Good Peer Review Research Articles

The Danger of Predator Journal Publication for Researchers

Scientific publications in the form of scientific journals are one way for researchers to share information related to the results of research that has been done, besides that scientific publications can also be used to build the reputation of researchers both in the academic and research fields. However, there is a danger of publication which until now has not been known by novice researchers who have just entered the world of scientific publications, namely publication in predatory journals. This is an important thing that needs to be known well and also must be watched out for by novice researchers. This is because predatory journals are scientific journals that are not of good quality, where the journals that are managed are only for financial gain through expensive publication fees and do not pay attention to aspects of research quality and also a good peer review process in good governance. scientific journals. In researching and writing this journal, researchers discuss some of the dangers associated with publishing predatory journals for researchers in terms of decreasing academic reputation, publication costs and also falsification of research data published in a predatory journal. In addition, researchers also look at the specific and clear characteristics of journals that can be categorized as predatory journals.

Reining in Reviewer Two: How to Uphold Epistemic Respect in Academia

AbstractJournals and scholarly communities seek to uphold standards of professional conduct. They regularly issue guideposts for how to do a good peer review, which highlight its tone should not be overly harsh. However, this guidance is frequently violated by a well‐known academic folk‐devil: ‘Reviewer Two’. A defining feature of reviewer two is that they do not show ‘epistemic respect’. A review shows epistemic respect by assessing arguments on the basis of their soundness, their logic, or their originality. A review violates epistemic respect when it assesses scholarly work on the basis of irrelevant information such as the epistemic origins of arguments, or the ranking of journals in which the arguments were published. We suggest that epistemic respect can be upheld by fundamentally changing established practices that scholars, editors, reviewers and journals take for granted. We show that upholding epistemic respect in academia is more than a question of tact. Stopping reviewer two‐like behaviour will promote innovative thought, accelerate the evolution of knowledge, and increase the diversity of knowing and learning.

Publication integrity viewed from different perspectives

Publication and communication of research findings are important for the development of science, since future scientific work relies and builds on previous findings. However, this is not possible if researchers cannot trust the published work or if the principles of research integrity are not implemented in all phases of the research process, including the publication of research results (ALLEA 2017, NASEM 2017). This study aimed to explore authorship and publication practices across different disciplinary fields and to identify areas related to the publication of research findings that require improvements. We used a purposive sample strategy to recruit researchers from different disciplinary fields (humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and medical sciences), different levels of seniority, and geographical locations. We conducted 30 focus groups with 174 researchers and other stakeholders from eight European countries (Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands). The data will be analysed using the thematic analysis approach to develop a thematic map with themes and sub-themes. Currently, we are analysing the data using the NVivo software (QSR International). Some of the codes and sub-codes already identified are: 1) authorship distribution (authorship statement/plan; disciplinary field/country specifics and differences regarding authorship distribution/practices, ethical issues in authorship, handling authorship disputes); 2) authorship, publications, and academic career (stakeholders’ evaluation of authorship and publications); 3) research publication and dissemination (examples of good publication practices, examples of issues related to publication process); 4) peer review (good peer review practices, poor peer review practices); and 5) open science (perceptions on open science; open access, open data, open collaboration, and reproducible research).One possible limitation of our study, taking into account that publication practices differ significantly in different settings (countries, fields, etc.), could be that the knowledge obtained could not be generalised and applied globally, since we included participants from European countries alone. However, we believe that by including a large number of participants we managed to map publication practices in the European area and will be able to learn what should be improved and how to foster good publication practices by European researchers.

Factors influencing acceptance or rejection by Iranian medical researchers of invitations to peer review

Background: Peer review is a necessary but costly and time-consuming process to identify good-quality and methodologically sound articles and improve them before publication. Finding good peer reviewers is often difficult. Objective: To identify the incentives that make Iranian biomedical researchers accept invitations to be a peer reviewer and factors that affect these incentives. Methods: Twelve reviewers selected at random from the reviewers pool of each of 26 biomedical journals published from Fars province, Iran, were surveyed using a questionnaire that we had developed and tested in a pilot study of 30 reviewers (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.779). The data included the reviewers’ demographics, history of their reviews, and choice of 11 reasons each for accepting or declining the invitation to review. Results: A total of 233 reviewers completed the questionnaire. The most important reasons for accepting the invitation to review were the journal’s practice to publish the names of the reviewers alongside the article they had reviewed, acknowledgement by the journals by publishing the names of reviewers once a year, free access to journals’ content, and lower publication charges as authors. The most common reasons to decline the invitation were lack of time, busy schedules, and lack of sufficient incentive to review. Conclusion: Acknowledgement by the journal, offering to publish the names of reviewers alongside the articles they had reviewed, and monetary rewards will be effective incentives for biomedical researchers in Iran to serve as peer reviewers.

