Why do you propose a presence of a problem in such kind of trusted journals? We have as a researcher to depend on an indexed journals in our publication.

Regards,

Emad

I have good experience dealing with Peer Review Journals after Publishing Articles. Some Journals with Peer Review were choosy and Resistant to Publish.

Peer review sometimes gets a bad rap – criticized for a purported lack of transparency, low accountability and even poor scientific rigor.

There’s now considerable movement towards tweaking or even remodeling the peer review system. Key areas of focus include making journal editors more directive in the process, rewarding reviewers, and improving accountability of editors, reviewers and authors. Peer review is not only a reading process, but includes a lot of time and effort and to make a lot of proposals and views that cause a new reciprocal between the researcher and Peer reviewer. On the other extreme, sometimes novice reviewers (perhaps trying to impress the editor) can turn small discrepancies into significant flaws. This presents a breakdown in the fairness of the review process .

I agree with Dr. Ali

I have reviewed papers for journals (Planetary and Space Science, most recently) and have had works reviewed by suchlike.

I have no complaints about my treatment: some papers accepted, some rejected.

I dislike the peer review process, but this also seems to depend on the respective community. Additionally, it depends on the journal you are targeting. If journals pride themselves on low acceptance rates, their policies sometimes become quite weird. I once wanted to participate in a special issue for a logistics journal and the senior editor demanded that we need to keep the acceptance rate at around 10%. This number was independent of the quality of the papers!

Here is a nice summary of some shortcomings of the peer review process from colleagues of mine from the Information Systems community:

Article ICIS 2017 Panel Report: Break Your Shackles! Emancipating In...

Decoding the Peer Review Process

Peer review plays a significant role in the publication of a manuscript. Peer review constantly undergoes changes based on the latest trends and happenings in the publishing industry.  Given the importance of publishing research to a researchers career, it is essential that every researcher thoroughly understands the peer review process. Up-to-date knowledge and awareness about the peer review process are essential to a successful publication journey...

https://www.enago.com/academy/decoding-the-peer-review-process/

Dear Ali Alhayany has forgotten to bring the resource which was used. It is a MUST in order to avoid plagiarism. I do bring it here.

https://theconversation.com/peer-review-has-some-problems-but-the-science-community-is-working-on-it-99596

Finding peer-reviewer is very responsible task.

Elsevier journals ask Retraction Watch to review COVID-19 papers

At the risk of breaking the Fourth Wall, here’s a story about peer reviews that weren’t — and shouldn’t have been...

https://twitter.com/ivanoransky/status/1373758409623932928

https://retractionwatch.com/2021/03/09/elsevier-journals-ask-retraction-watch-to-review-covid-19-papers/

A great satirical paper on that subject that I highly recommend:

Article We Are Sorry to Inform You ...

Thanks dear Horst Treiblmaier for bringing this reference. Simone Santini made fine article.

"How much damage could be caused by a peer reviewer having a bad day?"

Ljubomir Jacić : Yes, Santini nailed it. He illustrates how basically every paper/research can be rejected ;-)

Academic articles in science are criticized for being impenetrable to the average adult reader, let alone child. The journal Frontiers for Young Minds (FYM) was launched in 2013 to help bridge that gap.

Instead of the usual professional scientists, FYM’s peer reviewers are all children aged eight to 15 years old.

The children work with scientist mentors to provide feedback to authors on the clarity and accessibility of their research and the scientific concepts involved...

https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/lessons-writing-a-science-paper-kids-journal-frontiers-young-minds

Olavo Amaral questions the reliance on peer review by the scientific community and argues that we should build a trustmark for research works that goes beyond whether they have been “peer-reviewed”...

https://ksusentinel.com/2021/06/19/the-invisible-clothing-of-peer-review-basic-science/

“Identity,” puts a spotlight on the people behind the process. We’re taking the time to celebrate the contributions of the myriad stakeholders involved in research assessment, consider the impacts of peer review on all influenced by it — from authors to readers — and talk about ways to make peer review practices more diverse, equitable, and inclusive...

