Experiment: Open Peer Review

It sounds interesting. It's good that there are new journals experimenting with new approaches to publication. Innovation never happens unless people are willing to challenge conventions and test new ideas. Most of these new ideas are rotten, but these are outcompeted. At worst, Biology Direct will end up publishing bad papers, and a quick look will reveal that its review process can't distinguish bad papers from good ones. At best, it will shine, publishing revolutionary papers long before traditional journals.

In my field (a group of non-fatal but nasty and treatment-resistant diseases), there are major problems with bias in the peer-reviewed literature, including domination of the (large and multi-discipline) field by a very small number of often self-serving players.

Peer-review is a central and critical component of science, and I strongly support it. But a major overhaul of the general peer-review process is long overdue. Peer-review must be far more transparent and accountable.

There is also the issue of access to peer-reviewed papers. There is no question that the peer-reviewed journals have to make a living somehow. But there is also no question that society would benefit immensely if the general public had greatly improved access to peer-reviewed literature.

Very tough problems to resolve.

My experience with some of the journals our scientists publish in is that the review committee is usually the same small group of small-minded folks with an agenda. So not all scientists are willing to submit for review.

Hello. Just a note on the subject of peer review.
We have in our laboratory (Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory), a journal discussion group that meets weekly. I (a student) am a part of this group as are several lab techs and professors. Most of our material comes from the Journal of Medical Entomology, and other such journals. We have just started off our new year of meetings and have had 3 articles already, 2 from JME. Those two JME articles, were, on our consensus, not worthy of publication in an international journal. There were such severe flaws with the methodology or interpretation that we were astounded that they made it through the review process. Lo and behold, there were reviewers of each article IN THE ROOM! One had given an "accept with major revision" another "accept with minor revision". The one who had gotten the "major" did not heed the reviwer's suggestions and the next time this fellow saw it, was when it was published. What about the "minor"? I don't really want to speculate why that one made it through in the first place, but I have a theory. The one that got the "minor" was from a respected PI, and I think that the article got only cursory attention and was rubber stamped for precisely this point!!!
Anyway, my friend Carol told me a great idea. We have anonymous review, but what about anonymous authorship to the point of review? What I mean is, how about the Journal editor send out to the Subject Editor and out to reviewers articles that are expunged of names? That way, the article is decided solely on its merits and not on the reputation of the PI or lab. It seems a good idea to me and in the spirit of open-mindedness.
An alternative idea would be, I suppose, no anonymity for reviewers or authors. That way if a crappy study is published, one knows who to blame for accepting it.
Anyway, just some thoughts. Perhaps none of these changes can be wrought at established journals, as that is quite the pain, but maybe at startup it would be an idea to consider.

I think Sean has it right. Don't provide the authors' names when sending a manuscript out for review, do publish the reviewers' names as a footnote with the final manuscript (if accepted).

If you agree to review a manuscript, and you know your name will be listed when it's published, you're more likely to review it thoroughly. After all, now your reputation is on the line.

"If you agree to review a manuscript, and you know your name will be listed when it's published, you're more likely to review it thoroughly. After all, now your reputation is on the line."

And publish the reasons for accepting/rejecting the paper.

We do need to be careful about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Reviewer anonymity does have it uses, mostly when initially deciding if a paper is worth accepting for publication. But after acceptance the value of anonymity diminishes greatly.

One more possible down side is that losing reviewer anonymity (post-acceptance) may lead to acrimonious individual or factional disputes within or between disciplines, (not that there aren't plenty of those already).

I think that publication of the reasons for rejection/acceptance of a manuscript is the minimum required reform to allow proper debate on the process of assessment. The identity of the reviewers is somewhat less of an issue, though still important.

"We have anonymous review, but what about anonymous authorship to the point of review?"

I am pretty sure that some journals already do that.

Biology Direct sounds like a great idea to me. I'd certainly send a paper there.

I quite enjoy the game of "try to guess who the reviewer was" that the current system provides, though. Time will tell which way works best.

Hello Grrrlscientist,
I'm also one of the editors of a Dutch online journal on Paleontology and Archaeology which you might find interesting: www.PalArch.nl. I know the struggle on peer review, but untill we have created our ideal world, I'll stick with strict anonimity.
All the best, Hanneke

I think the idea of authors being anonymous is terrific -- I have noticed rubber stamping approval and also rubber stamped rejections. Just wanted to point out that I'm in the process of submitting my work on African birds to one of the online journals because the affected scientists, in Africa, will have better access, in the absence of well-stocked university libraries, or even universities. One of the benefits of the online pubs generally, and it's worth keeping the needs of biodiversity-rich journal-poor colleagues in mind.