Views on the peer review system of biomedical journals: an online survey of academics from high-ranking universities

Cancer researchers' experiences with and perceptions of research data sharing: Results of a cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND

Despite wide recognition of the benefits of sharing research data, public availability rates have not increased substantially in oncology or medicine more broadly over the last decade.

METHODS

We surveyed 285 cancer researchers to determine their prior experience with sharing data and views on known drivers and inhibitors.

RESULTS

We found that 45% of respondents had shared some data from their most recent empirical publication, with respondents who typically studied non-human research participants, or routinely worked with human genomic data, more likely to share than those who did not. A third of respondents added that they had previously shared data privately, with 74% indicating that doing so had also led to authorship opportunities or future collaborations for them. Journal and funder policies were reported to be the biggest general drivers toward sharing, whereas commercial interests, agreements with industrial sponsors and institutional policies were the biggest prohibitors. We show that researchers' decisions about whether to share data are also likely to be influenced by participants' desires.

CONCLUSIONS

Our survey suggests that increased promotion and support by research institutions, alongside greater championing of data sharing by journals and funders, may motivate more researchers in oncology to share their data.

Limited online training opportunities exist for scholarly peer reviewers

OBJECTIVES

To create a comprehensive list of all openly available online trainings in scholarly peer review and to analyze their characteristics.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

A systematic review of online training material in scholarly peer review openly accessible between 2012 and 2022. Training characteristics were presented in evidence tables and summarized narratively. A risk of bias tool was purpose-built for this study to evaluate the included training material as evidence-based.

RESULTS

Fourty-two training opportunities in manuscript peer review were identified, of which only twenty were openly accessible. Most were online modules (n = 12, 60%) with an estimated completion time of less than 1 hour (n = 13, 65%). Using our ad hoc risk of bias tool, four sources (20%) met our criteria of evidence-based.

CONCLUSION

Our comprehensive search of the literature identified 20 openly accessible online training materials in manuscript peer review. For such a crucial step in the dissemination of literature, a lack of training could potentially explain disparities in the quality of scholarly publishing.

Lessons learnt from a scientific peer-review training programme designed to support research capacity and professional development in a global community

High-quality peer-reviewer training open to researchers across the globe has the potential to improve the published literature, however, this type of training is not widely available. In this paper, we describe an online peer-reviewer training programme, highlight its effectiveness in building peer review and writing skills, and discuss challenges and lessons learnt. This training programme, open to researchers across the globe, acquaints participants with challenges to and inequities in publishing and educates them about writing effective peer reviews. A focal point is how to provide specific and respectful feedback to help authors get accepted for peer review at an academic journal. Forty-nine participants from or residing in six continents completed the training. All programme evaluation respondents agreed that the orientation helped them gain a better understanding of their role as a peer reviewer at Pre-Publication Support Service. Most agreed that the training was helpful in improving their peer-review skills, and that the training was helpful in improving their writing skills. Participants wanted more networking and collaboration opportunities with other peer reviewers, inclusion of a qualitatively researched example paper and improved communication about the required time commitment. Our online programme with multiple time options was geographically inclusive but internet connectivity was challenging for some participants. Peer-reviewer training programmes can help researchers build their peer review and writing skills and enhance participants' understanding of disparities in publishing. Integrating a geographically diverse group of researchers has the potential to enrich the discussions and learning in such a programme.

The impact of double-blind peer review on gender bias in scientific publishing: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE

Gender-based bias during journal peer review can lead to publication biases and perpetuate gender inequality in science. Double-blind peer review, in which the names of authors and reviewers are masked, may present an opportunity for scientific literature to increase equity and reduce gender-based biases. This systematic review of studies evaluates the impact of double-blind vs single-blind peer review on the publication rates by perceived author gender.

DATA SOURCES

The PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus electronic databases were searched using the terms "blind," "peer review," "gender," "woman," and "author." All published literature in the English language from database inception through 2020 was queried.

