Peer-to-peer

The Editorial 'Working double-blind' (Nature 451, 605–606; 2008), also republished on this blog and stimulating more than 70 comments, referred to a study (1) that found more female first-author papers were published using a double-blind, rather than a single-blind, peer-review system. The data reported in ref. 1 have now been re-examined (2). The conclusion of ref. 1, that Behavioral Ecology published more papers with female first authors after switching to a double-blind peer-review system, is not in dispute. However, ref. 2 reports that other similar ecology journals that have single-blind peer-review systems also increased in female first-author papers over the same time period. After re-examining the analyses, Nature has concluded that ref. 1 can no longer be said to offer compelling evidence of a role for gender bias in single-blind peer review. In addition, upon closer examination of the papers listed in PubMed on gender bias and peer review, we cannot find other strong studies that support this claim. Thus, we no longer stand by the statement in the fourth paragraph of the Editorial, that double-blind peer review reduces bias against authors with female first names.
References
1. Budden, A. E. et al . Trends Ecol. Evol. 23, 4–6 (2008).
2. Webb, T. J. , O'Hara, B. & Freckleton, R. P. Trends Ecol. Evol. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2008.03.003 (2008).

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 05, 2008
Categories: Ethics, Quality and value, Systems | Permalink | Comments (2)

From Nature 452; 677; 2008:
A federal magistrate in Massachusetts last week ruled that The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) does not have to comply with a subpoena issued by Pfizer forcing the journal to provide confidential peer-review documents related to the painkillers Celebrex (celecoxib) and Bextra (valdecoxib).
The drug firm had tried to compel the journal to hand over peer reviews and internal editorial discussions for 11 papers on the painkillers. It argued that these would help it defend the arthritis drugs in lawsuits alleging that they caused heart attacks and strokes (see Nature 452, 6–7 ; 2008 and this post on Spoonful of Medicine blog).
In his 12-page opinion, Leo Sorokin wrote that the material Pfizer sought seemed relevant on first examination, but that “NEJM's interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the peer-review process is a very significant one … and tip[s] the scales in favor of the NEJM" .
The judgement comes three weeks after an Illinois judge ruled against Pfizer after it issued almost identical subpoenas to The Journal of the American Medical Association and Archives of Internal Medicine.
The Nature journals' guidelines for reviewers state: "Reviewers should be aware that it is our policy to keep their names confidential, and that we do our utmost to ensure this confidentiality. Under normal circumstances, blind peer-review is protected from legislation. We cannot, however, guarantee to maintain this confidentiality in the face of a successful legal action to disclose identity in the event of a reviewer having written personally derogatory comments about the authors in his or her reports. For this reason as well as for reasons of standard professional courtesy, we request reviewers to refrain from personally negative comments about the authors of submitted manuscripts. Frank comments about the scientific content of the manuscripts, however, are strongly encouraged by the editors."
We are advised that if peer-reviewers follow this advice, it would be extremely unlikely that there could be legal grounds to force their identities to be revealed.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on April 11, 2008
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Nature Neuroscience is joining a consortium of journals that enables reviews to be transferred from one journal to another, while allowing authors, referees and editors to control their degree of participation in the system flexibly. The reasons for the decision are explained in this month's (April) Editorial (Nat. Neurosci. 11, 375; 2008). Briefly, in January, a group of editors, supported by the Society for Neuroscience, implemented a system for transfer of submitted manuscripts between journals that allows voluntary participation by authors, referees and editors, known as the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium. This consortium reduces the overall reviewing workload of the community by allowing authors to continue the initial review process when their paper moves from one consortium journal to another, once the paper has been rejected or withdrawn from the first journal. This arrangement is similar to the manuscript transfer system that has been available within the Nature family of journals , and all the other journals published by Nature Publishing Group, for almost a decade.
The neuroscience transfer system, described in detail in the Editorial and at the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium website, is voluntary for authors and peer-reviewers. Journal editors have full discretion in deciding how to use transferred reviews. The receiving editor may choose to accept or reject a paper based on these reviews, without further consideration; to send the paper to some or all of the previous referees for evaluation of the authors' revisions; or to request a fresh set of reviews from new referees. Only comments to the authors are transferred to the receiving journal. Confidential comments to the editors are not passed along. Thus, to ensure transparency in the review process, both at Nature Neuroscience and at other journals after the paper has been transferred, journal editors encourage referees to include all their concerns about the paper in comments to the authors. According to the Nature Neuroscience Editorial, the small amount of extra time required to phrase comments diplomatically for the authors should be more than counterbalanced by the resulting improvement in the peer-review process.
Many members of the community have strong views on the issue of confidential comments, which can be found on the Action Potential blog, and which has previously been discussed at Peer to Peer. The success of the neuroscience journals' transfer system will be evaluated at the end of this year. Nature Neuroscience editors will also be evaluating the journal's participation on an ongoing basis, so they encourage authors, referees and readers to share their comments with the editors, either on Action Potential blog or privately by e-mail.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 31, 2008
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Much attention is being given to a Commentary in the current issue of Nature (Nature 451, 379-399; 2008), A tale of two citations, some of which I have attempted to encapsulate in this Nautilus post, for those interested. Although the issues immediately concern a possible increase in duplicate publication and plagiarism, as detected by software systems and database searches, peer reviewers are an integral part of the check/balance procedures that journals use. For this reason, I thought it well worth highlighting here the comment by Brian Derby at the Nature Network forum currently discussing these questions. Part of Dr Derby's response:

