend to seek referees among their current or former recipients.
Peerage of Science is an independent service and community where reviewer recruitment occurs through Open Engagement: authors submit their scripts to a service where it is accessible to any non-affiliated scientist, and users are 'validated' by themselves what they want to review. The motivation to participate as a peer review comes from a reputation system in which the quality of review work is judged and assessed by other users, and contributes to the user profile. Peerage of Science does not charge any scientists, and does not pay peer reviewers. However, participating publishers pay to use the service, gain access to all ongoing processes and the opportunity to make a publishing offer to the author.
With independent peer review services, authors usually retain the right to work during the peer review process, and may choose the most appropriate journal to submit a job. A peer review service may also provide advice or recommendations on the journal most appropriate for the job. Journals may still want to conduct independent peer review, without potential conflicts of interest that may result in cost reimbursement, or the risk that an author has contracted some peer review services but only presents the most favorable ones.
An alternative or complementary system for peer assessment is for authors to pay to do so. An example of that service provider is Rubriq , which for each job gives peer reviewers who are financially compensated for their efforts.
Different styles
Anonymous and attributed
For most scientific publications, the identity of the reviewer is kept anonymous (also called "blind peer review.") Alternative, peer-reviewed appraisals involve disclosing the identity of the reviewers, some reviewers choose to waive their rights, anonymity, even when the standard format of the journal is a blind peer review.
In an anonymous peer review, reviewers are known by journal editors or conference organizers but their names are not given to the author of the article. In some cases, the author's identity can also be anonymized for the review process, by identifying information stripped of the document before review. This system is intended to reduce or eliminate bias.
Others support the blind review because no research suggests that the methodology might be dangerous and the cost to facilitate such a review is minimal. Some experts propose blind review procedures to review controversial research topics.
In a "double-blind" review, which has been made by sociology journals in the 1950s and remains more common in the social sciences and humanities than in the natural sciences, the writer's identity is hidden from reviewers, and vice versa, do not let knowledge of authorship or concerns about rejection from the authors of their review bias. Critics of the double-blind review process show that, regardless of the editorial effort to ensure anonymity, the process often fails to do so, because approaches, methods, writing styles, certain notations, etc., point to a particular group of people in the research flow, and even to certain people.
In many areas of "great science", the schedules of operation of publicly available equipment, such as telescopes or sync, will make the names of authors clear to anyone who cares about them. Supporters of the double-blind review argue that it performs no worse than a single-blind, and it results in a perception of fairness and equity in academic funding and publishing. The blind review strongly depends on the participants' good intentions, but is no more than a double-blind review with easily identifiable authors.
As an alternative to single-blind and double-blind review, authors and reviewers are encouraged to state their conflict of interest when the names of authors and sometimes reviewers are known by others. When conflicts are reported, conflicting critics may be prohibited from reviewing and discussing the manuscript, or their review may be interpreted by the conflict reported in the mind; the latter choice is more often adopted when conflicts of interest are mild, such as previous professional relationships or distant family relationships. Incentives for reviewers to state their conflict of interest are a matter of professional ethics and individual integrity. Even when reviews are not public, they are still in the record and credibility of the reviewers depending on how they represent themselves among their peers. Some software engineering journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering , use non-blind review by reporting to conflict of interest editors by authors and reviewers.
A more stringent standard of accountability is known as an audit. Since reviewers are not paid, they can not be expected to put a lot of time and effort into the audit review required. Therefore, academic journals such as Science, such organizations as the American Geophysical Union, and institutions such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation maintain and archive scientific data and methods in events desired by other researchers. to replicate or audit research after publication.
Traditional anonymous peer reviews have been criticized for lack of accountability, possible abuse by reviewers or by those who manage peer review processes (ie, journal editors), possible biases, and inconsistencies, along with other shortcomings. Eugene Koonin, senior investigator at the National Biotechnology Information Center, confirmed that the system has a "well-known disease" and supports "open peer review".