STUDY ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Prospective experimental and observational studies comparing double-blind to single-blind peer review strategies examining impact on publication decisions by author gender were included.

STUDY APPRAISAL AND SYNTHESIS METHODS

The extracted data were primarily descriptive and included information on study design, sample size, primary outcome, major findings, and scientific discipline. The studies were characterized on the basis of design and whether the results demonstrated an impact of double-blind peer review on review scores and publication decision by perceived author gender. This study was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews or PROSPERO.

RESULTS

In total, 1717 articles were identified, 123 were reviewed, and 8 were included, encompassing 5 prospective experimental studies and 3 observational studies. Four studies demonstrated a difference in the acceptance rate or review score on the basis of perceived author gender, whereas the other 4 studies demonstrated no differences when the author gender was anonymized.

CONCLUSION

Studies evaluating the impact of double-blind peer review on author gender demonstrate mixed results, but there is reasonable evidence that gender bias may exist in scientific publishing and that double-blinding can mitigate its impact. Further evaluation of the processes in place to create the body of evidence that clinicians and researchers rely on is essential to reduce bias, particularly in female-majority fields such as obstetrics and gynecology.

Trends in Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Publications

Background:

Scientific publication and original articles remain the primary method of sharing scientific findings and advancing the knowledge base of that subject. Despite the value of these publications, little research has surveyed what topics are being published. This study aims to identify and characterize the most common topics in current foot and ankle literature.

Methods:

We reviewed all 1514 published articles in a 5.5-year period (January 2014–June 2019) in 2 foot and ankle–specific journals: Foot & Ankle International (FAI) and Foot and Ankle Surgery (FAS). The articles were sorted into different topic domains to identify the 3 most common categories of publication. The top 3 domains were further characterized by level of evidence (LOE) as well as citations.

Results:

The 3 most published topics in foot and ankle literature were hallux valgus (8.3%), total ankle arthroplasty (TAA) (8.3%), and ankle fracture (6.6%). These 3 subjects accounted for 351 articles (23.2%). Other common topics were patient-reported outcomes (5.0%), osteochondritis dissecans (3.9%), syndesmotic injury (3.8%), ankle instability (3.7%), hallux rigidus (3.0%), and anatomy (2.8%). The average LOE for articles on hallux valgus, TAA, and ankle fracture was 3.27 from FAI, and the average number of annual citations for a given article in both journals was 3.05. Based on our study, there is no correlation between LOE and number of overall citations, but there is a significant, negative linear correlation in ankle fracture data. We also found that articles on TAA had the highest impact factor and that articles from FAI were cited more often than articles from FAS.

Conclusion:

The 3 most published topics in foot and ankle literature comprise only 23.2% of all articles. This finding is indicative of the wide variety of cases performed by orthopaedic foot and ankle surgeons. High-quality data are still needed in all topics.

Level of Evidence:

Level III, retrospective cohort study.

Which peer reviewers voluntarily reveal their identity to authors? Insights into the consequences of open-identities peer review

Identifying reviewers is argued to improve the quality and fairness of peer review, but is generally disfavoured by reviewers. To gain some insight into the factors that influence when reviewers are willing to have their identity revealed, I examined which reviewers voluntarily reveal their identities to authors at the journal Functional Ecology, at which reviewer identities are confidential unless reviewers sign their comments to authors. I found that 5.6% of reviewers signed their comments to authors. This proportion increased slightly over time, from 4.4% in 2003-2005 to 6.7% in 2013-2015. Male reviewers were 1.8 times more likely to sign their comments to authors than were female reviewers, and this difference persisted over time. Few reviewers signed all of their reviews; reviewers were more likely to sign their reviews when their rating of the manuscript was more positive, and papers that had at least one signed review were more likely to be invited for revision. Signed reviews were, on average, longer and recommended more references to authors. My analyses cannot distinguish cause and effect for the patterns observed, but my results suggest that 'open-identities' review, in which reviewers are not permitted to be anonymous, will probably reduce the degree to which reviewers are critical in their assessment of manuscripts and will differentially affect recruitment of male and female reviewers, negatively affecting the diversity of reviewers recruited by journals.