"As a referee I have identified duplicate or severely overlapping content while reviewing papers in the past (for reasonably high profile/impact factor journals). I do not search for duplication routinely but, as someone who is used to referee papers in particular niche areas, I received both papers in one instance and in another I had read an on-line pre-pub before receiving the duplicate. The authors will not be named as that would break referee confidentiality but they were from well known institutions in the developed world.
What was the common factor (apart from the paper!) – the authors were relatively junior new appointments. Younger academics seem to feel themselves under a lot of pressure to publish. In my department I believe that my younger colleagues are much more sensitive to impact factor than is possibly healthy when they consider where to publish an article."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on January 28, 2008
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Double-blind peer review, in which neither author nor reviewer identity are revealed, was introduced by the journal Behavioral Ecology in 2001. Amber E. Budden et al., in an article published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution this month (Trends Ecol. Evol. 23, 4-6; 2008) report "a significant increase in female first-authored papers" compared with a similar journal, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. From the authors' conclusions:
"A difference of 7.9% in the proportion of female first-authored papers following the implementation of double-blind review in BE is three times greater than the recorded increase in female ecology graduates in the USA across the same time period and represents a 33% increase in the representation of female authors. Furthermore, this increased representation of female authors more accurately reflects the (US) life sciences academic workforce composition, which is 37% female.
The consequences of this shift could extend beyond publications. If females are less successful in publishing research on account of their gender, then given the current practices associated with appointment and tenure, and the need for women dramatically to out-compete their male counterparts to be perceived as equal [C. Wenneras and A. Wold, Nepotism and sexism in peer-review, Nature 387 341–343; 1997] any such publication bias impedes the progress of women to more advanced professional stages."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on January 21, 2008
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Following on from my Peer to Peer post of a couple of weeks ago "How not to mix politics and science", I note (via Action Potential) that on 5 December, Daniel M. Cook et al. reported a highly relevant study in PLOS One 2(12): e1266. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001266 .
Cook et al. analysed 1,152 most-searched newspaper stories. They found that "funders of the research were identified in 38% of stories, financial ties of the researchers were reported in 11% of stories, and 5% reported financial ties of sources quoted. Of 73 stories not reporting on financial ties, 27% had financial ties publicly disclosed in scholarly journals." The authors note that many journals themselves do not require authors and reviewers to declare competing interests , and that journalists work under many different constraints, but firmly conclude that "news reports of scientific research were incomplete, potentially eroding public trust in science."
In his discussion of this work, Noah Gray of Action Potential writes: "Science journalism plays an enormous part in public opinion, which influences the actions of politicians (sometimes), who have some power to control major chunks of research funding. Therefore, public trust and respect are essential for the long-term growth and stability of scientific funding, especially from the government. So let's have the press play their part both in providing full disclosure and refraining from publishing scientifically-dubious (but headline-grabbing) stories, leaving the "spin" for the politicians."
The Nature journals' competing interests policy is here, at our authors' and peer-reviewers' website. We state:
"In the interests of transparency and to help readers to form their own judgements of potential bias, Nature journals require the authors of most articles to declare any competing financial interests in relation to the work described, by sending the author a form to complete and sign before publication of the article.
In cases where the authors declare a competing financial interest, a short statement to that effect is published as part of the printed article, with a more detailed version available online. If no such statement is present in the article, the authors have declared to the editors of the journal that they do not have any competing financial interests."
However, for peer-reviewers: "The Nature journals invite peer-reviewers to exclude themselves in cases where there is a significant conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. However, just as financial interests need not invalidate the conclusions of an article, nor do they automatically disqualify an individual from evaluating it. We ask peer-reviewers to inform the editors of any related interests, including financial interests as defined above, that might be perceived as relevant. Editors will consider these statements when weighing reviewers' recommendations."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on December 12, 2007
Categories: Ethics | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a blaze of colour on the 11 November 'op-ed' (invited opinion) page of The New York Times, some scientists proclaimed that, based on analysis of brain-imaging data from just a handful of swing voters, they had divined what the rest of the undecided masses truly think about the upcoming US presidential elections. Apparently just asking them was simply not good enough.

