This initiative shares a vision of an independent, democratic academic evaluation model free from the conflicts of interest imposed by the agendas of journals and their commercial publishers. It aims to promote complementary strategies to comprise the ingredients needed to attain this goal and to encourage scholars and interested parties to experiment with new modes that can assist the transition to free, independent, open and transparent peer review. In addition, it considers that any platform developed to implement free and open peer review should be independent of intermediaries. To mitigate potential conflicts of interest such platforms should ideally be under the management of an open community, be open source and operate in a non-profit manner.
Richard D. Morey, Christopher D. Chambers, Peter J. Etchells, Christine R. Harris, Rink Hoekstra, Daniel Lakens, Stephan Lewandowsky, Candice Coker Morey, Daniel P. Newman, Felix D. Schonbrodt, Wolf Vanpaemel, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Rolf A. Zwaan
Openness is one of the central values of science. Open scientific practices such as sharing data, materials and analysis scripts alongside published articles have many benefits, including easier replication and extension studies, increased availability of data for theory-building and meta-analysis, and increased possibility of review and collaboration even after a paper has been published. Although modern information technology makes sharing easier than ever before, uptake of open practices had been slow. We suggest this might be in part due to a social dilemma arising from misaligned incentives and propose a specific, concrete mechanism—reviewers withholding comprehensive review—to achieve the goal of creating the expectation of open practices as a matter of scientific principle.
Openness and transparency are core values of science. As a manifestation of those values, a minimum requirement for publication of any scientific results must be the public submission of materials used in generating those results. As reviewers, it is our responsibility to ensure that publications meet certain minimum quality standards.
https://opennessinitiative.org/
Adrian Mulligan, Louise Hall, Ellen Raphael
This large-scale international study measures the attitudes of more than 4,000 researchers toward peer review. In 2009, 40,000 authors of research papers from across the globe were invited to complete an online survey. Researchers were asked to rate a number of general statements about peer review, and then a subset of respondents, who had themselves peer reviewed, rated a series of statements concerning their experience of peer review. The study found that the peer review process is highly regarded by the vast majority of researchers and considered by most to be essential to the communication of scholarly research. Nine out of 10 authors believe that peer review improved the last paper they published. Double-blind peer review is considered the most effective form of peer review. Nearly three quarters of researchers think that technological advances are making peer review more effective. Most researchers believe that although peer review should identify fraud, it is very difficult for it to do so. Reviewers are committed to conducting peer review in the future and believe that simple practical steps, such as training new reviewers would further improve peer review.
M. Ware, M. Monkman
This global survey reports on the attitudes and behaviour of 3040 academics in relation to peer review in journals. Peer review is seen as an essential component of scholarly communication, the mechanism that facilitates the publication of primary research in academic journals. Although sometimes thought of as an essential part of the journal, it is only since the second world war that peer review has been institutionalised in the form we know it today. More recently it has come under criticism on a number of fronts: it has been said that it is unreliable, unfair and fails to validate or authenticate; that it is unstandardised and idiosyncratic; that its secrecy leads to irresponsibility on the part of reviewers; that it stifles innovation; that it causes delay in publication; and so on. Perhaps the strongest criticism is that there is a lack of evidence that peer review actually works, and a lack of evidence to indicate whether the documented failings are rare exceptions or the tip of an
iceberg.