Scientists have favorable opinions on immunity certificates but raise concerns regarding fairness and inequality

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we collected over 12,000 responses from a survey of scientists, who were asked to express their opinions on immunity certificates (also called "immunity passports") as a potential instrument to lessen the impact of the crisis. Overall, we find that scientists perceive immunity certificates as favorable for public health (50.2%) and the state of the economy (54.4%) while one-fifth (19.1%) and one-sixth (15.4%) disagree. Scientists stipulate some concerns about fairness (36.5%) and inequality (22.4%) arising from implementation of immunity certification. We find some smaller differences among scientific fields, particularly between health scientists and social scientists, with the latter being slightly more positive about the effect of immunity certification. Scholars in the United States, including health scientists, are more likely to view the immunity certificates favorably and mention fewer concerns about this policy's effect on fairness and inequality. Female scholars are significantly less in favor of immunity certificates, while scientists with more conservative political views hold more favorable opinions. Our results reveal that given the uncertainties during an early phase of a pandemic, scientists see scope for immunity certification to lessen the general societal impacts of the crisis.

Journal policies and editors' opinions on peer review

Peer review practices differ substantially between journals and disciplines. This study presents the results of a survey of 322 editors of journals in ecology, economics, medicine, physics and psychology. We found that 49% of the journals surveyed checked all manuscripts for plagiarism, that 61% allowed authors to recommend both for and against specific reviewers, and that less than 6% used a form of open peer review. Most journals did not have an official policy on altering reports from reviewers, but 91% of editors identified at least one situation in which it was appropriate for an editor to alter a report. Editors were also asked for their views on five issues related to publication ethics. A majority expressed support for co-reviewing, reviewers requesting access to data, reviewers recommending citations to their work, editors publishing in their own journals, and replication studies. Our results provide a window into what is largely an opaque aspect of the scientific process. We hope the findings will inform the debate about the role and transparency of peer review in scholarly publishing.

How Many Papers Should Scientists Be Reviewing? An Analysis Using Verified Peer Review Reports

The current peer review system is under stress from ever increasing numbers of publications, the proliferation of open-access journals and an apparent difficulty in obtaining high-quality reviews in due time. At its core, this issue may be caused by scientists insufficiently prioritising reviewing. Perhaps this low prioritisation is due to a lack of understanding on how many reviews need to be conducted by researchers to balance the peer review process. I obtained verified peer review data from 142 journals across 12 research fields, for a total of over 300,000 reviews and over 100,000 publications, to determine an estimate of the numbers of reviews required per publication per field. I then used this value in relation to the mean numbers of authors per publication per field to highlight a ‘review ratio’: the expected minimum number of publications an author in their field should review to balance their input (publications) into the peer review process. On average, 3.49 ± 1.45 (SD) reviews were required for each scientific publication, and the estimated review ratio across all fields was 0.74 ± 0.46 (SD) reviews per paper published per author. Since these are conservative estimates, I recommend scientists aim to conduct at least one review per publication they produce. This should ensure that the peer review system continues to function as intended.

Supplements to increase trainee-authored publications pertaining to medical education: A graduate's viewpoint

Medical trainees (i.e., students and residents) provide relevantly insightful perspectives pertaining to their 'medical education' at both undergraduate (i.e., medical school) and graduate (i.e., residency training) levels. Therefore, promoting related trainee-authored publications about such matters is critically important. However, unfortunately, not many medical trainees are able to voice their important education-related research findings in peer-reviewed journals. 'Journal-level' proposals to increase trainees' scientific scholarship are always warranted. Herein, medical journals are called to play an innovative pivotal role in further promoting the desired trend of trainee-authored publications. To that end, periodically throughout the year, mainstream (general or education-focused) medical journals are encouraged to facilitate supplements entirely dedicated to trainee-authored research contributions in the field of 'medical education'. The grounds, dynamics, challenges and benefits of this supplement-based approach are discussed.

