Quantifying professionalism in peer review

Research Integrity and Peer Review

Jeff C. Clements¹  Travis G. Gerwing²  Joshua A. Rash³  Chi-Yeung Choi⁴  Stephanie Avery-Gomm⁵  Alyssa M. Allen Gerwing⁶ 

[1] Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway;Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada;Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada;School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China;Science and Technology Branch, Environment and Climate Change Canada, National Wildlife Research Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada;Sidney Museum and Archives, Sidney, British Columbia, Canada;

关键词: Biology;    Peer review;    Psychology;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s41073-020-00096-x

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe process of peer-review in academia has attracted criticism surrounding issues of bias, fairness, and professionalism; however, frequency of occurrence of such comments is unknown.MethodsWe evaluated 1491 sets of reviewer comments from the fields of “Ecology and Evolution” and “Behavioural Medicine,” of which 920 were retrieved from the online review repository Publons and 571 were obtained from six early career investigators. Comment sets were coded for the occurrence of “unprofessional comments” and “incomplete, inaccurate or unsubstantiated critiques” using an a-prior rubric based on our published research. Results are presented as absolute numbers and percentages.ResultsOverall, 12% (179) of comment sets included at least one unprofessional comment towards the author or their work, and 41% (611) contained incomplete, inaccurate of unsubstantiated critiques (IIUC).ConclusionsThe large number of unprofessional comments, and IIUCs observed could heighten psychological distress among investigators, particularly those at an early stage in their career. We suggest that development and adherence to a universally agreed upon reviewer code of conduct is necessary to improve the quality and professional experience of peer review.

【 授权许可】

CC BY