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Title    Should Scientific Journals Publish Text of Peer Reviews?
Date    Tuesday February 13 2018, @10:11PM
Author    CoolHand
Topic   
from the clearing-up-transparency dept.
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/02/13/1856228

takyon writes:

Attendees of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute meeting debated whether or not science journals should publish the text of peer reviews, or even require peer reviewers to publicly sign their paper critiques:

Scientific journals should start routinely publishing the text of peer reviews for each paper they accept, said attendees at a meeting last week of scientists, academic publishers, and funding organizations. But there was little consensus on whether reviewers should have to publicly sign their critiques, which traditionally are accessible only to editors and authors.

The meeting—hosted by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) here, and sponsored by HHMI; ASAPbio, a group that promotes the use of life sciences preprints; and the London-based Wellcome Trust—drew more than 100 participants interested in catalyzing efforts to improve the vetting of manuscripts and exploring ways to open up what many called an excessively opaque and slow system of peer review. The crowd heard presentations and held small group discussions on an array of issues. One hot topic: whether journals should publish the analyses of submitted papers written by peer reviewers.

Publishing the reviews would advance training and understanding about how the peer-review system works, many speakers argued. Some noted that the evaluations sometimes contain insights that can prompt scientists to think about their field in new ways. And the reviews can serve as models for early career researchers, demonstrating how to write thorough evaluations. "We saw huge benefits to [publishing reviews] that outweigh the risks," said Sue Biggins, a genetics researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, summarizing one discussion.

But attendees also highlighted potential problems. For example, someone could cherry pick critical comments on clinical research studies that are involved in litigation or public controversy, potentially skewing perceptions of the studies. A possible solution? Scientists should work to "make the public understand that [peer review] is a fault-finding process and that criticism is part of and expected in that process," said Veronique Kiermer, executive editor of the PLOS suite of journals, based in San Francisco, California.

Related: Peer Review is Fraught with Problems, and We Need a Fix
Odd Requirement for Journal Author: Name Other Domain Experts
Gambling Can Save Science!
Wellcome Trust Recommends Free Scientific Journals
Medical Research Discovered to Have Been Peer Reviewed by a Dog
Should Scientists Be Posting Their Work Online Before Peer Review?
Judge Orders Unmasking of Anonymous Peer Reviewers in CrossFit Lawsuit


Original Submission

Links

  1. "takyon" - https://soylentnews.org/~takyon/
  2. "debated whether or not science journals should publish the text of peer reviews" - http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/researchers-debate-whether-journals-should-publish-signed-peer-reviews
  3. "Peer Review is Fraught with Problems, and We Need a Fix" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/11/18/2357254
  4. "Odd Requirement for Journal Author: Name Other Domain Experts" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/08/17/1252232
  5. "Gambling Can Save Science!" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/11/14/0311212
  6. "Wellcome Trust Recommends Free Scientific Journals" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/03/26/1750250
  7. "Medical Research Discovered to Have Been Peer Reviewed by a Dog" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/05/27/0045244
  8. "Should Scientists Be Posting Their Work Online Before Peer Review?" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/10/01/0149219
  9. "Judge Orders Unmasking of Anonymous Peer Reviewers in CrossFit Lawsuit" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/01/31/190216
  10. "Original Submission" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=24834

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