Problems in peer review, impact factor substitutes, and much more! (Good reads, June 2018)
As always, we’re bringing you some of the most interesting discussions from the world of scholarly publishing. The list we have curated for you this month includes interesting posts about the problems in the current peer review system, the need for a robust tool to either supplement or replace the impact factor, Europe’s OA 2020 mission and its progress against it, China’s unique five-structure system that powers its scientific progress, a recent study that identified image manipulation in several published papers, and tips for researchers trying to decide whether they should do a postdoc. An interesting mix, isn’t it? Read on, then, and stay updated!
1. Is peer review an unscientific process?: In this candidly written article, E Price, a social psychologist, describes why she feels the peer review process is the most inconsistent one in the publication process. Price believes that the process that is meant improve the quality of published scentific literature objectively, falls short in most cases. Highlighting the loopholes in the peer review process, she says that the process of peer reviewer selection is neither systematic nor scientific. It leaves room for biases, and in the absence of training and standard ways of evaluating the review, it is difficult to evaluate the reviewers' work. She adds that usually the most suitable reviewers are those who are hardpressed for time and deny the review request. The absence of any real perks of reviewing only makes it difficult for journal editors to recruit reviewers. Therefore, it falls upon the postdocs, students, and others "who are lower in the academic hierarchy" to conduct peer review. The lack of transparency is another aspect that Price discusses and feels that it leaves the authors at the mercy of reviewers who may be biased, not qualified enough, or even disinterested in conducting the review. Because simultaneous submission is considered unethical, researchers have to wait for a long time to know the journal decision. The way peer review is conducted "puts an immense amount of arbitrary barriers between researchers and their professional goals" Price says, and feels that alternatives should be explored to make the process fairer, consistent, and scientific.
2. If impact factor should be dismissed as the measure of impact what should be used instead? In this interesting article published in Nature, John Tregoning, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London, admits that the journal impact factor (JIF) is flawed in many aspects, but questions what it should be replaced with. One of the main tools to measure the impact of research has been the JIF, which continues to play an important role in scholarly publishing and academic career development. Tregoning concedes that "JIFs give an instant validation" and "when viewed macroscopically, it’s [JIF] not entirely wrong." However, the growing discontent over the use of the JIF and the lack of any other tool to replace it has left researchers - particularly early career researchers - baffled. "[...]confusion over how to judge scientific productivity is sapping scientific productivity," Tregoning says. Most researchers feel the pressure of publishing in a journal where their work will reach the right audience and the its impact will be noticed. According to the author, the JIF provides "a map" for researchers to navigate. Therefore, if the JIF is deemed an inappropriate metric, he calls for the need to identify another metric to provide more clarity to early career researchers who are at a crucial stage of building their career and establishing their reputation.
3. Will Europe achieve its OA2020 dream? In this interesting post, Roger C. Schonfeld, director of Ithaka S+R’s Library and Scholarly Communication program, talks about how despite widely adopting open access policies, Europe might not have made a lot of progress towards its open access (OA) 2020 target. This is largely because "European policy targets are adding complexity" and "there appears to be no realistic path forward that achieves the 2020 OA targets without resulting in substantial revenue reductions for existing publishers." While elaborating on what some of these complexities are, how they point to some critical considerations in Europe's move towards open access, and how this affects researchers, journals, publishers, universities, and libraries, Schonfeld talks about how a major part of this move is focused on OA Big Deals, which could serve publishers' financial interests. Consortia that are opposing publishers' subscription fees might be complicating the matter further. Ideally, any major move to OA must include publishers' capacity and their relationships with editors and other stakeholders in the publishing ecosystem. Further, a complete switch to OA in Europe could impact revenue outside Europe. Thus, Schonfeld writes, "Academia’s OA targets and publishers’ revenue targets are once again directly in conflict" and adds that how the future of OA will shape up remains to be seen.
4. More discussions about China’s attempts to lead the world of scientific research: China was accused of intellectual property theft by the US, which has been competing with the former country to achieve leading status in scientific progress. Countering this allegation, Richard P. Suttmeier, the author of this post, says, “[...]as someone who has followed China’s scientific development for years, I’ve seen dramatic improvements in China’s own innovative capacity, along with the science base needed for success in the knowledge-intensive industries it seeks to master.” Suttmeier sheds some light on how the enterprise of science in China is organized and how governance mechanisms support scientific research and development in China. Unlike the US, in China, science is largely conducted in five institutional structures: The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese universities, industrial enterprises, government research institutes, and military and defense related research. Focusing funding and support across these sectors helps the Chinese government to support “rapid development over the past 30 years of scientific and technological “catch-up.”
5. Image manipulation may lead to the retraction of 35,000 papers: A group of researchers analyzed hundreds of published manuscripts published over a seven year period in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) which is published by the American Society for Microbiology, and identified 59 potential problematic papers. This post presents a conversation with these researchers – Arturo Casadevall of Johns Hopkins University, Elisabeth Bik of uBiome, Ferric Fang of the University of Washington, Roger Davis of the University of Massachusetts (also a former MCB editor), and Amy Kullas, ASM’s publication ethics manager – and reveals some of the results of their analysis. The researchers extrapolated the results of similar previous studies and identified image manipulation as a critical issue that needs to be prevented at an early stage in the publication process. One way of doing this is to have a second set of eyes, apart from the journal’s editorial staff, screen manuscripts for image manipulation and help authors fix any issues before their work is published.
6. To postdoc or not to postdoc – tips to help you decide: In this post that is full of rich and pertinent advice, David Bogle, Head of University College London’s Doctoral School, talks about the considerations PhD students must weigh before making the decision to pursue postdoctoral studies. According to Bogle, researchers usually want to do a postdoc because they either think it’ll be fun, they want to work in research, or they want to build a career in academia. And often they are stuck between options. Bogle advises to them to talk to their university careers service, other postdocs, or members of academic staff at their institution. But it is most important to “find a topic that fires you up. Get the proposal and see what you can bring to the project… Ask yourself ‘how can the research skills that I have developed in my PhD be applied to this problem, and how best could I convey this to the interview panel?’" Bogle also recommends a few aspects researchers could consider about the post and the research environment depending on their personal development interests.
What about you? Did you come across any interesting discussion about scholarly publishing? If you did, why keep it to yourself? Share it with us in the comments section below!
Also, browse through our previous Scholarly Communications Good Reads collections where we have featured more such interersting discussions from the scholarly publishing world.
And if you’d like to stay tuned to important happenings in the journal publishing industry, visit our Industry News section.
Published on: Jul 02, 2018
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