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2021/09/17/ask-the-peer-review-week-steering-committee-what-does-identity-in-peer-review-mean-to-you/?informz=1

Let’s look at peer review. Double-anonymized, open, crowd-sourced — put that aside. In traditional peer review, an author submits a paper. If the peer review system is derived from Blockchain, you’ll see when the article was received, when sent out for peer review, when replies are received. It provides clarity and transparency to the author and others about the process. Items are not lost; there is no miscommunication...

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2021/09/29/interview-darrell-gunter/?informz=1

https://www.igi-global.com/book/transforming-scholarly-publishing-blockchain-technologies/249309

Hi Dr Ahmad M.A. Hazaymeh . I think research on peer review is not particularly well-developed, especially as part of the broader issue of research integrity; often produces conflicting, overlapping or inconclusive results depending on scale and scope; and seems to suffer from similar biases to much of the rest of the scholarly literature. See the link: Article The limitations to our understanding of peer review

Also, I think It takes significant reviewer agreement to have a paper accepted. One potential downside is that important research bucking a trend or overturning accepted wisdom may face challenges surviving peer review. See the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/upshot/peer-review-the-worst-way-to-judge-research-except-for-all-the-others.html

In addition to, I think the major criticism of peer review is that there is little evidence that the process actually works, that it is actually an effective screen for good quality scientific work, and that it actually improves the quality of scientific literature.. See the link:Article Peer Review in Scientific Publications: Benefits, Critiques,...

Peer review process is absolutely depend on the quality of the journal

While peer-review processes may have there limits and shortfalls, I think the benefits to body of Science should not be overlooked. Of course, review may be sometimes subjectively done with unhelpful comments and 'bias opinions or irrelevant suggestions'. But, in most cases standard review processes help bring out the very best in a study if they are rigorously objectively undertaken.

The best science writers learn that...peer-reviewed publications are not gospel and even prestigious journals are polluted by nonsense...

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/10/how-pandemic-changed-science-writing/620271/

The explicit and implicit biases, or conscious and unconscious biases, of editors and peer reviewers could prejudice which manuscripts are reviewed or ultimately accepted for publication. With the ultimate goal of eliminating bias in peer review, we hope you will share during the COPE Forum some of the practical steps you are taking to reduce bias...

https://publicationethics.org/resources/forum-discussions/bias-peer-review

In the last decade, one of the most effective tools applied in combating the erosion of public trust in academic research has been an increased level of transparency in the peer review and editorial process. Publicly available publication ethics guidelines and policies are vital in creating a transparent process that prevents unethical research, publication misconduct, manipulation of the communication of research to practitioners, and the erosion of public trust...

Article A contextualization of editorial misconduct in the library a...

Belonging to a discourse community is essential for every scientific researcher.

The quality of our publication channel, e.g. journals, does not depend on peer review or mind control, but on an explicit paradigm and journalistic skills.

New tech-know-logical options on the information highway will any way change

the fundamentals of science and publishing.

https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2987

An excellent essay dear Stephen I. Ternyik . Yes, exponentiality is fundamental for science. Scientific publishing is part of it, as well as peer review. I do expect changes in that sense.

Ljubomir Jacić Yes, great changes of scientific evaluation systems are in the pipeline.

The explicit and implicit biases, or conscious and unconscious biases, of editors and peer reviewers could prejudice which manuscripts are reviewed or ultimately accepted for publication...

“Reviewers must give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted. They should judge each on its merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s). … Rooting your review in evidence from the paper or proposal is crucial in avoiding bias.”

https://publicationethics.org/resources/forum-discussions/bias-peer-review

A leading UK law journal has been accused of failing to guard against bias by not introducing anonymous review practices, amid concerns that Oxbridge-linked authors are “grossly over-represented” in the publication...

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/concern-over-oxbridge-dominance-uks-oldest-law-journal?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial-daily

Dear Ahmad M.A. Hazaymeh ,

I like to add some additional ‘food for thought’ in this discussion. I immediately think of (some of) the highly interesting work done by Juan Miguel Campanario. He basically came up with the idea to interview/investigate scientists who ultimately were rewarded with either prestigious awards and/or published a highly cited paper and asked them about the trouble they experienced before final acceptance of their work. See for example:

Campanario, J. M. (1996). Have referees rejected some of the most‐cited articles of all times? Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 47(4), 302-310. (See enclosed file for full text).

