Improvements on the Scientific Review Process?

myc asks: "A recent story has discussed the pros and cons of the publishing end of scientific literature, but what about the review end? I work in biology and recently have run into a slew of frustrations trying to get my work published. For instance, one really frustrating thing is, because of the need to keep the reviewers' identify confidential, communication between authors and reviewers is essentially one-way via the editorial office. When the reviewers encounter something that might be confusing to them in the manuscript, they take it as a negative, when really a very simple explanation from the authors would clear it up. After all, its the scientific content, not 1337 wr171ng skillz that is being reviewed. What are some of the frustrations you have come across when trying to publish your work, and have you any ideas on how to improve on the review process?"

"Another really frustrating point is many people feel that some papers are accepted on the basis of the reputation of the senior author and not purely on scientific merit (i.e., the burden of proof is lessened for established scientists), while the opposite is true for younger investigators (i.e., the burden of proof for novel findings may be higher, sometimes unreasonably so). One's scientific pedigree also helps, to a certain extent (if you trained with a big name, you are more likely to get published).

In the examples above, 2-way communication via anonymous email between the authors and reviewers might solve this particular problem; also, I think that if the identities of the reviewers are protected, why not the authors? Perhaps a solution to my second issue would be to have the author's names hidden from the reviewers until after the review process is complete."

Comments

Not much to be done

[Compuser]

1. If anything I think anonimity of reviewers needs
to be strengthened. Currently, you can guess who
your reviewer is by the style of response, what
issues the person raises etc. This allows the
submitter to taylor response to the reviewer, i.e.
it becomes a game of salesmanship. This is hard to
fix but the point I am making is that it should
go the other way: less personal more objective.

2. Scientific logic is that it is better to not
publish than publish something uncertain. So the
assinine reviewers are the price you pay for a
working peer review system. Ain't nuthin you can
do about it, much like getting off on a technicality
is a feature of our justice system.

3. There are so many journals that the issue of
stupid or stubborn reviewers should not deter a
good paper from being published, you just have to
try a few times. It is also possible to publish
your work in conference proceedings where the
review is a lot more lax. In short, insofar as we
ignore the career-building aspect of publishing
in a prestigeous journal, a good paper can be made
public in so many ways as to be almost
irrepressible.

4. If your goal is career-building, then you have
to deal with gatekeepers, no matter what the
system. I suspect the current system is not too
bad.