Gender diversity of editorial boards and gender differences in the peer review process at six journals of ecology and evolution

Despite substantial progress for women in science, women remain underrepresented in many aspects of the scholarly publication process. We examined how the gender diversity of editors and reviewers changed over time for six journals in ecology and evolution (2003–2015 for four journals, 2007–2015 or 2009–2015 for the other two), and how several aspects of the peer review process differed between female and male editors and reviewers. We found that for five of the six journals, women were either absent or very poorly represented as handling editors at the beginning of our dataset. The representation of women increased gradually and consistently, with women making up 29% of the handling editors (averaged across journals) in 2015, similar to the representation of women as last authors on ecology papers (23% in 2015) but lower than the proportion of women among all authors (31%) and among members of the societies that own the journals (37%–40%). The proportion of women among reviewers has also gradually but consistently increased over time, reaching 27% by 2015. Female editors invited more female reviewers than did male editors, and this difference increased with age of the editor. Men and women who were invited to review did not differ in whether they responded to the review invitation, but, of those that responded, women were slightly more likely to agree to review. In contrast, women were less likely than men to accept invitations to serve on journal editorial boards. Our analyses indicate that there has been progress in the representation of women as reviewers and editors in ecology and evolutionary biology, but women are still underrepresented among the gatekeepers of scholarly publishing relative to their representation among researchers.

Toxicological assessment of Tobacco Heating System 2.2: Findings from an independent peer review

Offering safer alternatives to cigarettes, such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, to smokers who are not willing to quit could reduce the harm caused by smoking. Extensive and rigorous scientific studies are conducted to assess the relative risk of such potentially modified risk tobacco products compared with that of smoking cigarettes. In addition to the peer review of publications reporting individual studies, we aimed to gauge the plausibility of the evidence to the scientific community and appreciate likely necessary additions prior to regulatory submission. Therefore, we sponsored a two-tier peer review organized by an independent third party who identified, recruited, and managed 7 panels of 5-12 experts whose identity remains unknown to us. The reviewers had access to all publications and raw data from preclinical and clinical studies via a web portal. The reviewers were asked questions regarding study design, methods, quality of data, and interpretation of results to judge the validity of the conclusions regarding the relative effects of the Tobacco Heating System 2.2 compared with cigarettes. Once their conclusions were submitted, the experts had the opportunity to participate in an anonymized online debate with their fellow panel members. We present here the results obtained from this innovative peer review effort which revealed supportive or very supportive of the study methods and results, and support the robustness of the studies and validity of the conclusions.

Common Topics of Publication and Levels of Evidence in the Current Hand Surgery Literature

Background Scientific publications are the primary vehicle for the distribution of scientific findings, but there has been limited research on literature topic surveillance. We sought to identify and characterize the most commonly published topic domains in the hand surgery literature. Methods We performed a 6-month hypothesis testing phase to identify the most frequently published topics in three hand surgery journals: Hand, The Journal of Hand Surgery (American), and The Journal of Hand Surgery (European). We reviewed all of the published articles in these journals from June 2010 to May 2015 to identify and characterize publications related to the three most common topic domains. Results A total of 2,146 articles were published during the 5-year study period. The three most frequent topics domains included distal radius (DR) (11% of all articles), flexor tendon (FT) (9%), and carpal tunnel (CT) (7.5%). These subjects accounted for a total of 584 articles (27% of all publications) and 3,014 published pages during the study period. FT, CT, and DR publications were cited on average 2.3 times per year (2.5, 2.4, and 2.0, respectively). Conclusion A small subset of topic domains makes up a significant proportion of scientific publications in hand surgery.

