Bias in the Peer-Review Buddy System?
19/11/10 03:00 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Fri, 11/19/2010 - 03:00.
Academic journals desire to identify and publish those scientific reports that will have the greatest impact in their fields, and they also wish to avoid the embarrassment from being associated with inferior work. However, the major challenge with peer-review is that it is extremely diverse in quality with relatively little accountability. Moreover, direct competitors can have strong negative biases towards a scientific manuscript just as much as author-recommended colleagues might be favorably disposed. At the end of the day, however, it is really up the to general scientific community to accept or disregard the validity of the data and conclusions in a paper.
In the 21st century, with the advent of Internet publishing and the irrelevance of page constraints, it's time to try something different. I suggest that that peer-review should not be completely anonymous. The referees should be selected in mutual agreement with the journal and authors from a short list provided by the journal. For the first stage of the review, it should not be exactly clear to the authors who reviewed their paper in case it is flatly rejected. However, once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the referees' names should be identified right after the list of authors on the published paper. In this way, the referees receive recognition for their efforts and also accept responsibility for the quality of the paper's content.
Ideally after publication, it should also be possible for readers to add their comments to the end of a manuscript if they can make meaningful and helpful contributions. Such a process should result in better quality publications that can also generate stimulating discussions with interested parties in the field.
Link to the original blog post.
Academic journals desire to identify and publish those scientific reports that will have the greatest impact in their fields, and they also wish to avoid the embarrassment from being associated with inferior work. However, the major challenge with peer-review is that it is extremely diverse in quality with relatively little accountability. Moreover, direct competitors can have strong negative biases towards a scientific manuscript just as much as author-recommended colleagues might be favorably disposed. At the end of the day, however, it is really up the to general scientific community to accept or disregard the validity of the data and conclusions in a paper.
In the 21st century, with the advent of Internet publishing and the irrelevance of page constraints, it's time to try something different. I suggest that that peer-review should not be completely anonymous. The referees should be selected in mutual agreement with the journal and authors from a short list provided by the journal. For the first stage of the review, it should not be exactly clear to the authors who reviewed their paper in case it is flatly rejected. However, once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the referees' names should be identified right after the list of authors on the published paper. In this way, the referees receive recognition for their efforts and also accept responsibility for the quality of the paper's content.
Ideally after publication, it should also be possible for readers to add their comments to the end of a manuscript if they can make meaningful and helpful contributions. Such a process should result in better quality publications that can also generate stimulating discussions with interested parties in the field.
Link to the original blog post.