Peer review reviewed by Erik Driessen
Peer review is the foundation on which science is build. Through the process of peer review it’s determined which research can be trusted. The saying is “the reviewer is always right”. Peer review is, however, done by humans and human behavior influences peer reviewing: for the good and the bad.
Reviewers often have helped to improve my papers. I appraise the reviewer who had excellent suggestions to improve my paper on a qualitative approach to assessment. This reviewer had a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of qualitative research than I had at that time. But peer review is also prone to fallacies and inappropriate behavior. I regret the moment I wrote an unnecessary harsh review, because I was irritated by the paper’s clumsy writing style.
Peer review has not been capable to detect large scale scientific fraud; as my ill-famed countryman Diederik Stapel has proven. Diederik Stapel published studies based on fabricated data in high impact journals for years. All these years no reviewer sounded a warning bell.
I organize, together with the editorial team, the peer review for the journal Perspectives on Medical Education. I was therefore, happy to be able to visit the four-yearly conference on peer review and scientific publication organized by the BMJ and the JAMA. For three days scholars and editors gathered to discuss research and innovations to improve peer review and scientific publication. I will briefly share with you some of the discussions and lessons from this conference.
Traditionally, the reviewers’ identities are not disclosed towards the authors and the readers; and the author identity is withheld for the reviewers: a double-blind review process. More and more journals experiment with a more open approach towards peer review. A more open approach should add to the accountability of peer review. For example, the journal Medical Education encourage reviewers to disclose their names in their reviews. A good example of a fully open review process is the BMJ. The BMJ publishes alongside the paper its the prepublication history: the paper before the peer reviews, the reviews and the reviewers’ names, the paper after the peer reviews. The different peer review approaches have been topic of several studies. The approach does not impact the quality of the reviews or scholars’ willingness to review. A more open approach appears to be more sensitive for social biases, e.g. gender biases.
The access to scientific work was another topic of discussion during the conference. In the traditional business model, university libraries pay a high subscription fee to allow their students and staff access to the manuscripts published in the journal. Often public funded research is placed behind expensive pay walls. We all know the irritation when you have to enter your credit card details to gain access to that possible relevant study. There is heavy pressure from universities and society to transform this business model into an open access model. Even if publishers are not ready for this there is another treat for their traditional business model: the availability of websites, like Sci-hub, that bypass publishers’ paywalls. These are turbulent times for scientific journals: the universities and publishers negotiate future business models; there’s an avalanche of predatory journals and alternative platforms for publishing scientific work are developed, e.g. MedEdPublish. My own journal has changed the library subscription model into open access model. Both readers and authors have free access to the journal.
Chicago was the venue for this peer review conference. The cherry on my conference cake was the cycling tour by Walter Eppich. Walter works on PhD within the SHE program. He showed me his town during a tour on a Dutch bike!
Erik Driessen is Professor in medical education and Chair of the department of Educational Development and Research at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences of Maastricht University. His area of expertise lies in evaluation and assessment. http://www.erikdriessen.com/