Go to peer review
Beginning in the 1990s, several scientific journals (including the high impact journal Nature in 2006) began experiments with a hybrid peer review process, enabling peer review open in parallel with the traditional model. Early evidence of the effects of peer review is mixed. Identifying reviewers for authors has no negative impact, and may have a positive impact on, review quality, publication recommendations, review tones and time spent reviewing. However, more of them are invited to review the refusal to do so. Informing reviewers that their signed reviews may be posted on the web and made available to the wider public have no negative impact on the quality of reviews and recommendations related to publications, but that leads to longer time spent reviewing, in addition to a higher rate of review decline. The results show that open peer review is feasible, and does not lead to poorer quality reviews, but needs to be balanced with increased review time, and a higher rate of decline among invited reviewers.
A number of leading medical publishers have tested the concept of open peer review. The first open peer review trial was conducted by The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) in collaboration with the University of Sydney Library, from March 1996 to June 1997. In the study 56 research articles received for publication in MJA published online along with peer reviewers' comments; readers can email their comments and the authors can change their articles further before publication of printed articles. The researchers concluded that the process has a modest benefit for authors, editors, and readers.
Peer review pre and post publication < span id = "Postpublication">
The peer review process is not limited to the publication process managed by the publishing company.
Peer review pre-publication
Manuscripts are usually reviewed by co-workers before submission, and if the script is uploaded to a pre-printed server, such as ArXiv, BioRxiv or SSRN, researchers can read and comment on the manuscript. Practices for uploading to the preprint server, and discussion activity heavily depend on the field, and this allows to open peer review. The advantage of this method is the speed and transparency of the review process. Anyone can provide feedback, usually in comments, and usually not anonymously. These comments are also public, and can be addressed, therefore the reviewer's communication is not limited to 2-4 rounds of exchange in traditional publishing. The authors of can combine comments from various people, not feedback from the usual 3-4 reviewers. The disadvantage is that a much larger number of papers are presented to the public without quality assurance.
Peer review post-publication
Once the script is published, the peer review process continues when publication is read. Readers often send letters to journal editors, or correspond with editors through on-line journal clubs. In this way, all 'peers' can offer reviews and criticisms of published literature. Variations on this theme are open partner comments ; journals using this process collect and publish anonymous comments on "target paper" along with paper, and with original authors' answers as a matter of course. The introduction of the practice of "epub ahead of print" in many journals has enabled the issuance of unsolicited letters simultaneously to the editor along with the original paper in the print edition.
In addition to journals hosting their own article reviews, there are also independent external websites dedicated to post-publishing peer-reviewed, such as PubPeer that allow anonymous comments on published literature and encourage authors to answer. comment. It has been suggested that post-publication reviews of these sites should be considered editorial as well. The megajournals F1000Research , ScienceOpen and The Winnower publish publicly both the identity of the reviewer and the review report next to the article.
Some journals use post-publish peer review as a formal review method, rather than pre-publication review. It was first introduced in 2001, by the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP). The recent F1000Research , ScienceOpen and The Winnower were launched as megajurnal with postpublication reviews as a formal review method. Both the peer reviewers of ACP and F1000Research are officially invited, just like the pre-publish review journals. Articles that pass peer review on the two journals are included in external scientific databases.
In 2006, a small group of British academic psychologists launched Philica , an online instant journal, Journal of Everything, to improve much of what they saw as a traditional peer review problem. All submitted articles are published soon and can be reviewed afterwards. Any researcher who wishes to review the article can do so and the review is anonymous. Reviews are displayed at the end of each article, and are used to provide a criticism or guide the reader about the job, rather than deciding whether it is published or not. This means that reviewers can not suppress an idea if they disagree with them. Readers use reviews to guide their reading, and very popular or unpopular jobs are easily identifiable.