And

Campanario, J. M. (1995). Commentary: On influential books and journal articles initially rejected because of negative referees' evaluations. Science communication, 16(3), 304-325. (See enclosed file for full text)

One of the conclusions was and I quote “According the authors' commentaries, although sometimes referees' negative evaluations can help improve the articles, in other instances referees and editors wrongly rejected the highly cited articles”

Personally, I think that peer review should at best serve as ‘gate keeper’. Checking the rigor, the extent of transparency (in terms of possibilities to check and/or reproduce the results etc.), the quality of the obtained data of the work etc. The perceived importance of the submitted work makes that the peer review/opinion of the editor enters a dangerous grey area.

Best regards.

How AI is accelerating research publishing

Peer review-based publishing is under more pressure than ever to become faster and more open, writes Rachel Burley...

Covid-19 has created a greater sense of urgency to drive this change, and some academic publishers are responding by transforming their workflows and processes to reduce the editorial bottlenecks caused by growing research output coupled with limited human capacity to assess and review it...

https://content.yudu.com/web/tzly/0A44apa/RIdec21/html/index.html?page=18&origin=reader

A journal retracts 122 papers because of “clear indicators that the submission and/or peer review process for these papers was manipulated.”

https://retractionwatch.com/2021/12/15/journal-retracts-122-papers-at-once/

Even though peer review makes the final paper better, it is also a way to waste time and sometimes frustrate the researcher.

A new way to find evidence of paper mills: By analyzing peer review comments...

SAGE has a long history in tackling peer-review fraud and so this project was essentially a continuation of that...

https://retractionwatch.com/2022/02/21/how-to-find-evidence-of-paper-mills-using-peer-review-comments/

I present for your appraisal three independent cases of the manuscript referee process conducted by a venerable peer-reviewed scientific journal. Each case involves a little pig, who submitted for consideration a theoretical plan for a house to be constructed presently, in a faraway land. An anonymous big bad wolf was assigned by the journal to assess the merit of these manuscripts. The pigs proposed three distinct construction frameworks, which varied in physical and mathematical sophistication. The first little pig submitted a model of straw, based on the numerical method of toe-counting. His design included odd features, such as spilled millet and cloven-hoofprints on the window sill -- possibly a ploy to distract the wolf from the manuscript's facile mathematical foundation. The second little pig used a more advanced approach, employing Newton's classical laws of motion, to propose a house of sticks. This pig included in her manuscript copious citations by a specific wolf, possibly aiming to ensure acceptance by flattering the wolf whom she anticipated would be the referee. The third little pig described an ostentatious house of bricks based on an elaborate dynamical systems and stability analysis, possibly scheming to dazzle and impress. The big bad wolf did not appear moved by any of the pigs' tactics. His recommendations were, for straw: the minor revision of water-proofing; for sticks: the major revision of fire-proofing, given concerns surrounding climate change; for bricks: unequivocal rejection, accompanied by multiple derogatory comments regarding "high-and-mighty theorists." I describe each case in detail, and suggest that the wolf's reports might be driven as much by self interest as the manuscripts themselves -- namely, that at the time the wolf wrote the reviews, he was rather hungry. Finally, I examine morals learned, if any...

Preprint The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf: Case Studies of ...

Professor at Japan's Univ. of Fukui accused of bogus peer review scheme...

A University of Fukui faculty member allegedly collaborated with a professor at Chiba University to peer review a paper she had herself coauthored...

The publisher of the international academic journal the paper was submitted to has concluded the Fukui professor committed research misconduct and advised her to retract the paper. The University of Fukui and Chiba University have set up in-house investigations.

In peer reviews, multiple third-party researchers examine academic papers related to their fields, and decide whether they are publishable. It is considered an essential process to guarantee scientific objectivity and validity, and papers that have passed peer review can be added to an author's list of achievements. For an author to review their own article is considered peer review rigging, a type of research misconduct...