Suicide, Stigma, and Utilizing Social Media Platforms to Gauge Public Perceptions

Introduction: Suicide, a multifaceted complex outcome that arises from numerous biopsychosocial factors, is a public health concern which is growing in numbers despite valiant prevention efforts. There is still a lot of stigma surrounding suicide that needs to be addressed. Social media is growing exponentially and there are many forums where suicidality is being discussed. As a result, we conducted a brief survey on the perception of suicide on social media platforms of Facebook and Reddit in order to gather more information. Results: Of the 152 respondents, 86% believed that suicide is preventable, and 72.85% believed that it is a person's right to die by suicide. About a third (31.79%) had lost someone close to them to suicide. Respondents who did not think suicide was preventable also viewed suicide as either a sign of strength (42.86%) or a revenge act (33.3%). Those who responded that someone close to them died by suicide believed that the media glorified suicide (56.25%) while those who did not lose someone, did not believe that (66.99%). Women (61%) found social media to be a good platform for people to ask for help while men did not (60.61%). Conclusions: We utilized the social media platforms to gauge the perception of suicide and found among the sample of mostly young white respondents, suicide is not stigmatized, most believed it is preventable and it is a person's right to die by suicide. While women found social media to be a good platform to ask for support, men did not, which is in keeping with the trend that women tend to be more willing to seek help. A third of the group had lost someone close to them to suicide which was the national average, who tended to believe that media glorified suicide. Limitations of this study include the fact that those who respond voluntarily to a survey likely have an interest in the topic, and this might not accurately reflect the public opinion and attitude.

Designs of trials assessing interventions to improve the peer review process: a vignette-based survey

BACKGROUND

We aimed to determine the best study designs for assessing interventions to improve the peer review process according to experts' opinions. Furthermore, for interventions previously evaluated, we determined whether the study designs actually used were rated as the best study designs.

METHODS

Study design: A series of six vignette-based surveys exploring the best study designs for six different interventions (training peer reviewers, adding an expert to the peer review process, use of reporting guidelines checklists, blinding peer reviewers to the results (i.e., results-free peer review), giving incentives to peer reviewers, and post-publication peer review). Vignette construction: Vignettes were case scenarios of trials assessing interventions aimed at improving the quality of peer review. For each intervention, the vignette included the study type (e.g., randomized controlled trial [RCT]), setting (e.g., single biomedical journal), and type of manuscript assessed (e.g., actual manuscripts received by the journal); each of these three features varied between vignettes.

PARTICIPANTS

Researchers with expertise in peer review or methodology of clinical trials.

OUTCOME

Participants were proposed two vignettes describing two different study designs to assess the same intervention and had to indicate which study design they preferred on a scale, from - 5 (preference for study A) to 5 (preference for study B), 0 indicating no preference between the suggested designs (primary outcome). Secondary outcomes were trust in the results and feasibility of the designs.

RESULTS

A total of 204 experts assessed 1044 paired comparisons. The preferred study type was RCTs with randomization of manuscripts for four interventions (adding an expert, use of reporting guidelines checklist, results-free peer review, post-publication peer review) and RCTs with randomization of peer reviewers for two interventions (training peer reviewers and using incentives). The preferred setting was mainly several biomedical journals from different publishers, and the preferred type of manuscript was actual manuscripts submitted to journals. However, the most feasible designs were often cluster RCTs and interrupted time series analysis set in a single biomedical journal, with the assessment of a fabricated manuscript. Three interventions were previously assessed: none used the design rated first in preference by experts.

CONCLUSION

The vignette-based survey allowed us to identify the best study designs for assessing different interventions to improve peer review according to experts' opinion. There is gap between the preferred study designs and the designs actually used.

Publication outcome of abstracts submitted to the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting

Objective

Abstracts submitted to meetings are subject to less rigorous peer review than full-text manuscripts. This study aimed to explore the publication outcome of abstracts presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) annual meeting.

