When manuscript reviewers take up the assignment and try to maintain the stipulated time-frame within their own routine schedule as an additional activity to quench their academic appetite shouldn't their contribution be recognized in some form?
Manuscript review process is a difficult one because of the volume involved and one’s specialization in the subject area. The only recognition is in the form of acknowledgment in the book. This is considered as part of professional service which we are supposed to be doing as part of academic employment.
Ok. In case of books, the author is aware of the reviewer and he does acknowledge the contribution duly. However, in case of research papers, the manuscript is assigned to reviewer by Editor without disclosing the identity to author, or for that matter, to any one.
In case of journal reviewing no recognition what so ever. We do it because we would like to control the quality. That is all there to it. May be a list published in the journal once a year or on the website of the journal.
Actually I have observed that reviewer's contribution is nowhere acknowledged despite devoting considerable time/energy to uphold/maintain/enforce quality standards in published research in most of the cases (barring a few instances as mentioned above). Insincere approach adopted by reviewers is bound to flood the research domain with sub-standard articles, in turn leading to further deterioration in the subsequent research. Recording the reviewer's contribution, in the public domain, must be made mandatory so that his/her sincere effort gets notified/recognized simultaneously making the reviewer accountable for excercising sincerity in handling the assignment.
Some journals give recognition by printing the name of reviewers for the year. An example from a journal in my field reads like this:
"In 2011, the individuals listed on these pages served as technical reviewers of papers offered for publication in ACI periodicals. A special “thank you” to them for their voluntary assistance in helping ACI maintain the high quality of its publication program"
Reviewing is part of our academic responsibilities and reviewers are not in this for recognition.
http://www.concrete.org/Portals/0/Files/PDF/M-2011-Reviewers-List.pdf
Dear Kamal, Nageswara, and Behrouz. As I know that some journals do give acknowledgement to their reviewers in the last issue of the year.
An important aspect of the issue is getting missed : what I am trying to drive home is the fact that if the reviewers' names are publicized they will have to exercise adequate caution to ensure that any erroneous reporting is not approved for publication which may bring them a bad name. This will improve the quality of the Journals. The example I have cited is not just one in isolation. My question is based on several similar cases and when this happens, the very purpose of the article is lost as it can not serve any good to any one. On the contrary, it may set a wrong precedence for the subsequent followers who may not notice the error and keep repeating the same further propagating it. This is the case I when an erroneous article may get published.
Secondly, There may be instances when a good article gets turned down because of a miscomprehension. Such happenings are disheartening/discouraging to the authors and must be duly put on record appropriately.
In essence, what I wanted to say (but not very loudly) is that there should be adequate measures for incompetent reviewing. Clever readers ultimately made me spell that out!!!
Very right Dr Kamal and Aftab, this was exactly why instead of proposing a measure I tried to draw the attention of all the researchers to ponder over and suggest possible steps against erroneous publishing. In today's competitive environment, number of publications is becoming a measure of efficacy of a researcher. This has given rise to a rat race forcing the researchers to pile up their numbers as fast as they can. In a way, such a competition must be a welcome situation 'provided' it remains a healthy one. Any compromise with this 'PROVIDED' leads to a degradation in quality. If the literature gets flooded with substandard/erroneous articles, the newcomers, along with all others, will all get confused.
Regarding the QA process of reviews:
In the double-blind review scheme only the editor is in the position to take measures in case of low-quality review outcomes. But I wonder how this can be done.
The alternative is an open review scheme, in which the reviewers appear on the title page of the article (online and on paper). This has been discussed here on some threads, including https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_is_the_peer-review_process_not_completely_open_in_social_sciences.
Recently, RG has introduced the Open Reviewing Process, which asks reviewers to state the reproducibility of results of papers.
Transparency will add to accountability and, in turn, quality.
Many journal didn't reveal the details of reviewer as part journal policy. We all know the reviewer are always there only to improve or maintain the quality of scientific articles. There should be some way to give credit for their work without humiliating the blinding of reviewer....
I also very strongly agree that the anonymity of reviewers should be kept, and I for one would not miss that list of reviewers at the end of the year.