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220611/p2a/00m/0na/021000c

Peer review is becoming more cavalier, self-serving and ignorant, argues Harvey Graff, professor emeritus of English and history at Ohio State University, warning that the professionalism and collegiality with which editors used to respond to complaints has all but disappeared...

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/peer-reviewing-becoming-more-cavalier-self-serving-and-ignorant?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial-daily

"Concerns were raised because of the unusual phrases used in the article (mind tumours, fluffy rationale). The authors stated they have used a paraphrasing online tool." Tell us again about how rigorous today's peer review is, and how much value it adds...

This article showed evidence of peer review manipulation...

https://twitter.com/RetractionWatch/status/1549382597427564545

Article Brain tumor identification and classification of MRI images ...

PLOS ONE to retract more than 100 papers for manipulated peer review.

The case differs from typical paper mills, Hoch said. “We’re not talking about the content of the articles at all” – no duplicated images or plagiarized text – “we’re talking about how that article was processed and reviewed,” about the people involved.

Manipulations of the peer review process, including peer review rings and fake review, which we’ve reported on since 2011, are not uncommon. Searching our database for “fake peer review” as a reason for retraction yields more than 3,000 results...

https://retractionwatch.com/2022/08/03/exclusive-plos-one-to-retract-more-than-100-papers-for-manipulated-peer-review/

Reviewers award higher marks when a paper’s author is famous, according to a new preprint presented at last week's Peer Review Congress...

Peer-review is a well-established cornerstone of the scientific process, yet it is not immune to status bias. Merton identified the problem as one in which prominent researchers get disproportionately great credit for their contribution while relatively unknown researchers get disproportionately little credit...

https://www.science.org/content/article/reviewers-award-higher-marks-when-paper-s-author-famous

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4190976

Scientific fraud is not new, nor is a knowing perpetuation of lies. What is new is our ability to police ourselves in a more comprehensive manner. The apparently falsified results revealed by the Science investigation included dozens of peer-reviewed manuscripts. While the system of peer review is necessary, it is not perfect...

https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/articles/a-degeneration-of-trust-365806

https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease

I find that the following two quotes from Churchill on democracy apply perfectly to peer-review of scientific articles (just change Democracy by peer-review): 1. "Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others which may have been experienced in history"; 2. "Democracy is a bad system, but it is the least bad of all systems" Own translation from French

Source:

https://des-livres-pour-changer-de-vie.com/110-citations-cultes-de-winston-churchill/

Authors’ names have ‘astonishing’ influence on peer reviewers

A Nobel prizewinner is six times more likely than someone less well known to get a thumbs-up for acceptance, finds study...

Peer-review is a well-established cornerstone of the scientific process, yet it is not immune to status bias. Merton identified the problem as one in which prominent researchers get disproportionately great credit for their contribution while relatively unknown researchers get disproportionately little credit...

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03256-9

Article Nobel and Novice: Author Prominence Affects Peer Review

Is peer review failing: Cosmos talks to the experts

When peer review fails, people get hurt...

In a series of five investigative pieces for COSMOS Weekly, science journalist Clare Kenyon delves into the academic “gold-standard” peer review process: where has it come from and what are its failings?

https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/ethics/peer-review-failing-cosmos-talks-to-the-experts/

In this blogpost, the authors critically discuss their experience as guest editors for a Frontiers journal. They aim to foster open scholarly debate about Frontiers publishing practices, triggered by Frontiers hindering such debate on their own pages...

Our worries began with the organisation of the peer review process itself. Frontiers forces users into a relatively rigid workflow that foresees contacting a large number of potential reviewers for submissions. Reviewers are selected by an internal artificial intelligence algorithm on the basis of keywords automatically attributed by the algorithm based on the content of the submitted manuscript and matched with a database of potential reviewers, a technique somewhat similar to the one used for reviewer databases of other big publishers...

https://www.leidenmadtrics.nl/articles/reflections-on-guest-editing-a-frontiers-journal

Olavo Amaral suggests splitting the task so that a paper’s data are consistent — perhaps using automated tools — before reviewers take time to evaluate its conclusions. “In the long run, this could make published science more trustworthy, and could prove more viable than the current system, in which peer review drains hundreds of millions of hours from researchers but delivers little,” argues Amaral...