Methods

Abstracts presented at the 2008 AAO meeting were analyzed. Each presented abstract was sought via PubMed to identify if it had been published as a full-text manuscript. The publication outcome, journal impact factor (IF), and time to publication were recorded.

Results

A total of 690 abstracts were reviewed, of which 39.1% were subsequently published. They were published in journals with a median IF of 2.9 (range 0–7.2) and a median publication time of 426 days (range 0–2,133 days). A quarter were published in the journal Ophthalmology, with a shorter time to publication (median 282 vs. 534 days, p=0.003). Oral presentations were more likely to be published than poster presentations (57.8% vs. 35.9%, p<0.001) and in journals with higher IFs (3.2 vs. 2.8, p=0.02). Abstracts describing rare diseases had higher publication rates (49.4% vs. 38.0%, p=0.04) and were published in higher IF journals (3.7 vs. 2.9, p=0.03), within a shorter period of time (358 vs. 428 days, p=0.03). In multivariate analysis, affiliation with an institute located in the United States (p=0.002), abstracts describing rare diseases (p=0.03), and funded studies (p=0.03) were associated with publication in higher IF journals.

Conclusions

Almost 40% of abstracts were published. Factors that correlated with publication in journals with higher IF were a focus on rare diseases, affiliation with a US institute, and funding.

Using democracy to award research funding: an observational study

BACKGROUND

Winning funding for health and medical research usually involves a lengthy application process. With success rates under 20%, much of the time spent by 80% of applicants could have been better used on actual research. An alternative funding system that could save time is using democracy to award the most deserving researchers based on votes from the research community. We aimed to pilot how such a system could work and examine some potential biases.

METHODS

We used an online survey with a convenience sample of Australian researchers. Researchers were asked to name the 10 scientists currently working in Australia that they thought most deserved funding for future research. For comparison, we used recent winners from large national fellowship schemes that used traditional peer review.

RESULTS

Voting took a median of 5 min (inter-quartile range 3 to 10 min). Extrapolating to a national voting scheme, we estimate 599 working days of voting time (95% CI 490 to 728), compared with 827 working days for the current peer review system for fellowships. The gender ratio in the votes was a more equal 45:55 (female to male) compared with 34:66 in recent fellowship winners, although this could be explained by Simpson's paradox. Voters were biased towards their own institution, with an additional 1.6 votes per ballot (inter-quartile range 0.8 to 2.2) above the expected number. Respondents raised many concerns about the idea of using democracy to fund research, including vote rigging, lobbying and it becoming a popularity contest.

CONCLUSIONS

This is a preliminary study of using voting that does not investigate many of the concerns about how a voting system would work. We were able to show that voting would take less time than traditional peer review and would spread the workload over many more reviewers. Further studies of alternative funding systems are needed as well as a wide discussion with the research community about potential changes.

Barriers to publishing in biomedical journals perceived by a sample of French researchers: results of the DIAzePAM study

Background

As publishing is essential but competitive for researchers, difficulties in writing and submitting medical articles to biomedical journals are disabling. The DIAzePAM (Difficultés des Auteurs à la Publication d’Articles Médicaux) survey aimed to assess the difficulties experienced by researchers in the AP-HP (Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris, i.e., Paris Hospitals Board, France), the largest public health institution in Europe, when preparing articles for biomedical journals. The survey also aimed to assess researchers’ satisfaction and perceived needs.

Methods

A 39-item electronic questionnaire based on qualitative interviews was addressed by e-mail to all researchers registered in the AP-HP SIGAPS (Système d’Interrogation, de Gestion et d’Analyse des Publications Scientifiques) bibliometric database.