Thank you to our peer reviewers in 2020

2020 was a challenging year for everyone. Labs and offices were closed, Zoom meetings abounded, and health and medical services were stretched to their limits. While we all struggled to learn new ways of working, Journal of Cell Science put in place measures to help our authors with their revisions as much as we could - we extended revision deadlines, reminded reviewers to limit requests for experimental revisions, and reinforced our scoop protection policy - you can read more about those measures here. We thank all of our authors for considering and trusting Journal of Cell Science as the platform for their valuable work in 2020. To give them guidance when handling these manuscripts, our Editors of course turn to peer reviewers, who continued to give generously of their time and expertise to help us maintain the high standards of the journal. We appreciate how much time and effort goes in to writing a good peer review that is helpful to both the editors in making decisions and the authors in revising their manuscripts - so we extend our sincere thanks for the insightful and scholarly guidance offered by our reviewers and, of course, their co-reviewers. We are pleased to publicly acknowledge all the reviewers and co-reviewers who completed reviews of Journal of Cell Science manuscripts in 2020 - the full list of their names can be found in the supplementary information.

Support for Good Peer Review in OJS-based Journals

How can a library publishing service with limited resources help editorial teams of peer-reviewed journals in their work? This paper focuses on the technical aspects of the peer review workflow that, if set up and adhered to properly, can contribute to improving the standard of the peer review process – and to some degree also the quality of peer review. The discussion is based on the work done at Septentrio Academic Publishing, the institutional service provider for open access publishing at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

Peer review of health research funding proposals: A systematic map and systematic review of innovations for effectiveness and efficiency.

ObjectiveTo investigate methods and processes for timely, efficient and good quality peer review of research funding proposals in health.MethodsA two-stage evidence synthesis: (1) a systematic map to describe the key characteristics of the evidence base, followed by (2) a systematic review of the studies stakeholders prioritised as relevant from the map on the effectiveness and efficiency of peer review ‘innovations’. Standard processes included literature searching, duplicate inclusion criteria screening, study keyword coding, data extraction, critical appraisal and study synthesis.ResultsA total of 83 studies from 15 countries were included in the systematic map. The evidence base is diverse, investigating many aspects of the systems for, and processes of, peer review. The systematic review included eight studies from Australia, Canada, and the USA, evaluating a broad range of peer review innovations. These studies showed that simplifying the process by shortening proposal forms, using smaller reviewer panels, or expediting processes can speed up the review process and reduce costs, but this might come at the expense of peer review quality, a key aspect that has not been assessed. Virtual peer review using videoconferencing or teleconferencing appears promising for reducing costs by avoiding the need for reviewers to travel, but again any consequences for quality have not been adequately assessed.ConclusionsThere is increasing international research activity into the peer review of health research funding. The studies reviewed had methodological limitations and variable generalisability to research funders. Given these limitations it is not currently possible to recommend immediate implementation of these innovations. However, many appear promising based on existing evidence, and could be adapted as necessary by funders and evaluated. Where feasible, experimental evaluation, including randomised controlled trials, should be conducted, evaluating impact on effectiveness, efficiency and quality.

Author's failure to read and follow instructions leads to increased trauma to their manuscripts.

Authors under pressure to publish to meet some academic requirement are one of the most dangerous pressure group which the editors of good quality peer review biomedical journals have to face every day. Their failure to read and follow instructions for authors which are published on every journal website, lack of training facilities in research methodology, medical writing, and low computer literacy rate leads to increased trauma to their manuscripts. The authors must realize that from submission to final publication manuscripts go through various stages i.e. internal review, editor’s triage, similarity index check, formatting, external review, revision of the manuscripts in the light of reviewers comments and suggestions. It all takes time and there is no short cut. They must plan at least for six to eight months from the date of submission to acceptance and publication and avoid getting trapped by predatory journals which offer quick publication on payment.