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03791-5

Peer review is a critical aspect of modern academic research, but it’s no secret that journals are struggling to provide high-quality and timely peer review for submitted manuscripts. It’s clear that changes are needed to increase the capacity and efficiency of peer review without reducing the quality of the review. However, several alternative peer review models are up to the challenge. We’ll discuss the most well-established alternative peer review strategies, identify some commonalities between models, and provide key takeaways for everyone in academia...

https://medicine.cabells.com/our-news/medical-publication-retractions-new-trends-and-key-takeaways?vgo_ee=1GptHY1Lqz0iTBmpSNKq29ZTM1ZkTjd1%2BYrRuSm86aizR%2FbkSQcuTceBzw1zY%2BZ1

Science is built like a wall and each contribution (book, chapter, paper, data, model, idea, thesis, anti-thesis, paradox, and even, inconsistency and imposture...) represents in science "Another Brick In The Wall", Dixit Pink Floyd. And as such, this brick only makes sense if other bricks can lean against it. The same applies to academic research, which, as "a brick in the wall", should support new research works. Thus, IMHO, academic citations could represent a fair measure of the value of whatever scientific work.

The peer review process had been manipulated!

A retired professor of education has lost three papers – which he said he helped edit for a former student – after the publisher discovered manipulated peer review led to their acceptance...

https://retractionwatch.com/2022/12/15/i-never-asked-or-expected-to-be-included-as-an-author-retired-penn-state-prof-has-three-retractions-for-manipulated-peer-review/

A Conflict of Interests – Manipulating Peer Review or Research as Usual?

Peer review is a check within the framework of scientific communication, but it is not the check. It is, however, the one salient to this story...

The peer reviewers should be independent of each other and experts in a topic covered in the paper (Fig. 1). The reviewers offer insight into the quality of the subject and the strength of the methods. In theory, all actors should be independent of one another, but in practice, this is rarely the case. ‘Peers’ means there should be some overlap among people and their knowledge – the people taking on the review must have the capacity and capability to form a thoughtful critique of a given piece of work. To that end, the editors, peer reviewers, and authors are often part of the same scientific society or even organisation (Fig. 2)...

https://www.digital-science.com/blog/2023/01/a-conflict-of-interests/

Let peer review be transparent

A journal will publish the editor decision letters, reviewer reports and author responses...

"Transparency is important to us. From launch, we have recognized the editors who have handled a published article in the “Peer review information” section at the end of each paper. We have later added reviewer recognition, where we publish the names of those reviewers who wish to be acknowledged. In addition, we already publish a peer review file—comprised of our decision letters, the reviewers’ comments to the authors and the authors’ responses to these comments—for peer reviewed articles whose authors have explicitly asked us to do so. We are now extending publication of this accompanying peer review file to all articles that are submitted from 23rd January 2023 onwards and reviewed externally, that is, all primary research and overview articles (Reviews and Perspectives), and some of our Opinion pieces..."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00665-6

"I Wrote a Viral Screed Against Peer Review. I Got Some Emails."

In November, I published a scientific paper by uploading a PDF to the internet, and people were like, “Nice paper, here are some thoughts!”

A month ago, I wrote what became my young newsletter’s most popular post, saying peer review is a failed experiment and that one alternative is to upload PDFs to the internet, and some people were like “Hold on there, buster!”....

https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/01/peer-review-critique-scientists-controversy.html

"Methodological review boards would threaten scientific creativity," says Andrew Barnas. Original proposal - follow the link attached...

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/methodological-review-boards-would-threaten-scientific-creativity

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04504-8

Peer-review has been questioned over three centuries and mostly so over the past decades. It is timely to address concerns on creative, innovative research at universities, and on peer-reviewing.

Here the "The dark side of Academia"- How truth is suppressed" is quite informative (Author J Hamer, published 2022).

Peer review is considered a biased process with identified defects; it is a compromise between the likelihood of accepting a bad paper (type I error) and the likelihood of rejecting a good paper (type II error). Although peer review is supposed to reduce type I errors, it also increases the chances of a type II error. Minimizing the likelihood of a type I error will lead to very few papers being accepted for publication but may also result in a number of good papers being rejected from publication...