Peer reviews of blind-results
Studies that reported positive or statistically significant results were much more likely to be published than those that were not. A step back to this positive bias is to hide or make no results, making journal acceptance more like a scientific grant institution that reviews research proposals. Versions include:
- Results-blind peer review or "blind peer review results", first proposed 1966: Reviewer receives an edited version of the submitted paper that omits results and conclusions. In the two-stage version, the second round of review or editorial judgment is based on a full paper version, first proposed in 1977.
- Blind review , filed by Robin Hanson in the year 2007 extends this further asking all authors to submit positive and negative versions, and only after the journal has accepted the author of the revealing article which is the actual version.
- Previously received articles or "unbiased journal outcome"/"initial publication"/"preliminary report"/"registered report"/"before submission of results": extends pre- registration to the point where the journal accepts or rejects papers based on versions of papers written before results or conclusions have been made (protocol of enlarged study), but rather explains theoretical justification, experimental design, and statistical analysis. Only once the proposed hypothesis and methodology has been accepted by the reviewers, the authors will collect data or analyze previously collected data. A limited variant of the previously accepted article is the The Lancet's review protocol study from 1997-2015 reviewing and publishing a randomized trial protocol with assurances that the paper will eventually be at least sent to the peer review rather than immediately rejected. For example, Nature Human Behavior has adopted a registered report format, since it "shifts [s] emphasis from research results to the questions that guide the research and the methods used to answer them." The European Journal of Personality defines this format: "In the listed report, the authors make research proposals covering theoretical and empirical backgrounds, research questions/hypotheses, and pilot data (where available).After submission, this proposal will then be reviewed for data collection, and if accepted, papers generated from this peer-reviewed procedure will be published, regardless of the study results. "
The following journals use the peer-peer review results or previously received articles:
- The International Journal of Forecasting uses opt-in peer-blind reviews and previously received articles from before 1986 to 1996/1997.
- The journal Applied Psychological Measurement offers a process of "preliminary publication review" in the election since 1989-1996, ending use after only 5 papers submitted.
- The
was found in a 2009 survey that 86% of its reviewers would be willing to work in the process of peer review of peers, and run a pilot trial with a two-stage result - Pursuing peer review, unfavorable steps benefit positive studies more than negative. but the current journal does not use a blind-results peer review.
- The Open Science Center encourages the use of "Registered Reports" (previously received articles) beginning in 2013. Since October 2017, ~ 80 journals offering the Registered Report in general, have had special problems Registered Reports, or limited acceptance of the Registered Report (eg, only replication) including AIMS Neuroscience Cortex , Perspective on Psychological Sciences , Social Psychology , & amp; Comparative Political Studies
- Comparative Political Studies publishes the results of its pilot experiments from 19 submissions 3 of which have been accepted in 2016. the process went well but the submissions were weighed by quantitative experimental design, and reduced the number of 'fishing' as submitters and reviewers focused on theoretical support, the importance of important results, with attention to the statistical power and the implications of zero results, concludes that "we can clearly state that this form of review leads to the highest quality papers." We would love to see the top journals adopt a results-free review as a policy, at least allowing a results-free review as one of several standard filing options. "
Social media technology and informal peer review
Recent research has called attention to the use of social media technology and science blogs as a means of peer review, post-publicity, as in the case of the #arseniclife (or GFAJ-1) controversy. In December 2010, an article published in Scienceexpress (pictured in front of Science) resulted in excitement and skepticism, as the author - led by NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon - claims to have discovered and cultured certain bacteria that can replace phosphorus with arsenic in its physiological building blocks. By the time the article was published, NASA issued a press statement showing that the findings would have an impact on the search for extraterrestrial life, sparking excitement on Twitter under hashtag #arseniclife, as well as criticism from fellow experts who voiced skepticism through their personal blogs. In the end, the controversy surrounding the article attracted the attention of the media, and one of the most vocal scientific critics - Rosemary Redfield - was officially published in July 2012 about a failed attempt by his colleagues and colleagues to replicate the original findings of NASA scientists.
