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Preserving the Quality of Scientific Research: Peer Review of Research Articles

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Scientific Scholarly Communication

Part of the book series: Fascinating Life Sciences ((FLS))

Abstract

Peer review of scholarly articles is a mechanism used to assess and preserve the trustworthiness of reporting of scientific findings. Since peer reviewing is a qualitative evaluation system that involves the judgment of experts in a field about the quality of research performed by their colleagues (and competitors), it inherently encompasses a strongly subjective element. Although this time-tested system, which has been evolving since the mid-eighteenth century, is being questioned and criticized for its deficiencies, it is still considered an integral part of the scholarly communication system, as no other procedure has been proposed to replace it. Therefore, to improve and strengthen the existing peer review process, it is important to understand its shortcomings and to continue the constructive deliberations of all participants within the scientific scholarly communication system . This chapter discusses the strengths, issues, and deficiencies of the peer review system, conventional closed models (single-blind and double-blind), and the new open peer review model and its variations that are being experimented with by some journals.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Evaluative criteria may also vary depending on the scope of the specific journal.

  2. 2.

    Krebs and Johnson (1937).

  3. 3.

    McClintock (1950).

  4. 4.

    Bombardier et al. (2000).

  5. 5.

    “Nature journals offer double-blind review” Nature announcement—http://www.nature.com/news/nature-journals-offer-double-blind-review-1.16931.

  6. 6.

    Contains all versions of the manuscript, named reviewer reports, author responses, and (where relevant) editors’ comments (Moylan et al. 2014).

  7. 7.

    https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/peer-review-survey-2009-preliminary-findings.

  8. 8.

    Review guidelines, Frontiers in Neuroscience http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/synaptic-neuroscience#review-guidelines.

  9. 9.

    Editorial policies - BioMed Central  http://www.biomedcentral.com/getpublished/editorial-policies#peer+review.

  10. 10.

    Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Interactive Public Peer Review http://www.hydrology-and-earth-system-sciences.net/peer_review/interactive_review_process.html.

  11. 11.

    Copernicus Publications http://publications.copernicus.org/services/public_peer_review.html.

  12. 12.

    Copernicus Publications - Interactive Public Peer Review http://home.frontiersin.org/about/impact-and-tiering.

  13. 13.

    Biology Direct http://www.biologydirect.com/.

  14. 14.

    F1000 Research http://f1000research.com.

  15. 15.

    GigaScience http://www.gigasciencejournal.com

  16. 16.

    Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine http://www.jnrbm.com/.

  17. 17.

    BMJOpen http://bmjopen.bmj.com/.

  18. 18.

    PeerJ http://peerj.com/.

  19. 19.

    ScienceOpen https://www.scienceopen.com.

  20. 20.

    ArXiv http://arxiv.org.

  21. 21.

    Retraction of articles from Springer journals. London: Springer, August 18, 2015 (http://www.springer.com/gp/about-springer/media/statements/retraction-of-articles-from-springer-journals/735218).

  22. 22.

    COPE statement on inappropriate manipulation of peer review processes (http://publicationethics.org/news/cope-statement-inappropriate-manipulation-peer-review-processes).

  23. 23.

    Hindawi concludes an in-depth investigation into peer review fraud, July 2015 (http://www.hindawi.com/statement/).

  24. 24.

    .Wakefield, A. J., Murch, S. H., Anthony, A., Linnell, J., Casson, D. M., Malik, M., ... & Valentine, A. (1998). Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. The Lancet, 351(9103), 637–641. (RETRACTED:See The Lancet 375(9713) p.445)

  25. 25.

    A practice used by researchers to increase the number of articles publishing multiple papers using very similar pieces of a single dataset. The drug industry also uses this tactic to increase publications with positive findings on their products.

  26. 26.

    Neuroscience Peer Reviewer Consortium  http://nprc.incf.org/.

  27. 27.

    “About 80% of submitted manuscripts are rejected during this initial screening stage, usually within one week to 10 days.” http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/faq/ (accessed on October 18, 2016); “Nature has space to publish only 8% or so of the 200 papers submitted each week” http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/get_published/ (accessed on October 18, 2016).

  28. 28.

    Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors http://publicationethics.org/files/Code%20of%20Conduct_2.pdf.

  29. 29.

    Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals  http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky, USA

    Pali U. K. De Silva & Candace K. Vance

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  1. Pali U. K. De Silva
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  2. Candace K. Vance
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Correspondence to Pali U. K. De Silva .

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De Silva, P.U.K., K. Vance, C. (2017). Preserving the Quality of Scientific Research: Peer Review of Research Articles. In: Scientific Scholarly Communication. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50627-2_6

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