An Accurate and Impartial Expert Assignment Method for Scientific Project Review

Abstract Purpose This paper proposes an expert assignment method for scientific project review that considers both accuracy and impartiality. As impartial and accurate peer review is extremely important to ensure the quality and feasibility of scientific projects, enhanced methods for managing the process are needed. Design/methodology/approach To ensure both accuracy and impartiality, we design four criteria, the reviewers’ fitness degree, research intensity, academic association, and potential conflict of interest, to express the characteristics of an appropriate peer review expert. We first formalize the expert assignment problem as an optimization problem based on the designed criteria, and then propose a randomized algorithm to solve the expert assignment problem of identifying reviewer adequacy. Findings Simulation results show that the proposed method is quite accurate and impartial during expert assignment. Research limitations Although the criteria used in this paper can properly show the characteristics of a good and appropriate peer review expert, more criteria/conditions can be included in the proposed scheme to further enhance accuracy and impartiality of the expert assignment. Practical implications The proposed method can help project funding agencies (e.g. the National Natural Science Foundation of China) find better experts for project peer review. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first publication that proposes an algorithm that applies an impartial approach to the project review expert assignment process. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

International Recognition of FormAkademisk

FormAkademisk was invited to the Design Journal Editors' Meeting at the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), University of Cincinnati in late October, as the only design research journal from the Nordic region. The meeting was organized in advance of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) 2017 conference.Liv Merete Nielsen, who initiated the creation of FormAkademisk and has been a Section Editor since the start-up and I, who have been the Editor-in-Chief for the entire period, travelled to the meeting.FormAkademisk was in good company - among the others invited, we can mention the American Design Issues and the British Design Studies, both of which are at Level 2 of the Norwegian Science Index - NVI. Other reputable journals invited were the International Journal of Design from Taiwan, She Ji - The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation from Tongji University in Shanghai, China, Design and Culture from the United States, Co-Design from the United Kingdom, Information Design Journal published in the Netherlands with an international editorial board, Journal of Design, Business & Society with an international editorial board, the French Sciences du Design and Visible Language published at the University of Cincinnati, USA who hosted the meeting.First, we warmed up by describing each journal's editorial profile. For FormAkademisk we emphasized that we have two equal focuses – research in design, but also research in design education for the general public. This combination seems to be unique internationally.Common issues we discussed further were challenges with the quality of submitted articles and obtaining qualified peer reviewers. We also discussed whether we would agree on a common understanding of what it means to be included as an author of an article. Based on the discussions, FormAkademisk comes well prepared compared to the other internationally leading design research journals.After the meeting in Cincinnati, there have been lively discussions on email between those invited to the Design Journal Editors' Meeting in Cincinnati in October. We look forward to the next meeting to discuss common challenges for research journals in design and design education, especially in connection with the largest international design research conferences.We also want workshops in peer review and article writing. A common issue for the journals is finding good peer reviewers who can review the articles. We therefore encourage anyone who is asked to say yes. Keep in mind that for each article you submit for review, there are two peer reviewers who stand up for you!

Professionalism in Medical Journalism and Role of HEC, PM&DC

Professionalism in Medical Journalism and Role of HEC, PM&DC

Mentored peer reviewing for PhD faculty and students

There is a need for scholars to be prepared as peer reviewers in order to ensure the continual publication of quality science. However, developing the skills to craft a constructive critique can be difficult. In this commentary, we discuss the use of a group peer review mentoring model for PhD students to gain experience in peer review from a faculty member who is experienced in peer review. Central to this model, was the opportunity for each student and faculty mentor to openly discuss their critique of the manuscript. Through this enriching experience, novice researchers were able to learn the elements of a good peer review, better determine a manuscript's substantive contribution to science, and advance the quality of their own manuscript writing.

The social contract of peer review revisited and reinforced: An idea to reduce the strain for reviewers

The social contract of peer review revisited and reinforced: An idea to reduce the strain for reviewers

Gatekeepers of the academic world: a recipe for good peer review.