Article Quality peer review is mandatory for scientific journals: et...

Ljubomir Jacić Thank you for this reference. Very inspired qualification Type I & II errors. One can add type III errors related to voluntary or involuntary acceptance or rejection for subjective reasons (For instance, own convictions on controversial scientific topics...)

A scientific or intellectual production duly published according to the standard of scientific or academic publishing protocols deserves in principle a priori-worthy favorable prejudice until we study the text, we understand the arguments, we analyze the references, and we compare thoughts and ideas. It is only then that we can allow ourselves constructive and informed criticism. And why not proceed to the development of an alternative thesis, see even to state an antithesis?

Anonymous quote (Own translation from French): We are like books. Judged on the cover, at best by a synopsis, at worst by reviews. But who read the story?

Source

https://www.evolution-101.com/thoughts-on-judgments/

Double-blind peer review affects reviewer ratings and editor decisions at an ecology journal

Full text available here: {besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1365-2435.14259}

Article Double‐blind peer review affects reviewer ratings and editor...

With the booming economy of predatory publishing in medicine, it is time to rethink what constitutes peer review and how peers are being standardized.

Perhaps with the absence of standardization for anonymous peers, manuscripts should undergo a pre-publication trial solely by editors (judges) rather than awaiting trial by peers (juries) unless the recruitment of editors is not standardized as well...

By suggesting peer reviewers at the time of manuscript submissions, authors might be conducting voir dire, thus mimicking the jury selection process found in adversarial legal systems, as opposed to the inquisitorial legal system led by judges (editors).

Pre-publication trial processes might presume that what’s good for peers (juries) is also good for editors (judges).

Just like expert opinions in legal systems, the answer may lie in expert reviews, which could have more evidentiary value during the pre-publication trial of submitted manuscripts...

https://www.kevinmd.com/2023/04/are-predatory-medical-publishers-exploiting-peer-review-system-heres-a-solution.html

The integrity of science and the process of peer review is also, quite reasonably, brought into question – and this can have some pretty dire consequences...

https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/retractions-fraud-peer-review/

Article Post-publication Peer Review with an Intention to Uncover Da...

Is post-publication peer review with the intent to uncover potential misconduct "vigilantism or volunteerism?" the authors of a new paper ask...

These activities contribute to a vigilant research culture that manifests the self-correcting nature of science, and are in line with the Mertonian norms of scientific ethos...

Theoretical physicists do a good job when peer reviewing scientific papers, but tend to be more impressed by the significance of new research rather than the rigour with which it was carried out. That is the provocative suggestion of a new study carried out by researchers in the UK and Poland that examines the reliability of peer review in theoretical physics...

The three core components of quality used to judge a paper are originality, rigour and significance. However, Thelwall says that no-one had previously checked if reviewers judge these metrics effectively, even though they are, for example, part of the guidelines for assessors in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework...

https://physicsworld.com/a/theorists-are-good-peer-reviewers-but-tend-to-prefer-significance-over-rigour-study-finds/

Article Can journal reviewers dependably assess rigour, significance...

Handling undisclosed peer reviewer conflict

Some authors from a company recommended a peer reviewer on submitting their manuscript, who was then asked to review the manuscript. This reviewer recommended acceptance without change. One other reviewer recommended major revision (a methodological reviewer not a content expert) and the third reviewer recommended rejection. The editor found it unusual for a review to recommend acceptance without change so looked up this reviewer and found a manuscript in press at another journal where the reviewer, as an author, disclosed relationships with the same company the authors work at. These included honoraria, consultant fees, and advisory board participation. The manuscript in press indeed was about the same drug covered in the submission. The reviewer answered "no" to the question asked during the peer review process on whether they had any conflicts of interest related to the research...

https://publicationethics.org/case/undisclosed-peer-reviewer-conflict

Flood of Submissions Bogs Down Peer Review

"“What’s Wrong with Peer Review?” (Review, Nov. 11) makes the point that journals have a hard time checking the validity of data and methods because they can be overwhelmed with submissions. Another phenomenon that few know about is the “desk reject,” whereby journal editors or their staff reject a paper without sending it to peer review. In some fields, desk rejection accounts for the majority of papers refused publication in top-ranked journals. This is also a phenomenon that has arisen due to the overwhelming number of submissions, which is the result of the need of researchers to advance their careers by publishing journal articles.