So opens an Editorial in the current issue of Nature (450, 457; 2007), which goes on to describe how the authors of the New York Times piece used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the subjects' brains while looking at pictures of candidates. The Nature Editorial goes on:

"The op-ed work has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and the article is self-evidently too insubstantial in scientific detail to assess the strength of either the methods or the data. A group of cognitive neuroscientists was swift to object to its conclusions — which veer close to a modern-day phrenology — in a response to The New York Times.
The results described in the op-ed are apparently the claims of a commercial product posing as a scientific study. This is only partially transparent. Three of the authors list their affiliation with FKF Applied Research, a company based in Washington DC that is notorious for using similar brain-scan analysis to conclude which TV adverts aired during a major sporting event were most effective. In its own words, the company is a "business intelligence firm selling fMRI brain scan-based research to Fortune 500 companies".
Articles on The New York Times op-ed pages are opinionated by definition, and shouldn't normally require peer review. But here, the paper's editors have instead published the results of (to put it mildly) questionable scientific research, disseminating this information to millions of their readers who may not have the background to recognize for themselves the absurdity of some of the authors' conclusions.
Although it is a gross disservice to science and indeed to politics, it is a great deal for the company. Scientific publication would have required the authors to divulge their data and qualify their assumptions — and some journals might even have required that they declare their financial interests. Whatever the motives, seducing The New York Times' editors with the allure of Technicolor brains lighting up with Hillary Clinton angst yielded no more or less than a multimedia advertisement for the company's product to millions of readers."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on November 26, 2007
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Via Action Potential:
The Neuroscience Peer-Review Consortium is an imaginative alliance of neuroscience journals whose goal is to "support efficient and thorough peer review of original research in neuroscience, speed the publication of research reports, and reduce the burden on peer reviewers." Any journal that is indexed in Medline and that publishes neuroscience research is invited to join. From January 2008, If a manuscript is not accepted by one journal in the consortium, the authors can submit their manuscript to a second consortium journal and have the reviews from the first journal forwarded to the second journal. This system is similar to the manuscript transfer system operated by the journals of Nature Publishing Group, but is subject- rather than publisher-specific.
A list of the journals that are participating so far can be seen here; further details about the consortium are here.
In a post discussing this initiative, Noah Gray of Action Potential (the Nature Neuroscience blog) explains that "many journals provide the opportunity not only to include a review of the manuscript for the authors, but also to communicate any additional feelings or opinions directly to the editors with confidence that the authors will not see these comments." To join the consortium, journals will have to stop using the "confidential comments to the editor" system. Noah asks his readers for their opinions as authors and reviewers of this proposal, and at time of writing this post, 30 people have replied.