Researchers who follow the impact of the #arseniclife case on social media discussions and peer review process conclude the following:
"Our results show that interactive online communication technology can enable members in the wider scientific community to undertake the role of journal reviewers to legitimize scientific information after it progresses through formal review channels.In addition, various audiences can attend scientific controversy through this technology and observe the process informal peer review of post-publication. "(p 946)
Criticism
Various editors have expressed criticism of the peer review.
Allegations of bias and emphasis
Interposition editors and reviewers between writers and readers can allow intermediaries to act as goalkeepers. Some sociologists of science argue that peer review makes the ability to publish vulnerable to control by the elite and personal jealousy. The peer review process can suppress differences of opinion on the "mainstream" theory and may be biased against new things. Reviewers tend to be very critical of conclusions that are contrary to their own views, and are soft against those who fit them. At the same time, established scientists are more likely than others to look for as referees, especially by journals/publishers with high prestige. There are also signs of gender bias, which support men as writers. As a result, ideas that are in tune with established experts are more likely to see print and appear in major journals than are iconoclastic or revolutionary. This is in keeping with Thomas Kuhn's famous observations of the scientific revolution. A theoretical model has been established that simulations imply that peer review and overly competitive research funding propel mainstream opinions to monopoly.
Critics of the traditional anonymous colleague's review alleged that he had no accountability, could cause abuse by the reviewer, and may be biased and inconsistent.
Failure
Peer review fails when peer-reviewed articles contain fundamental errors that undermine at least one major conclusion and which can be identified by a more careful reviewer. Many journals do not have procedures to deal with failures of peer review outside of issuing letters to editors.
A peer review in a scientific journal assumes that the articles reviewed have been prepared honestly. This process sometimes detects fraud, but is not designed to do so. When peer review fails and paper is published with false data or can not be parsed, papers can be withdrawn.
The 1998 experiment on peer review with a fictitious script found that peer reviewers failed to detect some manuscript errors and the majority of reviewers may not be aware that the conclusions of the papers are not supported by the results.
Fake
There are instances where peer review is claimed to be done but it is not; this has been documented in some open predator access journals (eg, Who's Afraid of Peer Review? affair) or in the case of the sponsored journal Elsevier.
In November 2014 an article in Nature revealed that some academics sent false contact details to recommended reviewers to journals, so if the publisher contacted the recommended reviewers, they were the original authors who reviewed their own work under fake name. The Publication Ethics Committee issued a statement warning of fraudulent practices. In March 2015, Biomed Central drew 43 articles and Springer revoked 64 papers in 10 journals in August 2015. The Biology Tumor Journal is another example of peer review fraud.
Plagiarism
Reviewers generally do not have access to raw data, but do see the full text of the manuscript, and are usually familiar with the latest publications in the area. Thus, they are in a better position to detect prose plagiarism than fraudulent data. Some cases of such textual plagiarism by historians, for example, have been widely publicized.
On the scientific side, a poll of 3,247 scientists funded by the US National Institutes of Health found 0.3% confessed to false data and 1.4% admitted to plagiarism. In addition, 4.7% of the same polls recognize self-plagiarism or autoplagiarism, in which a writer republish the same material, data, or text, without citing their previous work.
Abuse of inside information by reviewers
The incorrect form of professional misconduct related is the reviewer using unpublished information from a script or grant application for personal or professional gain. This frequency is unknown, but the United States Integrity Research Office has approved the captured reviewers to take advantage of the knowledge they gain as reviewers. The possible defense for authors of this error form on the part of the review is to publish their work in the form of pre-printed or technical reports on public systems such as arXiv. Preprint can then be used to set priorities, even though preprints violate policies expressed in some journals.
