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ELife Feb 2024What happened when eLife decided to eliminate accept/reject decisions after peer review?
What happened when eLife decided to eliminate accept/reject decisions after peer review?
Topics: Peer Review; Peer Review, Research
PubMed: 38420960
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.96413 -
Journal of Vascular Research 2020
Topics: Peer Review; Periodicals as Topic
PubMed: 32135535
DOI: 10.1159/000506478 -
BMC Medicine Nov 2015Systematic reviews are popular. A recent estimate indicates that 11 new systematic reviews are published daily. Nevertheless, evidence indicates that the quality of... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
Systematic reviews are popular. A recent estimate indicates that 11 new systematic reviews are published daily. Nevertheless, evidence indicates that the quality of reporting of systematic reviews is not optimal. One likely reason is that the authors' reports have received inadequate peer review. There are now many different types of systematic reviews and peer reviewing them can be enhanced by using a reporting guideline to supplement whatever template the journal editors have asked you, as a peer reviewer, to use. Additionally, keeping up with the current literature, whether as a content expert or being aware of advances in systematic review methods is likely be make for a more comprehensive and effective peer review. Providing a brief summary of what the systematic review has reported is an important first step in the peer review process (and not performed frequently enough). At its core, it provides the authors with some sense of what the peer reviewer believes was performed (Methods) and found (Results). Importantly, it also provides clarity regarding any potential problems in the methods, including statistical approaches for meta-analysis, results, and interpretation of the systematic review, for which the peer reviewer can seek explanations from the authors; these clarifications are best presented as questions to the authors.
Topics: Humans; Peer Review
PubMed: 26521692
DOI: 10.1186/s12916-015-0509-y -
The Journal of Clinical Investigation Apr 2012On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens's birth, I am struck by his creative genius and by the parallel between the intellectual development of his...
On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens's birth, I am struck by his creative genius and by the parallel between the intellectual development of his protagonists and the evolution of peer review. Like many of his novels and serial writings, the story of the history of peer review is a bildungsroman, one that has followed a process of growing up, sought answers through a journey marked by achievement and disappointment, and ultimately matured to be accepted by a community.
Topics: Biomedical Research; Editorial Policies; Peer Review; Periodicals as Topic
PubMed: 22466653
DOI: 10.1172/JCI63462 -
Genetics Mar 2015
Topics: Journal Impact Factor; Peer Review
PubMed: 25740911
DOI: 10.1534/genetics.115.174771 -
Poultry Science Jan 2008
Topics: Peer Review; Publications
PubMed: 18079442
DOI: 10.3382/ps.2007/87-01-0001 -
Science and Engineering Ethics Mar 2021The primary goal of the peer review of research grant proposals is to evaluate their quality for the funding agency. An important secondary goal is to provide...
The primary goal of the peer review of research grant proposals is to evaluate their quality for the funding agency. An important secondary goal is to provide constructive feedback to applicants for their resubmissions. However, little is known about whether review feedback achieves this goal. In this paper, we present a multi-methods analysis of responses from grant applicants regarding their perceptions of the effectiveness and appropriateness of peer review feedback they received from grant submissions. Overall, 56-60% of applicants determined the feedback to be appropriate (fair, well-written, and well-informed), although their judgments were more favorable if their recent application was funded. Importantly, independent of funding success, women found the feedback better written than men, and more white applicants found the feedback to be fair than non-white applicants. Also, perceptions of a variety of biases were specifically reported in respondents' feedback. Less than 40% of applicants found the feedback to be very useful in informing their research and improving grantsmanship and future submissions. Further, negative perceptions of the appropriateness of review feedback were positively correlated with more negative perceptions of feedback usefulness. Importantly, respondents suggested that highly competitive funding pay-lines and poor inter-panel reliability limited the usefulness of review feedback. Overall, these results suggest that more effort is needed to ensure that appropriate and useful feedback is provided to all applicants, bolstering the equity of the review process and likely improving the quality of resubmitted proposals.
