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Policy

New Journal Offers Open Peer Review

Biology Direct joins a small band of online journals that make their referees' reviews public

by Sophie L. Rovner
February 20, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 8

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Credit: Courtesy Of Eugene Koonin/NIH
Koonin
Credit: Courtesy Of Eugene Koonin/NIH
Koonin

An experiment in online journal publication is under way. Earlier this month, BioMed Central officially launched Biology Direct, an online journal that publishes the comments of its referees along with the final version of the papers they have critiqued.

The open-access journal intends to publish research articles, hypotheses, and reviews, including bold and even speculative work that would be difficult to publish in the best traditional journals. The publication will be supported through article-processing fees of $1,315 per paper, which can be waived in case of need. The duties of editor-in-chief will be shared by Eugene V. Koonin, a senior investigator with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health; Laura F. Landweber, an associate professor in Princeton University's department of ecology and evolutionary biology; and David J. Lipman, NCBI director.

"Although it would be wrong to call it completely dysfunctional," the traditional peer review system is "not as healthy as one would like it to be," Koonin says. "Certainly it functions, but it's rather sick."

The main problem with traditional peer review is anonymity, Koonin explains. Anonymity permits a reviewer to "dismiss the work of other scientists for a variety of reasons, which may be benign or malicious." At the same time, anonymity means that reviewers receive little or no reward for their work. They may also be overwhelmed with review requests. As a result, some may write perfunctory reviews, Koonin says.

By contrast, Koonin expects Biology Direct's open peer review system will lead reviewers-generally, members of the editorial board-to "be careful and judicious in their judgments." Is there a risk that reviewers won't be harsh enough because their comments will be published? It's possible, Koonin concedes, but because editorial board members can decline to review a paper after perusing it, "most of the time, they won't have to review very bad or weak papers."

Authors must recruit reviewers for their papers. As soon as three members of the editorial board, or alternates they designate, agree to review, the manuscript is considered to be accepted, Koonin says. Of course, "the reviews may be highly critical, and it's the author's decision to publish or not." Authors also can decide whether to make the changes recommended by reviewers.

Richard N. Armstrong, editor of the American Chemical Society journal Biochemistry, notes that publishing reviews with an article "lets the reader see the strengths and weaknesses of the work from someone else's perspective." But he's concerned that "open review favors the established (and powerful) investigator. Not many assistant professors would care to offer significant criticism of a senior investigator who might be asked to write a tenure evaluation in the next year or so."

A source who requested anonymity adds that because "all faculty members rely on peer letters for promotion, for awards, and in some cases for grants, I think open peer review would, in general, provide less honest feedback about manuscripts. I think a more constructive step for ACS journals would be for the name of the editor who handled the paper to be printed with the communication or article, as they do at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ultimately, it is the role of the editor to use the reviewer feedback to make a final decision on the suitability of a manuscript."

Biology Direct is one of just a few publications that offer some form of open peer review. BioMed Central utilizes a similar system in its medical journals, although the journal editors, rather than authors, select reviewers. The British medical journal BMJ requires referees to sign their reviews, which are sent to authors but aren't made publicly available.

The European Geosciences Union has implemented a hybrid model for Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics (ACP) and four other open-access journals. After a quick preliminary assessment, ACP posts the initial draft of an acceptable paper on the journal's "discussion" website. Designated reviewers as well as any interested readers then post remarks about the paper on the site. Reviewers are allowed to remain anonymous if they wish. About half of ACP's reviewers choose to do so, according to Chief Executive Editor Ulrich Pöschl, a biogeochemist at Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.

After an eight-week comment period, the editor of ACP decides whether to accept, reject, or return the paper for revision. Accepted papers are published on the journal's main website, with links to the original draft and the online discussion. Rejected papers remain archived on ACP's discussion website.

P&#öschl says this combination of fast initial screening followed by a more leisurely and public review allows the journal to disseminate new science rapidly while providing ample time for subsequent thorough analysis and discussion. "Sometimes the arguments exchanged in the interactive discussion are as interesting as the contents of the reviewed article," he notes.

The open-access online journal PLoS Biology offers reviewers the option of identifying themselves to authors but has chosen not to publish reviews, says Managing Editor Hemai Parthasarathy. "The question is, at what point do you post the reviews? You get reviewer comments back, then the manuscript is revised and the paper is published, so many of those comments are [no longer] particularly germane," she explains. Certainly all versions of the manuscript can be made available, but "that might err on the side of providing a lot of information without enough filtering."

From what Koonin describes as a surprisingly positive response from the scientific community, he surmises that "the time is ripe" for the Biology Direct journal model. "It's really an experiment," he says, "and I just hope it works."

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