Results

Between 28 May and 15 June 2015, 7766 researchers should have received and read the e-mail, and 1191 anonymously completed the questionnaire (<45 years of age: 63%; women: 55%; physician: 81%; with PhD or Habilitation à Diriger des recherches––accreditation to direct research––: 45%). 94% of respondents had published at least one article in the previous 2 years. 76% of respondents felt they were not publishing enough, mainly because of lack of time to write (79%) or submit (27%), limited skills in English (40%) or in writing (32%), and difficulty in starting writing (35%). 87% of respondents would accept technical support, especially in English reediting (79%), critical reediting (63%), formatting (52%), and/or writing (41%), to save time (92%) and increase high-impact-factor journal submission and acceptance (75%). 79% of respondents would appreciate funding support for their future publications, for English reediting (56%), medical writing (21%), or publication (38%) fees. They considered that this funding support could be covered by AP-HP (73%) and/or by the added financial value obtained by their department from previous publications (56%).

Conclusions

The DIAzePAM survey highlights difficulties experienced by researchers preparing articles for biomedical journals, and details room for improvement.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12874-017-0371-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Evaluating the lexico-grammatical differences in the writing of native and non-native speakers of English in peer-reviewed medical journals in the field of pediatric oncology: Creation of the genuine index scoring system

INTRODUCTION

The predominance of English in scientific research has created hurdles for "non-native speakers" of English. Here we present a novel application of native language identification (NLI) for the assessment of medical-scientific writing. For this purpose, we created a novel classification system whereby scoring would be based solely on text features found to be distinctive among native English speakers (NS) within a given context. We dubbed this the "Genuine Index" (GI).

METHODOLOGY

This methodology was validated using a small set of journals in the field of pediatric oncology. Our dataset consisted of 5,907 abstracts, representing work from 77 countries. A support vector machine (SVM) was used to generate our model and for scoring.

RESULTS

Accuracy, precision, and recall of the classification model were 93.3%, 93.7%, and 99.4%, respectively. Class specific F-scores were 96.5% for NS and 39.8% for our benchmark class, Japan. Overall kappa was calculated to be 37.2%. We found significant differences between countries with respect to the GI score. Significant correlation was found between GI scores and two validated objective measures of writing proficiency and readability. Two sets of key terms and phrases differentiating NS and non-native writing were identified.

CONCLUSIONS

Our GI model was able to detect, with a high degree of reliability, subtle differences between the terms and phrasing used by native and non-native speakers in peer reviewed journals, in the field of pediatric oncology. In addition, L1 language transfer was found to be very likely to survive revision, especially in non-Western countries such as Japan. These findings show that even when the language used is technically correct, there may still be some phrasing or usage that impact quality.

Problems with traditional science publishing and finding a wider niche for post-publication peer review

Science affects multiple basic sectors of society. Therefore, the findings made in science impact what takes place at a commercial level. More specifically, errors in the literature, incorrect findings, fraudulent data, poorly written scientific reports, or studies that cannot be reproduced not only serve as a burden on tax-payers' money, but they also serve to diminish public trust in science and its findings. Therefore, there is every need to fortify the validity of data that exists in the science literature, not only to build trust among peers, and to sustain that trust, but to reestablish trust in the public and private academic sectors that are witnessing a veritable battle-ground in the world of science publishing, in some ways spurred by the rapid evolution of the open access (OA) movement. Even though many science journals, traditional and OA, claim to be peer reviewed, the truth is that different levels of peer review occur, and in some cases no, insufficient, or pseudo-peer review takes place. This ultimately leads to the erosion of quality and importance of science, allowing essentially anything to become published, provided that an outlet can be found. In some cases, predatory OA journals serve this purpose, allowing papers to be published, often without any peer review or quality control. In the light of an explosion of such cases in predatory OA publishing, and in severe inefficiencies and possible bias in the peer review of even respectable science journals, as evidenced by the increasing attention given to retractions, there is an urgent need to reform the way in which authors, editors, and publishers conduct the first line of quality control, the peer review. One way to address the problem is through post-publication peer review (PPPR), an efficient complement to traditional peer-review that allows for the continuous improvement and strengthening of the quality of science publishing. PPPR may also serve as a way to renew trust in scientific findings by correcting the literature. This article explores what is broadly being said about PPPR in the literature, so as to establish awareness and a possible first-tier prototype for the sciences for which such a system is undeveloped or weak.

