Nascent

I am big fan of Natures adoption of web 2.0 and the leadership role its taken with regards to its adoption in the scientific publishing world. This trial does seem like a sincere attempt at trying new things. There is however one big problem. Confidentiality . We all know how painful it is to arrive at that big result. Also typically only the truly big breakthroughs end up being published in Nature. And though I have found myself complaining many times about how editors just don't appreciate the novelty and "sexiness" of my scientific finding, I don't think I would ever submit my paper to be "peer reviewed" online for the reason of confidentiality .Before something is published, sadly and typically most findings are kept fairly under wraps. Pre-publication information is revealed only during meetings and posters and other such non peer-reviewed fora ( and that too only if your lab is not the super paranoid kind).

I would absolutley dread sharing my hard-earned research findings for all to see before its published with the online community. ANd the key line here is "before it is published". This novel attempt by Nature makes that almost imposible.
Also see: http://harijay.wordpress.com/2006/06/07/science-review-americal-idol-style/

I would argue against Hari Jayaram. Submitting to a pre-print server actually timestamps the hard work as submitted by such authors at given date. Therefore anyone trying to copy the idea would be hard press to justify themselves for not acknowledging the prior work, even if not yet published.

If anything I am more concerned that the 3 months period will not be sufficient to raise the required awareness to have enough people participating in the process.
Another big problem in online participation is identity. How will Nature be sure that everyone will be who they claim so that they are accountable for their comments.

There's an editorial about this in the latest issue of Nature.

Thanks for the great comments, by the way. If people are interested in what's being said elsewhere on the web, I'm collecting links about the peer review trial on this Connotea page. Also, Nature's Maxine Clarke is collecting links relevant to the peer review debate on this Connotea page.

I am probably somewhere in the middle. One part of me looks forward to transparent scientific communication and open discussion, another part worries about how this would impact publications by industrial researchers, and a third, inherently cynical part just does not trust people to be objective and civilized in open discussion. That said, I am all for giving it a shot and seeing how it works. There is an opportunity to redefine scientific communication here and we should take full advantage.

I think the efforts being discussed here will work best if there is a general shift in how science is funded and disseminated. If openness (almost always a good thing) is a central paradigm, I think organizations like the NIH would also be better served by making that funding processes more transparent.

Last, but not the least, how does Nature plan to make this more well known? I don't know too many scientists who are aware of Connotea (Bioinformaticians being an exception). It would be good if Nature could get the word out through other means.

Hi Deepak,

We're not really using Connotea to publicise this, only to point already interested people to other relavant coverage and discussion on the web.

The peer review debate and trial are being widely publicised through our journals, websites and other channels. Of course, we also rely heavily on scientists telling their colleagues, so please don't feel shy about doing that. ;)

Timo,

I meant to use Connotea as an example of a Nature service that has not received the publicity it deserves. Sorry for the confusion there.

I agree that word of mouth is a great way of getting the message out, but in the long term Nature will need support from other publishers to really get this meme spreading through the scientific community.

Hi Deepak,

Thanks for the clarification and sorry for my misunderstanding.

Connotea has actually had a lot of publicity -- as much as we'd give almost any product launch. The challenge has been to communicate to mainstream users what it can do ("social bookmarking" isn't a term that normal humans are familiar with ;), and then to get them up and running with it quickly.

Usability is certainly an issue (look out for some improvements on that front soon). But it's also true that these kinds of services aren't particularly conducive to traditional marketing approaches. For participative applications like Connotea and Nature Network Boston, word of mouth (or viral marketing, if you like) is often more effective, because they require someone not only to tell you that they exist, but also to show you what they can do. That isn't easy to achieve in a print or banner ad.

But your general point is well taken. We're thinking hard about how best to get the word out about our more unusual services. There's no magic answer, but we're gradually getting better at it. If anyone has specific suggestions then we're all ears, naturally.

I seem to have veered off topic here, so now back to peer review if that's OK with everyone...

Aaaand... the first submission is up. If you know about immune reponses to the malaria parasite, please comment on the preprint blog.

Kudos to the group (from Japan, my second home) who have broken this new ground.

Actually I seem to have got it wrong. The first paper posted (though only by a few minutes) was this one about avian flu. It's from a Japanese and Chinese team.

Peer Review Failure at JAMA


The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness www.TheCRE.com has revised the Wikipedia entry on peer review to discuss and document peer review failure at JAMA. The revised entry exposes a politically biased Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article [JAMA, May 24, 2006; 295(20): 2407 - 2410] on the Data Quality Act and atrazine that contains numerous factual errors and misrepresentations. A crucial, obvious error in the article was the assertion that atrazine is being phased out by the European Union because “Atrazine...has been repeatedly demonstrated to be a potent endocrine disruptor....” JAMA’s peer review process accepted this claim even though the Official Journal of the European Union explicitly stated “In the 70s, a political decision was taken to reduce to ‘zero’ the presence of pesticides, independent of their toxicity.” [Emphasis added]

The CRE Wikipedia revisions also include a discussion of the peer requirements imposed on federal regulatory agencies by the Office of Management and Budget. Federal agencies cannot use or rely on scientific information that does not meet the OMB peer review requirements. Many peer reviewed journals do not meet the OMB peer review requirements.

For more information about the failed peer review at JAMA, please contact William G. Kelly, Jr.. For more information about the US government’s peer review requirements, please contact Scott Slaughter.

Wikipedia article on peer review