It is perhaps more damaging to science than the flawed peer-review process because it means that the review process can’t meet the gold standard of being double-blind or anonymous to a reviewer. It risks having editors or staff pick papers to send to referees based on their personal knowledge and assessment of authors, their credentials, and the subject matter. This can result in a bias toward the status quo..."

https://www.wsj.com/science/whats-wrong-with-peer-review-e5d2d428?mod=article_inline

https://www.wsj.com/articles/flood-of-submissions-bogs-down-peer-review-academics-data-046630e7

Structured Peer Review: Pilot results from 23 Elsevier Journals

"Reviewers rarely comment on the same aspects of a manuscript, making it difficult to properly assess manuscripts’ quality and the quality of the peer review process. It was the goal of this pilot study to evaluate structured peer review implementation by: 1) exploring if and how reviewers answered structured peer review questions, 2) analysing reviewer agreement, 3) comparing that agreement to agreement before implementation of structured peer review, and 4) further enhancing the piloted set of structured peer review questions...

Our preliminary results indicate that reviewers adapted to the new format of review successfully, and answered more topics than they covered in their traditional reports. Individual question analysis indicated highest disagreement regarding interpretation of results and conducting and reporting of statistical analyses. While structured peer review did lead to improvement in reviewer final recommendation agreements, this was not a randomized trial, and further studies should be done to corroborate this. Further research is also needed to determine if structured peer review leads to greater knowledge transfer or better improvement of manuscripts..."

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.01.578440v1

Emerging plagiarism in peer-review evaluation reports: a tip of the iceberg?

"The phenomenon of plagiarism in peer-review evaluation reports remained surprisingly unrecognized, despite a notable rise of such cases in recent years. This study reports multiple cases of peer-review plagiarism recently detected in 50 different scientific articles published in 19 journals. Their in-depth analysis reveals that such reviews tend to be nonsensical, vague and unrelated to the actual manuscript. The analysis is followed by a discussion of the roots of such plagiarism, its consequences and measures that could counteract its further spreading. In addition, we demonstrate how increased availability and access to AI technologies through recent emergence of chatbots may be misused to write or conceal plagiarized peer-reviews. Plagiarizing reviews is a severe misconduct that requires urgent attention and action from all affected parties..."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-024-04960-1

Peer Review and Scientific Publishing Are Faltering

"For many years, there has been talk of paper mills: publishers who print scientific journals and articles for a fee without caring about the reliability of their research. These publishers of what are called predatory journals sometimes seem not to care whether their authors even exist. The business pleases publishing groups paid by researchers, researchers who can increase the number of their publications (which is crucial for their professional evaluation), institutions that can boast of researchers who publish a lot, and sometimes, even interest groups outside academia or research centers that exploit the system to give scientific legitimacy to their demands (as has sometimes happened within antivaccine movements). Serious scientists and, above all, trust in science suffer..."

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/1000328?form=fpf

Elsevier investigating geology journal after allegations of pal review

"Elsevier is investigating the journal Geoscience Frontiers after a PubPeer thread flagged an editorial advisor whose articles in the journal were edited by his frequent co-authors.

The editorial advisor, M. Santosh, is a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia and a “Highly Cited Researcher” with more than 1,500 published articles, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

The PubPeer commenter, “Desmococcus antarctica,” noted that two associate editors of the journal, Vinod O. Samuel of Yonsei University in Seoul and Erath Shaji of the University of Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram, India, are often listed as “Handling Editors” of Santosh’s articles published in Geoscience Frontiers — despite each frequently publishing other work with him..."

https://retractionwatch.com/2024/07/23/elsevier-investigating-geology-journal-after-allegations-of-pal-review/

Biochemistry journal retracts 25 papers for ‘systematic manipulation’ of peer review

"A journal of the UK-based Biochemical Society is retracting 25 papers after finding “systematic manipulation of our peer-review and publication processes by multiple individuals,” according to a statement provided to Retraction Watch.