One reviewer states: "I have consistently refused to place any information in the "confidential comments to the editors" review box. This is because I feel strongly that this means of communication is inherently suspect and open to abuse. In my opinion, every least communication between the editors and the reviewers should be available to the authors. Moreover, I feel that the authors must be given the right to respond to any criticism of their work. It is simply not fair to allow confidential comments to determine editorial decisions without this ability to respond."
Another reviewer, however, differs in finding a 'confidential comments' section "useful if you want to tell the editor that the paper is great, but would benefit greatly from a new analysis or new presentation style. In other words, if the author thinks you love the paper, they're less likely to agree to work on changes.
Thinking about it more, it seems as if confidential comments might be very useful in the event the referee knows about a conflict of interest, knows about conflicting data from the same lab that exists but is not in the manuscript, or knows of similar work in another lab. I've never had this experience, but I imagine it will happen sooner or later.
Why does the consortium plan insist on the absence of confidential comments? Presumably, if the author determines whether or not old reviews are to be considered, he will make that decision based on whether the reviews were good or bad. I don't see how he is helped or hurt by the exclusion of confidential comments."
There is a very thoughtful discussion at Action Potential, including some explanation from the consortium's working group, raising many pros and cons of confidential comments, to which we invite you to contribute.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on November 20, 2007
Categories: Ethics | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mark Henderson in The Times yesterday (25 October 2007, page 36) reported the results of a survey of 204 researchers drawn from all levels in science, from the heads of major institutions to postdoctoral researchers and PhD candidates, concluding that "excessive regulation of science is damaging public confidence in research by creating a misleading impression that most of it is dangerous or ethically dubious."
According to the Institutue of Ideas survey, scientists feel that strict laws covering experiments on animals, embryos and human tissue have a negative, rather than positive, effect on public perceptions of their work. The study will be discussed on Sunday 28 October as part of the Battle of Ideas festival, sponsored by The Times, at the Royal College of Art, London (tickets available via the link). There is a long list of speakers, from all walks of life including science, the arts, politics and journalism, which can be seen at this page. Other scientific topics to be discussed include climate change, particle physics, and the teaching of evolution.
The Battle of Ideas festival describes itself as "An initiative to bring together different strands of social, political, scientific, academic and cultural discussion into an annual festival." The survey will be debated in the session "What are the barriers to science in the 21st century?" Tony Gilland, of the Institute of Ideas, who organised the survey, told The Times: “If we really want value for money from publicly funded scientists then we have to be willing to allow them to pursue their curiosity and see what comes of it. A scientist’s peers are best placed to judge whether their work is excellent or mediocre. Today the mark of a ‘good’ scientist seems to be all about whether they are prepared to doff their cap to the externally imposed constraints of ethics committees and regulators or the Government’s demands for short-term economic or social benefits from their work.”

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 26, 2007
Categories: Ethics, Policy and Public | Permalink | Comments (3)

