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Pain Physician 2015Scientific peer review is pivotal in health care research in that it facilitates the evaluation of findings for competence, significance, and originality by qualified... (Review)
Review
Scientific peer review is pivotal in health care research in that it facilitates the evaluation of findings for competence, significance, and originality by qualified experts. While the origins of peer review can be traced to the societies of the eighteenth century, it became an institutionalized part of the scholarly process in the latter half of the twentieth century. This was a response to the growth of research and greater subject specialization. With the current increase in the number of specialty journals, the peer review process continues to evolve to meet the needs of patients, clinicians, and policy makers. The peer review process itself faces challenges. Unblinded peer review might suffer from positive or negative bias towards certain authors, specialties, and institutions. Peer review can also suffer when editors and/or reviewers might be unable to understand the contents of the submitted manuscript. This can result in an inability to detect major flaws, or revelations of major flaws after acceptance of publication by the editors. Other concerns include potentially long delays in publication and challenges uncovering plagiarism, duplication, corruption and scientific misconduct. Conversely, a multitude of these challenges have led to claims of scientific misconduct and an erosion of faith. These challenges have invited criticism of the peer review process itself. However, despite its imperfections, the peer review process enjoys widespread support in the scientific community. Peer review bias is one of the major focuses of today's scientific assessment of the literature. Various types of peer review bias include content-based bias, confirmation bias, bias due to conservatism, bias against interdisciplinary research, publication bias, and the bias of conflicts of interest. Consequently, peer review would benefit from various changes and improvements with appropriate training of reviewers to provide quality reviews to maintain the quality and integrity of research without bias. Thus, an appropriate, transparent peer review is not only ideal, but necessary for the future to facilitate scientific progress.
Topics: Bias; Conflict of Interest; Humans; Peer Review; Periodicals as Topic
PubMed: 25675064
DOI: No ID Found -
Indian Journal of Dermatology,...
Topics: Humans; Peer Review
PubMed: 38219023
DOI: 10.25259/IJDVL_1356_2023 -
MBio Oct 2023Peer review is considered by many to be a fundamental component of scientific publishing. In this context, open peer review (OPR) has gained popularity in recent years...
Peer review is considered by many to be a fundamental component of scientific publishing. In this context, open peer review (OPR) has gained popularity in recent years as a tool to increase transparency, rigor, and inclusivity in research. But how does OPR really affect the review process? How does OPR impact specific groups, such as early career researchers? This editorial explores and discusses these aspects as well as some suggested actions for journals.
Topics: Humans; Peer Review; Publishing; Research Personnel; Peer Review, Research
PubMed: 37811986
DOI: 10.1128/mbio.01948-23 -
WMJ : Official Publication of the State... May 2024
Topics: Humans; Periodicals as Topic; Peer Review, Research; Wisconsin; Peer Review
PubMed: 38718228
DOI: No ID Found -
Clinical Microbiology and Infection :... May 2023
Topics: Humans; Mentors; Peer Review
PubMed: 36773774
DOI: 10.1016/j.cmi.2023.01.028 -
Journal of Korean Medical Science Nov 2018Integrity of authorship and peer review practices are important considerations for ethical publishing. Criteria for authorship, as delineated in the guidelines by the... (Review)
Review
Integrity of authorship and peer review practices are important considerations for ethical publishing. Criteria for authorship, as delineated in the guidelines by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), have undergone evolution over the decades, and now require fulfillment of four criteria, including the need to be able to take responsibility for all aspects of the manuscript in question. Although such updated authorship criteria were published nearly five years ago, still, many major medical and specialist journals have yet to revise their author instructions to conform to this. Inappropriate authorship practices may include gift, guest or ghost authorship. Existing literature suggests that such practices are still widely prevalent, especially in non-English speaking countries. Another emerging problem is that of peer review fraud, mostly by authors, but also rarely by handling editors. There is literature to suggest that a proportion of such fake peer review may be driven by the support of some unscrupulous external editing agencies. Such inappropriate practices with authorship malpractices or disagreement, or peer review fraud, have resulted in more than 600 retractions each, as identified on the retractions database of Retractionwatch.com. There is a need to generate greater awareness, especially in authors from non-English speaking regions of the world, about inappropriate authorship and unethical practices in peer review. Also, support of any external editing agency should be clearly disclosed by authors at the time of submission of a manuscript.
Topics: Authorship; Biomedical Research; Databases, Factual; Disclosure; Editorial Policies; Ethics, Research; Fraud; Humans; Medical Writing; Peer Review; Publications; Publishing
PubMed: 30416407
DOI: 10.3346/jkms.2018.33.e287 -
European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy :... Nov 2022
Topics: Steam; Peer Review
PubMed: 36283722
DOI: 10.1136/ejhpharm-2022-003564 -
Laboratory Investigation; a Journal of... Apr 2019
Topics: Humans; Medical Laboratory Science; Peer Review; Periodicals as Topic
PubMed: 30723258
DOI: 10.1038/s41374-019-0194-0 -
Journal of General Internal Medicine Dec 2022
Topics: Humans; Peer Review; Internal Medicine
PubMed: 36229761
DOI: 10.1007/s11606-022-07777-x -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Sep 2019
Topics: Humans; Peer Review
PubMed: 31534003
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1987-19.2019