Statement on Publication Ethics for Editors and Publishers

The digitization and related developments in journal editing and publishing necessitate increasing the awareness of all stakeholders of science communication in the emerging global problems and possible solutions. Journal editors and publishers are frequently encountered with the fast-growing problems of authorship, conflicts of interest, peer review, research misconduct, unethical citations, and inappropriate journal impact metrics. While the number of erroneous and unethical research papers and wasteful, or 'predatory', journals is increasing exponentially, responsible editors are urged to 'clean' the literature by correcting or retracting related articles. Indexers are advised to implement measures for accepting truly influential and ethical journals and delisting sources with predatory publishing practices. Updating knowledge and skills of authors, editors and publishers, developing and endorsing recommendations of global editorial associations, and (re)drafting journal instructions can be viewed as potential tools for improving ethics of academic journals. The aim of this Statement is to increase awareness of all stakeholders of science communication of the emerging ethical issues in journal editing and publishing and initiate a campaign of upgrading and enforcing related journal instructions.

Ensuring the Quality, Fairness, and Integrity of Journal Peer Review: A Possible Role of Editors

A growing body of literature has identified potential problems that can compromise the quality, fairness, and integrity of journal peer review, including inadequate review, inconsistent reviewer reports, reviewer biases, and ethical transgressions by reviewers. We examine the evidence concerning these problems and discuss proposed reforms, including double-blind and open review. Regardless of the outcome of additional research or attempts at reforming the system, it is clear that editors are the linchpin of peer review, since they make decisions that have a significant impact on the process and its outcome. We consider some of the steps editors should take to promote quality, fairness and integrity in different stages of the peer review process and make some recommendations for editorial conduct and decision-making.

Peer Review Quality and Transparency of the Peer-Review Process in Open Access and Subscription Journals

Background

Recent controversies highlighting substandard peer review in Open Access (OA) and traditional (subscription) journals have increased the need for authors, funders, publishers, and institutions to assure quality of peer-review in academic journals. I propose that transparency of the peer-review process may be seen as an indicator of the quality of peer-review, and develop and validate a tool enabling different stakeholders to assess transparency of the peer-review process.

Methods and Findings

Based on editorial guidelines and best practices, I developed a 14-item tool to rate transparency of the peer-review process on the basis of journals’ websites. In Study 1, a random sample of 231 authors of papers in 92 subscription journals in different fields rated transparency of the journals that published their work. Authors’ ratings of the transparency were positively associated with quality of the peer-review process but unrelated to journal’s impact factors. In Study 2, 20 experts on OA publishing assessed the transparency of established (non-OA) journals, OA journals categorized as being published by potential predatory publishers, and journals from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Results show high reliability across items (α = .91) and sufficient reliability across raters. Ratings differentiated the three types of journals well. In Study 3, academic librarians rated a random sample of 140 DOAJ journals and another 54 journals that had received a hoax paper written by Bohannon to test peer-review quality. Journals with higher transparency ratings were less likely to accept the flawed paper and showed higher impact as measured by the h5 index from Google Scholar.

Conclusions

The tool to assess transparency of the peer-review process at academic journals shows promising reliability and validity. The transparency of the peer-review process can be seen as an indicator of peer-review quality allowing the tool to be used to predict academic quality in new journals.

Open, single-blind, double-blind: which peer review process do you prefer?

BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology was created from the merger of two journals within the BMC series published by BioMed Central: BMC Pharmacology and BMC Clinical Pharmacology. BMC Pharmacology operated anonymous peer review whereas BMC Clinical Pharmacology operated a fully open peer review policy where the identity of the reviewers was known to the editors, authors and readers. The merged journal also adopted a fully open peer review policy. Two years on we discuss the views and experiences of our Editorial Board Members towards open peer review on this biomedical journal.