Open access journal and peer review
Some open access critic (OA) critics argue that, compared to traditional journals, open access journals may use poorly or less formal peer review practices, and, as a result, the quality of scientific papers in such journals will suffer. In a study published in 2012, this hypothesis was tested by evaluating relative "impacts" (using citation counts) of articles published in open access and subscription journals, arguing that members of the scientific community may be less likely to quote below standards. work, and that the number of citations may act as an indicator of whether the journal format really affects the peer assessment and the quality of the published scholarship. The study concludes that "OA journals that are indexed in the Web of Science and/or Scopus approach the same scientific impact and quality as the subscription journals, especially in biomedicine and for journals funded by article processing costs," and the authors argue that "there are not there is a reason for authors not to choose to publish in OA journals simply because the label 'OA'. "
Example
- "Perhaps the most notorious peer review failure is its inability to ascertain the identification of high-quality work The list of important scientific papers rejected by some peer-reviewed journals goes back at least as far as Philosophical Transaction's <1796 editor rejection of Edward Jenner's report of the first vaccination against smallpox. "
- The Immediate Controversy and Baliunas involve publication in 2003 from a study by space engineer Willie Soon and astronomer Sallie Baliunas in the journal Climate Research , which was quickly taken by G.W. The Bush Administration as the foundation to change the first Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Report . The paper is heavily criticized by many scientists for its methodology and because of the misuse of data from previously published studies, which has raised concerns about the peer review process of this paper. The controversy led to the resignation of several journal editors and recognition by his publisher, Otto Kinne, that the paper should not have been published as originally.
- The trapezoidal rule, in which the Riemann method sums up for numerical integration, is republished in the Diabetes research journal Diabetes Care . This method is almost always taught in high school calculus, and is thus regarded as an example of a very famous idea that is re-branded as a new discovery.
- A conference hosted by Wessex Institute of Technology was the target of an exhibit by three researchers who wrote unreasonable papers (including those made up of random phrases). They reported that the paper was "reviewed and accepted temporarily" and concluded that the conference was an attempt to "sell" the possibility of publication to inexperienced or naive researchers. However, this may be best described as a lack of real peer reviews, rather than peer reviews that fail.
- In 2014, an editorial published in Nature highlights issues with the peer-reviewed process.
- In the humanities, one of the most unknown cases of plagiarism undetected by peer review involves Martin Stone, a former medieval and Renaissance philosophy professor at Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte from KU Leuven. Martin Stone manages to publish at least forty articles and book chapters that are almost entirely stolen from the work of others. Most of these publications appear in highly valued journals and book series.
Upgrading
Attempts to make fundamental improvements have subsided and flowed since the late 1970s when Rennie first reviewed the article systematically in thirty medical journals. According to Ana Maru? I ?, "Nothing has changed in 25 years". Mentorship has not been shown to have a positive effect. Worse still, little evidence suggests that peer review as it does today, improves the quality of published papers.
Extension of peer review outside of publication date is open partner comments , where expert comments are requested on published articles and authors are encouraged to respond. It was first implemented by the anthropologist Sol Tax, who founded the journal Current Anthropology, published by the University of Chicago Press in 1959. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences Journal, published by Cambridge University Press, was founded by Stevan Harnad in the year 1978 and modeled on Anthropology's current open partner commentary features. Psycoloquy was founded in 1990 on the basis of the same features, but this time it is applied online.
In the summer of 2009, Kathleen Fitzpatrick explores an open peer review and comments in her book, Planned Obsolescence. Throughout the year 2000 academic journals were based solely on the concept of open peer review being launched, such as Philica .
Initial era: 1996-2000
In 1996, the Interactive Media Journal in Education was launched using an open peer review. The reviewer's name is made public, therefore they are responsible for their review, and their contributions are recognized. The author has the right to retaliate, and other researchers have the opportunity to comment before publication. In February 2013, the Interactive Media Journal in Education stopped using open partner review.
In 1997, the Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence were launched as open access journal by the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence. This journal uses a two-stage review process. In the first phase, papers that pass the quick screen by editors are immediately published on the Transaction discussion website for the purpose of online public discussion for a period of at least three months, in which the names of contributors are made public except in exceptional cases. At the end of the discussion period, the author is invited to submit a revised version of the article, and the anonymous referee decides whether the revised manuscript will be accepted into the journal or not, but without the option for the referee to propose further changes. The last edition of this journal appeared in 2001.