Leonard H. Glantz of the Boston University School of Public Health writes in Nature's Correspondence page (Nature 449, 139; 2007):
Your News Feature 'Trial and error', on the problems with research ethics committees designed to establish whether a proposed experiment is ethically sound (Nature 448, 530–532; 2007), presents avoidance of liability and the desire to retain power as the main reasons why institutions favour local control over centralized review. But institutions are ethically, not just legally, responsible for what happens to human subjects under their care.
Research is a suspect activity designed to advance knowledge, not benefit individuals. This does not denigrate its importance but rather reminds us why experiments involving humans are regulated differently from other kinds of research, and more heavily.
If a central institutional review board says it's fine to enrol patients into a project, this does not mean that the institution involved can ignore its obligation to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects in its facility. Any institution that outsources its ethical responsibilities towards subjects should not be allowed to conduct research on human beings.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on September 14, 2007
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From a Correspondence in this week's Nature (448, 129; 12 July 2007)
Much emphasis has been put on the importance of policies that require authors to be transparent about financial conflicts of interest. Nature, for example, requires most authors to submit a declaration of any competing financial interests in relation to the work described in a submitted article. The reason why journals have these policies is, presumably, to safeguard the objectivity of the research. Transparency is thought to promote objectivity because if readers are aware of potential financial conflicts, they can critically evaluate the ways in which such interests may have affected the research — for example, in the selection of evidence, interpretation of results, or research methodology.
Yet transparency is insufficient as a safeguard of objectivity. Scientific expertise is necessary to correctly evaluate whether conflicts have biased the research, yet financial conflicts are revealed only when an article is published. This prevents peer-reviewers — who are in the best position to evaluate the possible influence of the conflicts on interest — from having access to the information. Thus, it is not clear to us how revealing financial interests in a statement accompanying publication of an article can allow readers to make accurate assessments of bias.
In addition, these policies foster an abrogation of scientific responsibility by the research community, because they put the burden of critical evaluation on the public, who in the main are not scientifically knowledgeable at a detailed level. This aspect is of particular concern for papers in journals such as Nature, which are likely to be widely disseminated to the public by the media. Even if biases are identified after publication and a correction made, such criticisms tend not to be publicized to the same extent as the original article.
If the aim of conflict-of-interest policies is to promote objectivity and inform readers and the public, we believe a more effective approach would be for authors to be required to reveal possible financial competing interests, not only to the public after publication, but also to reviewers during the peer-review process.
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín
Weill Cornell Medical College, New York
Kristen Intemann
Montana State University, Montana

Note from the editors: Nature’s policy is to ask peer-reviewers to exclude themselves in cases where there is a significant conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. We do not reveal authors' competing interest declarations to peer-reviewers while the manuscript is under consideration.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on July 11, 2007
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The ethics of journalism don't work for science | comment | EducationGuardian.co.uk

Professor (of philosophy) Jonathan Wolff describes (in the article at the above link) hearing a lecture and reading a subsequent published article in a scientific journal (Science) by Professor Naomi Oreskes. Prof Oreskes surveyed hundreds of peer-reviewed articles on climate change, none of which "denied that the Earth was warming or that human action was at least partially responsible." The sceptics, she argued, were largely members of independent think-tanks, publishing their own reports without external review.
Yet when Prof Oreskes published her article, writes Prof Wolff, she "was immediately shot down by bloggers, journalists and think-tankers, who mixed insults about her honesty with more plausible-sounding complaints about her methodology. Oreskes replied, with great restraint, that she would wait for the peer-reviewed criticisms."
His observation led Prof Wolff to contrast journalistic and scientific ethics. In reporting political arguments, each claim must be countered so that a lively debate can take place and readers come to their own views, he writes. Journalists are mistaken in applying the same ethical code of 'balance' to scientific reporting. "Whenever a story on climate change is produced, a maverick nay-sayer is rolled out for the sake of balance. But this misleads the public into thinking that a few lone voices have equal weight to the scientific orthodoxy." Prof Wolf also provides the example of the few people who deny a role for HIV in AIDS, yet make a disproportionate amount of noise.
Can non-scientists understand scientific discussions, asks Wolff? "We all study science for a few years, but learn - or at least remember - very little about methodology. Science is presented as a body of known truths. As adults, though, we need to know not the atomic number of chlorine, but how to assess evidence for or against a theory."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on July 03, 2007
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Adventures in Ethics and Science: Why wouldn't this be a good way to do peer review?

At the link above is discussion on the Adventures of Ethics and Science blog about the possible benefit of a peer-review system in which the peer-reviewers are scientists paid to reproduce the experiments being reported in the submitted study. Janet D. Stemwedel asks:

Aside from the concern that the journals would need to find money to create and support (with lab space, materials, etc.) these positions -- which might well raise the price of journals beyond where they are already (or raise operating costs for open access journals) -- are there obvious reasons that a plan like this would be a bad idea?

