eLife peer review alpsp talk

Peer review in a digital environment

Mark Patterson

eLife

ALPSP Seminar, November 20th, 2012

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anandham/4499539060/

Open access is just one part of a broader transition

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-1.1/peer.htm


• Assess technical merits of work

• Assess likely significance of work

The goals of peer review

http://www.scienceforseo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/peerreview.jpg


• Assess technical merits of work

• Assess likely significance of work


How does peer review work?



http://the-political-ear.com/?p=595

Is peer review broken?

Experiments in peer review

• Increasing transparency– Non-anonymous– Exposing the process

• Broadening participation– Public peer review before publication– Post-publication assessment/metrics

• Changing the question– Publish first then filter

Increasing transparency

Reviewers are not anonymous

Reviewers are

not anonymous

Complete submission

history published

Open peer review

Reviewers can remain anonymous

Cross-referee commenting

Complete submission

history published

Open peer review (2)

eLife editorial process

Swift triage

Full submission

Consultation

Decision letter

Revisiondecision

Amongst reviewers before decision

Consolidate feedback, published

Limit rounds of revision

Peer review

Broadening participation

http://www.frontiersin.org/Computational_Neuroscience/10.3389/fncom.2012.00033/full

http://www.frontiersin.org/Computational_Neuroscience/10.3389/fncom.2012.00033/full

• Founded 2001• Publishes ~800

papers per year• 20% papers

receive comment from community

“Facilitating sustained and rigorous analysis of evidence and theory is the most rigorous form of peer review.”

AcknowledgmentMartin Fenner, PLOS

PLOS Papers Funded by the Wellcome TrustLocation of the first authors for 1961 articles funded by the Wellcome Trust (blue = MOPs, green = MRC, dark grey = all other).

AcknowledgmentMartin Fenner, PLOS

Changing the question

Open-access

megajournals

PLOS ONE quarterly publications

Open-access

megajournals

Megajournals during their first year

BMJ Open Sci Rep AIP Adv SAGE Open

G3 PLOS ONE 0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Megajournals don’t…

• Organize content• Assess impact• Publish opinion/commentary

Megajournals do…

• Accelerate research communication• Make publishing cheaper• Drive open access• Challenge traditional journals

www.flickr.com/photos/keepitsurreal/1884615328/

Experimentation and diversity

Questions?Mark [email protected]

eLife peer review alpsp talk

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