In 1999, the open access journal Medical Internet Research Journal was launched, which from the beginning decided to publish the reviewers' names at the bottom of each published article. Also in 1999, the British Medical Journal moved to an open peer review system, revealing the reviewers' identity to the author but not the readers, and in 2000, the medical journal in the open access BMC series published by BioMed Central, launched using open peer review. As with BMJ , the names of the reviewers are included in the peer review report. In addition, if the article is published, the report is available online as part of 'pre-publishing history'.
Several other journals published by BMJ Group allow optional open reviews, such as PLoS Medicine , published by the Public Library of Science. Rapid Response BMJ allows continuous debate and criticism after publication.
Latest Era: 2001-present
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), an open access journal launched in 2001 by European Union Geosciences, has a two-stage publication process. In the first phase, the paper that passes the quick screen by the editor is immediately published on the website Atmospheric Chemistry and Physical Discussion (ACPD). They are then subject to an interactive public discussion with a formal peer review. Referee comments (either anonymous or linked), additional short comments by other members of the scientific community (which must be linked) and the author's reply are also published in ACPD . In the second phase, the peer-reviewed process is completed and, if the article is officially accepted by the editor, the final revised paper is published on ACP . The success of this approach is demonstrated by Thomson Reuters's ranking of ACP as the top journal in Meteorology & amp; Atmospheric Sciences.
In June 2006, Nature launched an experiment in open partner review: some articles that have been submitted to anonymous processes are also available online for open and identifiable public comments. The results were less encouraging - only 5% of authors agreed to participate in the experiment, and only 54% of the articles received comment. The editors have suggested that researchers may be too busy to take part and are reluctant to make their names public. The knowledge that articles are simultaneously subjected to anonymous peer reviews can also affect uptake.
In February 2006, the journal Direct Biology was launched by BioMed Central, adding another alternative to the traditional peer review model. If the author can find three members of the Editorial Board who will either return the report or will request an external review, the article will be published. Just like Philica , reviewers can not suppress publications, but unlike Philica , there are no anonymous reviews and no articles published without review. Authors have the opportunity to withdraw their articles, to revise them in response to reviews, or publish them without revision. If authors continue to publish their articles despite critical comments, readers can clearly see negative comments along with reviewers' names. In the social sciences, there are experiments with wiki styles, signed peer reviews, for example in the Shakespeare Quarterly issue.
In 2010, the British Medical Journal began publishing a signed review report in addition to the papers received, having determined that notifying reviewers that their signed reviews may be publicly posted does not significantly affect the quality of reviews.
In 2011, Peerage of Science, and an independent peer review service, was launched with several non-traditional approaches to academic peer review. Most notably, this includes assessment and assessment of accuracy and justifiability of peer review, and concurrent use of a peer review round by some participating journals.
Starting in 2013 with the launch of F1000Research , some publishers have incorporated open peer review with postpublished peer review using a versioned article system. On F1000Research , articles are published before review, and invite peer review reports (and reviewer names) published with articles as they go. The revised version of the article is then linked to the original. The postpublication review system is similar to the versioned article used by Science Open and The Winnower , both launched in 2014.
In 2014, Life embeds an open peer review system, where peer-reviewed reports and author responses are published as an integral part of the final version of each article.
Another form of "open peer review" is peer-reviewed community-based pre-publication, where the review process is open for everyone to join.
In popular culture
In 2017, the College of Economics in Moscow launched a monument for peer review. The monument is dice-shaped, with "receive", "small change", "big change", "revise and send back" and "reject" on five visible sides. Igor Chirikov, the idea of ​​the monument, says that while researchers have a love-hate relationship with peer review, peer reviewers continue to do precious work but are largely invisible, and monuments are a tribute to them.
See also
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Further reading
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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