While refeering is a vitally important duty that we should all take part in, I am afraid that the recognition is quite low, and that it is not encouraged by the leaders of the department to perform such duties very much. We have roughly 10% of our time completely "free" to do what we want, and I think refereeing is part of that bit.
What about the status of the published article pointed out to be containing erroneous reporting? It is going to be reviewed/reported/followed/applied/cited by the researchers getting propagated unduly / leading the researchers in wrong direction / draining a lot of research resources.
Reviewers need to be acknowledged, and every journal must indicate all such names on journal website, peer-reviewing always helps in improving papers to high levels and mostly be error-free. When I submit and what gets published after peer-reviewing id high satisfactory.
Also flooding of open access journals like mushrooms and jungle fire - particularly not following peer-reviewing and publishing whatever is submitted - must be stopped and completely banned by some International agency.
I agree with Afef Fekih, reviewing papers of others helps us in presenting our papers in a better way. Many papers I reviewed tilled date and of many journals and today by this way I am able to submit / publish with confident in IF journals.
Reviewing is rewarding
- (a) when you read an enjoyable paper that you can improve slightly - thus contributing to a good published paper by making it even better,
- (b) when you can provide arguments that will reinforce a major revision of a paper that was not perfectly clear, complete, or correct in such a way that it becomes publishable,
and
- (c) when you can convincingly show that the basis of the paper is so flawed that it needs to be rejected.
I am not sure which one of these three that is the most rewarding, but I would probably say that these days when so many are pressured to try to publish that the most IMPORTANT one is (c).
It is not understood why there are any apprehensions in observing a transparency in reviewing a research article. After all the judges are delivering legal verdicts, ranging upto death sentences, absolutely transparently; sports referees adjudge the players' performances on play ground televised worldwide; students are evaluated by respective subject teachers; policemen are confronting, in person, hardcore criminals; interview committee members are assessing/selecting/rejecting the candidates openly and so on. Then why should a Journal reviewer like to hide the identity.
In fact, a competent reviewer must be courageous enough to spell out boldly what is right and what is wrong?
In my opinion, the reviewers' names must be displayed on the respective article. This will provide the due recognition to their hard work in addition to making them more accountable. This will aid to raising the quality of published articles.
P.S.
Just search the phrase "most of the publications are false" on Google and the following response will result:
About 12,40,00,000 results (0.35 seconds)
Search Results
Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed...
by JPA Ioannidis - 2005 - Cited by 2798 - Related articles
Aug 30, 2005 - It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false. ..... Simply abolishing selective publication would not make this problem go away ...
Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › NCBI › Literature › PubMed Central (PMC)
by JPA Ioannidis - 2005 - Cited by 2798 - Related articles
Aug 30, 2005 - See "Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science" in volume 5, ... It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false.
Publication bias - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias
It has been found that the most common reason for non-publication is an investigator's .... Properly assessing the false positive report probability based on the ...
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Over the past decade, articles in mainstream publications (The New Yorker) and ... asserted in PLoS Medicine, that “most published research findings are false.
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Sep 11, 2013 - It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false. .... deal of emphasis on the number of journal publications and virtually none on ...
Likelihood of False-Positive Results in High-Impact Journals ...
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by A Agrawal - 2012 - Related articles
That such work appears in the most-cited journals is, at least in part, inherent to the publication process, with the most novel, most exciting, most controversial, ...
Why Most Biomedical Findings Echoed by Newspapers ...
www.iscc.cnrs.fr › Recherche › Publications
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Oct 21, 2013 - Why most published scientific research is probably false .... and one group gets to publication first, the other is unlikely to be able to publish, ...
(& so on)
A welcome move in this direction:
http://tandf.msgfocus.com/q/11nptPUMTrvtUVvJwGvuAwy/wv
Many of the responses suggest that the very aim of raising the issue was not driven home. More than the recognition, it is the accountability of the reviewers that needs to be ascertained so as to ensure controlling the publication of large number of sub-standard/erroneous articles.
Don't expect too much recognition from colleagues or the publishers except for some colorfully reviewer certificates such as the one attached. For more information about this, please also see this closely related and more recent RG tread entitled "What are the benefits of being a reviewer for a journal?"
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_the_benefits_of_being_a_reviewer_for_a_journal3
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