Topics: Bias; Feedback; Female; Financing, Organized; Humans; Male; Peer Review; Peer Review, Research; Reproducibility of Results
PubMed: 33733708
DOI: 10.1007/s11948-021-00295-9 -
Journal of Korean Medical Science May 2020Peer review is a crucial part of research and publishing. However, it remains imperfect and suffers from bias, lack of transparency, and professional jealousy. It is...
Peer review is a crucial part of research and publishing. However, it remains imperfect and suffers from bias, lack of transparency, and professional jealousy. It is also overburdened by an increasing quantity of complex papers against the stagnant pool of reviewers, causing delays in peer review. Additionally, many medical, nursing, and healthcare educators, peer reviewers, and authors may not be completely familiar with the current changes in peer review. Moreover, reviewer education and training have unfortunately remained lacking. This is especially crucial since current initiatives to improve the review process are now influenced by factors other than academic needs. Thus, increasing attention has recently focused on ways of streamlining the peer review process and implementing alternative peer-review methods using new technologies and open access models. This article aims to give an overview of the innovative strategies for peer review and to consider perspectives that may be helpful in introducing changes to peer review. Critical assessments of peer review innovations and incentives based on past and present experiences are indispensable. A theoretical appraisal must be balanced by a realistic appraisal of the ethical roles of all stakeholders in enhancing the peer review process. As the peer review system is far from being perfect, identifying and developing core competencies among reviewers, continuing education of researchers, reviewer education and training, and professional engagement of the scientific community in various disciplines may help bridge gaps in an imperfect but indispensable peer review system.
Topics: Biomedical Research; Education, Continuing; Peer Review
PubMed: 32449322
DOI: 10.3346/jkms.2020.35.e138 -
American Journal of Physiology. Cell... Jul 2021
Topics: Cell Physiological Phenomena; Editorial Policies; Humans; Peer Review, Research; Periodicals as Topic
PubMed: 34038241
DOI: 10.1152/ajpcell.00181.2021 -
PloS One 2021Recent calls to improve transparency in peer review have prompted examination of many aspects of the peer-review process. Peer-review systems often allow confidential...
PURPOSE
Recent calls to improve transparency in peer review have prompted examination of many aspects of the peer-review process. Peer-review systems often allow confidential comments to editors that could reduce transparency to authors, yet this option has escaped scrutiny. Our study explores 1) how reviewers use the confidential comments section and 2) alignment between comments to the editor and comments to authors with respect to content and tone.
METHODS
Our dataset included 358 reviews of 168 manuscripts submitted between January 1, 2019 and August 24, 2020 to a health professions education journal with a single blind review process. We first identified reviews containing comments to the editor. Then, for the reviews with comments, we used procedures consistent with conventional and directed qualitative content analysis to develop a coding scheme and code comments for content, tone, and section of the manuscript. For reviews in which the reviewer recommended "reject," we coded for alignment between reviewers' comments to the editor and to authors. We report descriptive statistics.
RESULTS
49% of reviews contained comments to the editor (n = 176). Most of these comments summarized the reviewers' impression of the article (85%), which included explicit reference to their recommended decision (44%) and suitability for the journal (10%). The majority of comments addressed argument quality (56%) or research design/methods/data (51%). The tone of comments tended to be critical (40%) or constructive (34%). For the 86 reviews recommending "reject," the majority of comments to the editor contained content that also appeared in comments to the authors (80%); additional content tended to be irrelevant to the manuscript. Tone frequently aligned (91%).
CONCLUSION
Findings indicate variability in how reviewers use the confidential comments to editor section in online peer-review systems, though generally the way they use them suggests integrity and transparency to authors.
Topics: Editorial Policies; Humans; Peer Review; Peer Review, Research; Periodicals as Topic
PubMed: 34843564
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260558