Euroscience Open Forum 2006

ESOF2006 is an interdisciplinary non-profit event seeking to foster debate on science and society.
ESOF2006 will take place in Munich from July 15th to 19th, 2006.

Peer review: the process unveiled!

http://www.esof2006.org/scientific_session_detail.php4?ID=291

2006-07-16 08:30:00 2006-07-16 11:15:00
Forum am Deutschen Museum, Room "Selene"

Peer review: the process unveiled!
This introductory seminar on peer review is targeted at scientists in the earliest stages of their career (mainly doctoral and postdoc level) and will provide them with valuable insights: the perspectives of both the reviewer and the reviewed in manuscript and grant proposal evaluation will be presented. The first half will be of a more general nature, discussing why peer review has become the standard quality check mechanism in scientific publishing and research funding and how the quality of a paper, proposal or review can be assessed. The second part will deal with specific aspects including different models of peer review, differences between disciplines, research programmes and journal scope. In order to prepare the seminar and make it as interactive as possible, supplemetary information is provided below.

Preparatory material:

The opening paper, by Mike Jackson (university of Bristol and Annals of Botany), gives an introductory account of peer review and its place in the decision making process undertaken by a typical international journal. It highlights the scale of the refereeing process, and emphasises the essential role it plays in filtering out weak or questionable research and identifying well-conducted and original work for eventual publication. The presentation encourages a whole-hearted involvement in peer review by practising scientists and identifies positive as well as some negative impacts of this work on referees’ professional lives. Some time is spent identifying difficulties that the peer review system is experiencing in the face of (i) technological change, (ii) the publishing aspirations of scientists and (iii) the scale of the demand for the limited space available. Although none of these problems diminishes the importance of peer review for maintaining and improving the quality of published science, action is needed to minimise their impact.

Some useful background information can be obtained from the following links:

1. The Annals of Botany home page (www.aob.oxfordjournals.org ) as an example of the comprehensive electronic provision that is increasingly available on-line from peer reviewed science journals. Relevant features include (i) cost free access to all titles and abstracts; (ii) cost-free access to full text and PDF papers 1-13 years after publication. Cost-free access to all review articles as soon as they are published. Cost free ‘Open Access’ at the time of first publication for papers where authors have paid the ‘Open Access’ fee. Annual Subscription gives access to all papers from the current issue back to the mid 1990s. Access to older issues back to 1887 requires a further payment. Refereeing is done on-line using a web-based system.

2. A very well-written summary of what peer review is all about can be found on the Wikipedia site. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review ).

3. WRITING AN EFFECTIVE MANUSCRIPT REVIEW by: NM Waser and MV Price, Bioscience, Sep92, Vol. 42, Issue 8. A useful guide on the philosophy of peer review and what constitutes good practice for referees
( http://cgiss.boisestate.edu/~billc/Writing/Review_bioscience.htm... )

4. IS PEER REVIEW BROKEN? by Alison McCook. The Scientist, Volume 20, Issue 2. Page 26. May 2006. A thoughtful and timely analysis of the problems and challenges currently facing the peer review system.
( http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23061/ ).
In a second paper, Karl Ziemelis (Nature) will talk about peer reviewing of scientific manuscripts from the perspective of a multidisciplinary journal.

Nature is undertaking a trial of a particular type of open peer review. Authors can choose to have their submissions posted on a preprint server for open comments, in parallel with the conventional peer review process. Anyone in the field may then post comments, provided they are prepared to identify themselves. The trial is
optional for authors; it will continue in parallel with Nature's usual procedures and does not affect the likelihood of eventual publication of the submitted work.
http://blogs.nature.com/nature/peerreview/trial/
Nature is also welcoming comments from readers to run a web debate on peer review.The web debate contains a range of perspectives about peer review from those who believe it is working well, to those who prefer other options. What is the value of peer review, and how does it ensure quality? What are the ethical concerns? Are there viable alternatives, either technical or in terms of management of the process? And above all, what is the scientists' experience of the process, either as authors or as reviewers themselves?
http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/index.html
You can post your comments to the articles in the debate or your general views on peer review at:
http://blogs.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/comments/

Then, Guntram Bauer (Human Frontier Science Program) will describe the peer review process of grant and fellowship proposals.

After the break, a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of scientific peer review, with a focus on issues relating to young scientists, will take place, moderated by Jean-Patrick Connerade, President of Euroscience, and opened with a discussion paper by Ulrich Pöschl, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, on adaptations of the peer review system to the electronic age.

Collaborative Peer Review (Public Review & Interactive Discussion) as practiced in the interactive open access journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) and a growing number of sister journals published by the European Geosciences Union (EGU):

ACP Homepage
ACP Background Info
ACP & ISI
EGU Publications

A discussion of the role of peer review in the emergence of new scientific ideas can be found at:

http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/project/29/