ScienceGeist

Scientists and journalists need to establish a service to review research that's publicized before it is peer reviewed.

Another botched peer review - this one involving a controversial study of police killings - shows how devil's advocates could improve the scientific process.

Our aim is to highlight the benefits and limitations of open and non-anonymized peer review. Our argument is based on the literature and on responses to a survey on the reviewing process of alt.chi, a more or less open review track within the so-called Computer Human Interaction (CHI) conference, the predominant conference in the field of human-computer interaction. This track currently is the only implementation of an open peer review process in the field of human-computer interaction while, with the recent increase in interest in open scientific practices, open review is now being considered and used in other fields. We ran an online survey with 30 responses from alt.chi authors and reviewers, collecting quantitative data using multiple-choice questions and Likert scales. Qualitative data were collected using open questions. Our main quantitative result is that respondents are more positive to open and non-anonymous reviewing for alt.chi than for other parts of the CHI conference. The qualitative data specifically highlight the benefits of open and transparent academic discussions. The data and scripts are available on https://osf.io/vuw7h/ , and the figures and follow-up work on http://tiny.cc/OpenReviews . While the benefits are quite clear and the system is generally well-liked by alt.chi participants, they remain reluctant to see it used in other venues. This concurs with a number of recent studies that suggest a divergence between support for a more open review process and its practical implementation.

In the current system of pre-publication peer review, which papers are scrutinized most thoroughly?

Which would you trust more, a research article posted as a preprint, or one that has been published after peer review? The reality is that all science communicated via either mechanism should be read with a discerning and critical eye.

Along with healthcare providers around the world, the Wellcome Trust PhD fellow Karin Purshouse is seeing the need for fast-tracked guidance on the virus and patient treatment.

In the face of this crisis, we need research to be shared faster.

The rapid sharing of pandemic research shows there is a better way to filter good science from bad.

The prestige ranking of scholarly journals is costly to science and to society.

A report on masks relied on unfounded assumptions, researchers charged, and the authors were permitted to choose their own reviewers.

Nature asked authors and editors for advice on how to improve peer-review communication.

Study found that preliminary criterion scores fully account for racial disparities - yet do not explain all of the variability - in preliminary overall impact scores.

This Article examines the effect of abolishing peer review on the changed incentive structure and the likely effects on the behaviour of individual scientists, and concludes that, abolishing peer review has overall slightly positive results.

New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet peer reviewers did not see raw data behind findings before publication.

We are pleased to announce the next OASPA webinar which will explore recent steps to increase efficiency and speed in the publication of COVID-19 research (Wednesday 24th June 2020, 4.00 pm Central European Time).

The platform evaluates these journals’ peer-review procedures and invites journal editors to provide such information for inclusion in the database.

Published scientific research, like any piece of writing, is a peculiar literary genre.

Peer review is embedded in the core of our knowledge generation systems. Despite its critical importance, it curiously remains poorly understood in a number of dimensions. In order to address this, this paper assesses where the major gaps in the theoretical and empirical understanding of peer review lie. 

The study replicates the NIPS experiment of 2014, showing that the ratings of peer review are not robust, and that altering reviewers leads to a dramatic impact on the ranking of the papers. This paper also shows that innovative works are not highly ranked in the existing peer review process, and in consequence are often rejected.

To speed information sharing, many scientists are posting paper drafts directly online. What are the potential downsides of that?

eLife is making changes to its policies on peer review in response to the impact of COVID-19 on the scientific community.

Ready to stop asking yourself, what is a peer review in science? Allow us to enlighten you. Here is your complete guide!

The public call for rapid sharing of research data relevant to the COVID-19 outbreak is driving an unprecedented surge in (unrefereed) preprints. To help pinpoint the most important research, Nature launched Outbreak Science Rapid PREreview, an open-source platform for rapid review of preprints related to emerging outbreaks.

Journals, funders and scholars must work together to create an infrastructure to study peer review.

Many of the words used by scientists when reviewing manuscripts, job candidates and grant applications - words such as incremental, novelty, mechanism, descriptive and impact - have lost their meaning.

Research involves deep discussions between authors and reviewers. Starting this week, readers of some Nature Research journals will be able to see this up close.

Peer review can increase the chances of future collaboration, but it doesn't help much against author conflicts of interest.

How has peer review fared in the 2010s? We outline some key trends that have helped to define, challenge and progress the peer review system over the decade.

Researchers of color are particularly vulnerable to "unprofessional" comments.

ASAPbio and EMBO Press have launched Review Commons, a platform for high-quality, journal-independent peer review of manuscripts in the life sciences before they are submitted to a journal.