Posted by Maxine Clarke on May 15, 2007
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Shaping the Message, Distorting the Science - Center for Media and Democracy

Sheldon Rampton, Research Director of the Center for Media and Democracy, is testifying today (28 March) before the US House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology in a hearing entitled "Shaping the Message, Distorting the Science: Media Strategies to Influence Science Policy." Mr Rampton's written testimony is available here, and a webcast of the hearing is available here. Mr Rampton discusses the reliability of scientific knowledge, and the way in which it has been, and is, used as a tool to manipulate public opinion. He provides some examples of cases in which industries (such as the tobacco and petroleum industries) have undermined the journal peer-review process, and concludes:

"The manipulation of science for public relations or political advantage inevitably has a corrupting effect on science itself. It undermines the integrity and objectivity of scientific research. It creates confusion in the minds of policymakers and the general public. What is needed, therefore, is greater public transparency regarding the sponsorship of science and of organizations that claim to speak on scientific matters. The public and policymakers have a right and to know who is funding research, what strings are attached to that funding, and how it may be affecting the information we use to make decisions—especially decisions on policy matters that affect us all."

Rampton has authored numerous articles, commentaries and books (with John Stauber) on the subject of this testimony ,including Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future ; and Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry.

See here for the website of "Shaping the message, distorting the science": US House of Representatives.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 28, 2007
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The editors of the Annals of Internal Medicine announce a new policy on reproducibility of research findings in the current (20 March) issue of the journal. From the summary:

"A community of scientists arrives at the truth by independently verifying new observations. In this time-honored process, journals serve 2 principal functions: evaluative and editorial. In their evaluative function, they winnow out research that is unlikely to stand up to independent verification; this task is accomplished by peer review. In their editorial function, they try to ensure transparent (by which we mean clear, complete, and unambiguous) and objective descriptions of the research. Both the evaluative and editorial functions go largely unnoticed by the public—the former only draws public attention when a journal publishes fraudulent research."

The article goes on to discuss the existing strategies used by the journal to guard against publication of invalid or biased research, and announces new policies to increase confidence in published research. "Every original research article will include a statement that indicates whether the study protocol, data, or statistical code is available to readers and under what terms authors will share this information. Sharing will not be mandatory, but we will require authors to state whether they are willing to share the protocol, data, or statistical code."

The Nature journals' policy on availablity of materials is described at our Author and Referees' website.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 20, 2007
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In response to recent cases of image manipulation, the Nature family of journals is now 'spot-checking' images from randomly chosen papers. The March issue of Nature Immunology contains an editorial, "Spot checks", about the problems, and about how the Nature journals are dealing with them. From the editorial:

"The advent of Photoshop and other imaging software has changed the landscape considerably, making it very easy, and perhaps tempting, to modify images. To a degree, this stems from a 'generation gap' between older scientists, who do not necessarily understand the possibilities of imaging software, and younger scientists, who acquire the original data and prepare the images for publication.

What constitutes unacceptable data manipulation? Moving, adding, removing, enhancing or obscuring features or sections of an image clearly count. 'Cleaning up' background or removing 'nonspecific' bands from a gel may seem innocent enough, but such changes may in fact alter useful information. To help ensure that all data figures are truly representative of the research, Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and other scientific publishers such as Rockefeller University Press and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have instituted new guidelines in an attempt to eliminate inappropriate image manipulations."

The full text of this editorial is available at the Nature Immunology website, and via the Author and Referees' website's "Image integrity" page. This web page explains the Nature journals' policies and procedures, as well as providing links to all our journals' editorials on the topic. We welcome comments and suggestions from our peer-reviewers and other scientists.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 16, 2007
Categories: Ethics | Permalink | Comments (1)

In their Correspondence "Journals should set a new standard in transparency", published in today's Nature, Robert P. Dellavalle, Kristy Lundahl, Scott R. Freeman and Lisa M. Schilling write:

We applaud your commitment, as expressed in the Editorial "Peer review and fraud" (Nature 444, 971–972; doi:10.1038/444971b 2006), to raising peer-reviewer awareness about detecting fraud. For studies involving humans, independent research ethics committees (in the United States, institutional review boards) provide the first independent critical scrutiny of research protocols. We recently examined the instructions to authors of 103 medical journals and found that none requires authors to provide to readers (as online supplementary information accompanying the publication) the protocols approved by these committees.

