LIBRARY

Vincent.Huber@unige.ch

Audrey.Bellier@unige.ch 12 December 2017

Midi de l’info scientifique

EMERGING TRENDS IN PEER-REVIEW

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PROGRAM

• Classical peer review

• Immediate publication with no formal review

• Immediate publication with post-publication

review

• Multiphase review: mix of pre- and post-publication

review

• Portable review

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CLASSICAL PEER REVIEW

http://archive.senseaboutscience.org/pages/peerreviewed

ucation.html

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ADVANTAGES OF PEER-REVIEW

• Anonymity of the review process → free

expression of critical views

• No interaction among reviewers → no influence

or pressure

• Improves the quality of scientific publications:

filtering out low quality papers, catching errors,

improving the writing…

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KEY OBJECTIONS TO

CLASSICAL PEER REVIEW

1. Delay

2. Bias against specific categories of paper

3. Social and cognitive biases

4. Unreliability

5. Inability to detect errors and fraud

6. Lack of transparency – unethical practices

7. Lack of recognition for reviewers

Walker et Rocha da Silva, 2015

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INTERACTIONS DURING

PRE-PUBLICATION REVIEWING

• EMBO Journal: cross-peer review (referees

comment on each others’ reports)

• eLife: online consultation of other referee’s reports

• Frontiers: Collaborative Review Forum (feedbacks

between reviewers, authors and editors)

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• a website and free service for academics to

track, verify and showcase their peer review

• Launched in 2012. In 2017: 200,000

researchers, with over 1 million reviews

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NEW PEER-REVIEWING IMPLIES NEW

REVIEWERS

● Editors-selected Reviewers

● Author-selected Reviewers

● Volunteered Reviewers (Open Peer Commentary)

● Community/Public Review

● What kind of rewards a reviewer can get?

Jubb, 2016 & Walker et Rocha da Silva, 2015

Immediate publication with

no formal review

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NON-COMMERCIAL PRE-PRINT SERVERS

• Papers available to readers

• No prior review or minimal «access review»

• Example: ArXiv since 1991

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JOURNAL PUBLISHERS PREPRINT SERVERS

• Nature Precedings (stopped in 2012)

• PeerJ Preprints

Immediate publication with

post-publication review

“Publication and Peer Review are two

independent concepts”

F1000Research

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POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW

F1000Research

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POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW

• Distinguish the publication and the Peer

Review

• Shorten the processes

• Crossed reviews increase quality

• Reviews considered as mini publications

Kriegeskorte, 2012

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POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW

https://f1000research.com/articles/6-1515/v4

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POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW

https://f1000research.com/articles/6-1515/v4

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POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW

https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/14675/2017/acp-17-14675-

2017.html

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POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW

https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/14675/2017/acp-17-14675-

2017.html

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OPEN REVIEW

● A review procedure in which author names AND

reviewer names are revealed

○ But reviewer identities are not necessary

revealed

○ Sometimes only an option

● Open Reports (Full reports are published)

● Increases interaction between authors and reviewers

which facilitates constructive feedback et dialog

Jubb 2016, Ross-Hellauer, 2017 & Walker et Rocha da Silva, 2015

Multiphase review:

mix of pre- and post-publication review

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FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE

• Tiering system: «democratic» selection of

outstanding research

• «Tier 1»: publication after normal pre-

publication review

• «Tier 2»: invite authors with top viewed and

downloaded papers to write a «Focused

Review»

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PRE-PUBLICATION REVIEW

+ IN CHANNEL COMMENTARY

• Out of a sample of 53 journals using formal review, 24

provide the option to readers to comment on the article

• Only 17% of articles published in PLOS ONE had

comments

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PRE-PUBLICATION REVIEW

+ OUT OF CHANNEL COMMENTARY

Academic social networks and repositories for

documents published elsewhere:

• F1000 prime

• PubMed Commons

• Pubpeer.com

• ResearchGate

Portable review

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PORTABLE REVIEW: «RECYCLING» OF

PREVIOUS REVIEWING REPORTS

• Reports from the review by a 1st journal

(which rejected the paper) are passed on to a

2nd journal

• Often for journals from the same publishers

(Nature Publishing Group, Biomedcentral...)

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COMMERCIAL PORTABLE REVIEW

• 1st step: Authors submit their papers for

review by a commercial review service

• 2nd step: authors (or the commercial service)

submit the paper along with the reports to a

journal

• Axios/Rubriq: charge authors a fee

• Peerage of science: receives revenue only

from journals and publishers

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TAKE HOME MESSAGE

• 2 major trends:

- Repository with only access review (e.g. ArXiv)

- Publishers with non-selective review (e.g. PLoS

ONE, Frontiers…)

• New innovative forms, still rare:

- Open review, which remove reviewer anonymity

- Interactive review between reviewers, authors and

editors

- Informal reader commentary

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

• ACP. Consulté le 12 décembre 2017. https://www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-

physics.net/index.html.

• F1000Research. Consulté le 12 décembre 2017. https://f1000research.com/.

• Hunter, J. (2012). Post-Publication Peer Review: Opening Up Scientific

Conversation. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience 6.

• Jubb, M. (2016). Peer review: The current landscape and future trends: Peer

review landscape. Learned Publishing 29, 13–21.

• Kriegeskorte, N. (2012). Open Evaluation: A Vision for Entirely Transparent Post-

Publication Peer Review and Rating for Science. Frontiers in Computational

Neuroscience 6.

• Ross-Hellauer, T. (2017). What is open peer review? A systematic review.

F1000Research 6, 588.

• Sense about Science. Consulté le 12 décembre 2017.

http://archive.senseaboutscience.org/index.html.

• Walker, R., and Rocha da Silva, P. (2015). Emerging trends in peer reviews - a

survey. Frontiers in Neuroscience 9.