The batch of retractions for Bioscience Reports is “​​the first time that we have issued this many retractions in one go for articles that we believe to be connected,” managing editor Zara Manwaring said in an email.

As academic publishing grapples with its papermill problem, many firms are retracting articles by the dozens, hundreds, or even thousands after discovering foul play..."

https://retractionwatch.com/2024/08/22/exclusive-biochemistry-journal-retracts-25-papers-for-systematic-manipulation-of-peer-review/

Examining uncertainty in journal peer reviewers’ recommendations: a cross-sectional study

"The peer review process is used throughout science but has often been criticized for being inconsistent, with decisions dependent on the peers who did the reviewing. Much of the decision inconsistency arises from the differences between reviewers in terms of their expertise, training and experience. Another source of uncertainty is within reviewers as they must make a single recommendation (e.g. ‘Accept’), when they may have wavered between two (e.g. ‘Accept’ or ‘Reject’). We estimated the size of within-reviewer uncertainty using post-review surveys at three journals. We asked reviewers to think outside the recommendation they gave (e.g. ‘Accept’) and assign percentages to all other recommendations (e.g. ‘Major revision’). Reviewers who were certain could assign 100% to one recommendation. Twenty-three per cent of reviewers reported no uncertainty (95% confidence interval 19–27%). Women were associated with more uncertainty at one journal, and protocol papers were associated with more uncertainty at one journal. Reviewers commonly experience some uncertainty when peer-reviewing journal articles. This uncertainty is part of the variability in peer reviewers’ recommendation..."

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240612

‘Substandard and unworthy’: why it’s time to banish bad-mannered reviews

"Peer review, which has for centuries been the standard tool to determine an academic paper’s suitability for publication, is known to be flawed. Now, one of its major weaknesses, sheer bad manners on the part of the reviewer, has been highlighted...

Unprofessional peer review is that which is unethical, irrelevant, mean-spirited or cruel and lacking constructive criticism...

Reviewers’ comments can also be seen by other reviewers during co-reviewing, whereby a reviewer formally invites a colleague to collaborate with them. More than eight in ten reviewers who have participated in co-review have told us that they find it useful or very useful.

The signs all indicate that these mechanisms work together to improve reviewers’ understanding of how to do good peer review — and that will benefit science at large..."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02943-z

To rely on peer-review or not?

"What counts as “peer reviewed” is even more varied than it was twenty years ago, and the likelihood of it being a particularly strong proxy for reliability has dropped accordingly. Some of that is due to outright fraud (e.g., predatory journals and paper mills), and some of it is due to a general decline in the quality of review done by not-outright-fraudulent journals, for a variety of reasons, including the sheer volume of articles making genuine deep review impossible. Litigants should be more cognizant of the possibility of articles in predatory journals, and what looks like, and pursue discovery when appropriate. Courts, in turn, should be open to that discovery—and at least, even if the litigants don’t do a good job of exploring what’s behind that curtain, to be less automatically deferential to peer-reviewed literature when offered in support of an expert’s opinion."

https://texaslawreview.org/predatory-journals-retractions-and-manipulation-problems-with-and-consequences-of-relying-on-peer-review-in-evaluating-expert-testimony/

Concerns Over Peer Reviews

"The troubling behavior described by Oviedo-García in the journal Scientometrics raises further doubts. An analysis of 263 peer reviews from 37 journals revealed that reviewers often used identical or very similar phrases in their evaluations, regardless of the content. In one case, the reviewer used the same wording in 52 reviews. This suggests that some reviewers read the studies that they are supposed to evaluate only superficially. Such practices can lead to valueless reviews and jeopardize the integrity of scientific literature. “Some other researchers will probably base their future research on these fake reports, which is frightening, especially when it comes to health and medicine,” Oviedo-García stated.

She suspects that the reviewers may have relied on templates to produce their reports quickly. This allowed them to list this work on their resumes for potential career advantages. Some reviewers have reportedly even "requested" the authors of the studies they reviewed to cite their own scientific work..."

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/scientific-publications-face-credibility-crisis-2025a10000fb?form=fpf