Peer-to-peer

I am puzzled by the "open-review" concept. Once posted for open review, the information within the manuscript is no longer confidential. What happens if the manuscript is rejected? Confidentiality is lost, and the author has no published citation?

In response to Dr Leibovich: you are right to say that confidentiality has been lost, but if the manuscript is rejected, it is removed from the website and hence is no longer visible. Many journals, Nature included, allow authors to post preprints before formal submission, so most journals would not exclude a paper from consideration because it has previously been posted on a community preprint server.
Please see our list of frequently asked questions at http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/faq.html for more details. If you have further questions after reading this page, you can contact me by email at the address given there.

I do strongly support the "open-review" concept because of own experience with shortcomings of the peer review procedure in my research field astronomy. Usually papers are sent to experienced researchers in the field, which will thoroughly evaluate the scientific content but might not be familiar with details such as particular observational techniques. These are best evaluated by people working on the same topic (doing the same kind of observations), which might be young researchers and even graduate students. The "open-review" concept would allow comments on specific aspects of the paper reviewed, which can then be taken into account properly by the peer reviewers. As a side-effect preprint servers might not longer be needed.

Publication in a peer reviwed journal sometimes depends on the personal contacts of the corresponding author with the editor or members of the editorial board.
Some journals, even those with high impact factors, ask submitting authors to suggest the names of reviewers, a practice I believe to be ridiculous as people would provide the names of their friends or other people who would be positive about the paper.
Vasudeva S. P.
Research student,
Karnataka, India.

One issue that is not dealt with fully in the FAQ's is the consequences for the author if they choose open review and the MS is rejected. It is true that many journals allow MSS to be posted on a personal website without considering this prior publication. However, it seems entirely a different animal to have the MS posted on a publisher's website to which people can subscribe. Speaking as the Chair of the Publications Committee of the American Physiological Society, we would likely consider papers that opt for this experiment as having previously been published based on our current policies (http://www.the-aps.org/publications/journals/apsethic.htm).

Thank you, Dr Barrett, for your comment. At Nature we do not exclude a submission if it has been previously posted on a preprint server: our guide to authors at http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/policy/index.html#a5 states "Contributions submitted to, in press with or published in Nature must not be posted on any web site, except for preprints posted on recognized preprint servers (such as ArXiv) where this is community practice. The server concerned must be identified to the editor in the cover letter accompanying submission of the paper, and the content of the paper must not be advertised to the media by virtue of being on the preprint server, as explained fully in Nature."
When considering whether to post their submission on the Nature preprint server, authors would be best advised to think about which journal they would send their manuscript to if declined by Nature, and to check out that journal's policy on preprints before making their decision about whether to post it on the Nature server. We will advise authors accordingly.
Thank you for pointing this out.

One interesting thing about Nature's policy about prepring servers is that:"This policy does not extend to preprints available to the media or that are otherwise publicised before or during the submission and consideration process at Nature". ArXiv and even Nature's current trial are clearly very visible to anyone, including the media. Will this part of the policy change ?

In response to Dr Beltrao. Nature has no current plans to change its policy on preprint servers. We are aware that preprint servers such as ArXiv are available to the media, but as things stand we consider for publication, and publish, many papers that have been posted on it, and on other community preprint servers.
As long as the authors have not actively sought out media coverage before submission and publication in Nature, we are happy to consider their work. Nature recognises, and has always recognised, the importance of community feedback in preparing a paper, so we are very happy for researchers to obtain this feedback via preprint servers, scientific meetings and so on, before submission.
We advise authors whose work is picked up by the media via these methods or in other similar ways not to respond to journalists' enquiries if the author is considering submission to Nature.
Many other journals have similar policies.
Many thanks for your question.
Best wishes
Maxine.

The very concept of making publications a yardstick of scientific prowess is flawed. This single criteria has undermined the true spirit of science. Almost everybody in science knows that publishing a paper involves a lot many skills than just doing good benchwork based on excellent ideas.
There have been instances where high quality science was published in obscure journals.
Peer review could be helpful in reaching an endpoint but not in deciding an endpoint which unfortunately is 'publishing a paper' for most of the scientists, especially the young ones. There is an immense pressure to publish even at the cost of sacrificing long term interests.Papers, grants, positions, more papers ....has not been a productive cycle.