As concern increases about the integrity of published scientific research, we believe that biomedical journals should establish a new standard in human-research transparency. They should require authors to state at submission — and, where judged necessary, in their published articles — that the research has been approved by the relevant ethical committees. All journals publishing research on non-human animals ("Animal experiments under fire for poor design" Nature 444, 981; 2006) should do the same for non-human animal protocols.

Journals should also require authors to provide the full protocols approved by these committees for the editors and peer reviewers, and to allow the journal, if it wishes, to publish these protocols as online supplementary information accompanying publication of the main paper.
From: Nature 445, 364 (25 January 2007) | doi:10.1038/445364a; Published online 24 January 2007
We welcome comments on this proposal.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on January 25, 2007
Categories: Ethics | Permalink | Comments (1)

At Nautilus, the blog for authors, I've posted about competing interest statements in scientific papers. I've asked there what scientists think of this practice as authors. But what about when the scientists are peer-reviewers? Does it make a difference to you, when you are reviewing a paper, to know that the author has taken out a patent on the discovery or has shares in a spinoff company? Do peer-reviewers judge the scientific results independently of these declarations, or does it make a difference to the level of scrutiny they apply to the work? The Nature journal editors would like to hear about the reviewers' perspective, via your comments to this post.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on December 19, 2006
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The Council of Scientific Editors (CSE) yesterday (7 December 2006) published a guide to "promoting integrity in scientific journals". This document aims to guide editors and publishers in benchmarking their journals' policies and procedures, as well as to provide advice to scientists in their varied roles as authors, editors or peer-reviewers, in all aspects of the publication process. The comprehensive guide covers many aspects of the publication process, including workable 'conflict of interest' policies and reseach misconduct.

The full CSE guide can be seen here, at the organisation's website.
The section of the guide specific to peer-review is here.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on December 08, 2006
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William Arms

Online publications have several ways to give themselves a good name.

Trust and reputation are fundamental to scholarly publishing. The web provides tantalizing new ways to publish, but can these win the trust that is crucial to scientific acceptance? Peer review is the traditional way of building trust, but it is slow and expensive; some topics are difficult to review and reviewers miss mistakes. What alternatives do authors have?

Continue reading "Ethics: Trust and reputation on the web" »

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 29, 2006
Categories: Ethics, Peer review debate | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dale Benos

Does a digital workflow make it easier to detect ethical breeches in peer review?

The Internet has changed everything. You can be sitting at your desk in Birmingham, Alabama, while having a conversation in real time with a colleague in Birmingham, United Kingdom, exchanging not only words and ideas, but also photographs, data sets and manuscripts. The Internet has also changed the way science is done, particularly when it comes to publication. Manuscripts are now submitted, reviewed and authors notified electronically. But although the efficiency and speed of the peer-review process has increased, a set of attendant issues has arisen.

Continue reading "Ethics: Detecting misconduct" »

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 20, 2006
Categories: Ethics, Peer review debate | Permalink | Comments (3)

Elizabeth Wager

Analysing the purpose of peer review.

Most people accept that peer review is enormously valuable and should be maintained and protected, but few agree on what purpose it serves. Science publishing, even at its simplest, involves complex interactions between researchers (authors), journal editors, reviewers and readers. It is a subtle form of human behaviour that could furnish the raw material for dozens of sociology theses. And when academic endeavour gets mixed up with commercial interests, things get even more complicated.

Continue reading "Ethics: What is it for?" »

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 14, 2006
Categories: Ethics, Peer review debate | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kirby Lee and Lisa Bero

What authors, editors and reviewers should do to improve peer review.

Peer review is not currently designed to detect deception, nor does it guarantee the validity of research findings. It should, however, identify flaws in the design, presentation, analysis and interpretation of science and provide prompt, detailed, constructive criticism to improve research.

Continue reading "Ethics: Increasing accountability" »

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 05, 2006
Categories: Ethics, Peer review debate | Permalink | Comments (7)