Peer review: revise and resubmit
In spite of recent attacks on the peer review system, a new survey has found that it is not about to collapse.
Peer review is the long-established process of evaluating scholarly work.
Speaking at the British Science Festival on Tuesday, Tracey Brown, Managing Director of the independent charitable trust Sense About Science, released and outlined some of the results from the Peer Review Survey 2009.
The survey asked questions such as: Should peer review detect fraud and misconduct? Will it illuminate good ideas or shut them down? Should reviewers remain anonymous? Can it help people make sense of science stories?
It found that 90 per cent of all respondents participate in the peer review process because they believe they are playing an active role in the academic community, and 85 per cent simply enjoy being able to improve a paper.
Nor do the results suggest that the scientific community is rejecting the concept of peer review as a means of quality control.
Of all the respondents, 84 per cent believe that without peer review there would be no control in scientific communication, and 91 per cent of the respondents who had to revise their last manuscript before it was accepted for publication, agreed that the review process improved the quality of the paper.
Overall, the preliminary results suggest that researchers want to improve, rather than replace, the peer review process. So the outcome is: revise and resubmit.
Revisions are rarely straightforward. The findings suggest that the majority of researchers would welcome a revision that would improve the detection of plagiarism and fraud.
However, a system that favours reviewer anonymity would satisfy the 76 per cent of respondents who thought that double-blind peer review was the most effective process in their field.
The results suggest that the process is capable of helping people evaluate the often confusing and contradictory research findings reported by the media.
However, changes need to be made to encourage the public to question scientists.
In response, scientists need to listen.
Administered with a grant from Elsevier, the survey is one of the largest ever international surveys of authors and reviewers.
Of all the respondents, 26 per cent were aged between 22-35 years old which suggests that early researchers are still entering the peer review process.
Criticisms of the system have focused on the idea that it favours established researchers and discriminates against early researchers; can stifle work that deviates too far from ‘mainstream’ theories; the seemingly slow process; and its susceptibility to biases, such as cronyism.
Furthermore, issues are being raised about the ability of the system to meet with the demands of an ever-expanding global research community.
The process starts with an author’s submission of their manuscript to a journal of their choice. The journal editor then selects appropriate experts to review the manuscript. After receiving the reviews, the editor informs the author of the outcome; which can be: accept, revise or reject.
Thus a researcher can be an author one day and a reviewer the next, a process which Brown described as “genteel cooperation.”
By Carol Walthew
Peer review is the long-established process of evaluating scholarly work.
Speaking at the British Science Festival on Tuesday, Tracey Brown, Managing Director of the independent charitable trust Sense About Science, released and outlined some of the results from the Peer Review Survey 2009.
The survey asked questions such as: Should peer review detect fraud and misconduct? Will it illuminate good ideas or shut them down? Should reviewers remain anonymous? Can it help people make sense of science stories?
It found that 90 per cent of all respondents participate in the peer review process because they believe they are playing an active role in the academic community, and 85 per cent simply enjoy being able to improve a paper.
Nor do the results suggest that the scientific community is rejecting the concept of peer review as a means of quality control.
Of all the respondents, 84 per cent believe that without peer review there would be no control in scientific communication, and 91 per cent of the respondents who had to revise their last manuscript before it was accepted for publication, agreed that the review process improved the quality of the paper.
Overall, the preliminary results suggest that researchers want to improve, rather than replace, the peer review process. So the outcome is: revise and resubmit.
Revisions are rarely straightforward. The findings suggest that the majority of researchers would welcome a revision that would improve the detection of plagiarism and fraud.
However, a system that favours reviewer anonymity would satisfy the 76 per cent of respondents who thought that double-blind peer review was the most effective process in their field.
The results suggest that the process is capable of helping people evaluate the often confusing and contradictory research findings reported by the media.
However, changes need to be made to encourage the public to question scientists.
In response, scientists need to listen.
Administered with a grant from Elsevier, the survey is one of the largest ever international surveys of authors and reviewers.
Of all the respondents, 26 per cent were aged between 22-35 years old which suggests that early researchers are still entering the peer review process.
Criticisms of the system have focused on the idea that it favours established researchers and discriminates against early researchers; can stifle work that deviates too far from ‘mainstream’ theories; the seemingly slow process; and its susceptibility to biases, such as cronyism.
Furthermore, issues are being raised about the ability of the system to meet with the demands of an ever-expanding global research community.
The process starts with an author’s submission of their manuscript to a journal of their choice. The journal editor then selects appropriate experts to review the manuscript. After receiving the reviews, the editor informs the author of the outcome; which can be: accept, revise or reject.
Thus a researcher can be an author one day and a reviewer the next, a process which Brown described as “genteel cooperation.”
By Carol Walthew
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