Gatekeepers of the academic world: a recipe for good peer review Aman Chowdhry Department of Oral Pathology and Microbiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, IndiaThe peer review system relies on assessment of ingenious work by other people in the same domain in order to preserve or improve the quality and creativity of the work.1 Discussion and suggestions on improving the reliability of the process are made in this letter.

Elsevier wants our feedback. Here's mine

Elsevier wants our feedback. Here's mine

Innovative studies, eloquent peer reviewing and cultured editing: Academic desires and tangible dreams of an editor.

Innovative studies, eloquent peer reviewing and cultured editing: Academic desires and tangible dreams of an editor.

Some thoughts on how to do good quality peer review

Some thoughts on how to do good quality peer review

Good science depends on good peer review

I argue that the quality of both scientific research and how it is communicated is maintained and improved through a process analogous to Darwinian evolution. Maintaining status quo or achieving scientific advances are potentially threatened by ‘costs’, including costs in the effort required to maintain current or attain higher scientific quality, and financial costs of conducting high-level research. I describe through analogy with Darwinian evolution how, without peer-review and editorial oversight, scientific quality is expected to decrease on average in the long run. Several mechanisms are presented which, taken together, can contribute to limiting or counteracting this effect—some of the most promising being reviewer rewards, journal peerage, and education. I conclude that the scientific community needs to be proactive in promoting peer review and the reviewer commons, and ultimately scientific quality, because the erosion effect may be gradual and barely noticeable in the short-term, but have substantial effects over the long-term.

AATS 2012: “To model excellence”

In Dr Schaff’s exceedingly generous introduction, you have learned more than you need to know about this 60-year-old smiling public man. These introductions often evoke 2 reactions: of predestination and inevitability, looking back, or uncertainty, even impossibility, when trying to imagine looking forward from the past. I score myself highly on the impossibilities. Not that many years ago, I stood in the back of this meeting and very sincerely doubted that I would ever be a member, let alone your President, and for this miracle I am humbly grateful to you all—and, like everyone who has stood here before, I owe much of my good fortune to many, many others, who I cannot begin to enumerate. A select few include my administrative staff (Figure 1), our physician’s assistants (Figure 2), the cardiac anesthesia team (Figure 3), and the perfusion team (Figure 4). Seymour Schwartz is an amazing, multitalented man who convinced me to train at Columbia Presbyterian—once he accepted that I could not be dissuaded from what he called ‘‘that cardiac junk’’ (Figure 5). At Columbia, I had the good fortune to be trained by many outstanding surgeons—Henry Spotnitz, Tom King, and Fred Jaretzki and, in very special ways, by Eric Rose and Fred Bowman (Figure 6). I also had the privilege of training under 2 previous American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) presidents, Jim Malm and Keith Reemtsma (Figure 7). Dr Malm was my host at my first AATS meeting, and I am honored that he and Connie are here today. Standing out, even among these standouts, are the 4 people who make it all work every day, and I am flattered that Angie, Suzanne, Dana, and Larry are also here today (Figure 8). Last, but not least, I thank the outstanding group of

Seeking good peer review in geomorphology

ABSTRACTThis paper provides an extended guide to reviewing for ESPL in particular and geomorphology in general. After a brief consideration of both how we choose reviewers and why we hope that reviewers will accept, I consider what makes a fair and constructive review. I note that we aim to publish papers with the rigour (r) necessary to sustain an original and significant contribution (q). I note that judging q is increasingly difficult because of the ever‐growing size of the discipline (the Q). This is the sense in which we rarely have a full appreciation of Q, and our reviews are inevitably going to contain some bias. It is this bias that cannot be avoided (cf. Nicholas and Gordon, 2011) and makes the job of ESPL's Editors of critical importance. With this in mind, I identify six elements of a good review: (1) an introductory statement that explains your assessment of your competences in relation to the manuscript (r and Q); (2) a summative view of the originality and significance of the manuscript (q) in relation to Q: (3) a summative view of the methodological rigour of the manuscript (r); (4) identification and justification of any major concerns; (5) identification of any minor issues to be corrected if you think the manuscript merits eventual publication; and (6) note of any typographical or presentation issues to be addressed although this latter activity is also an editorial responsibility. In addition, I note the importance of a constructive review, grounded in what is written in the manuscript, justified where appropriate and avoiding reference to personal views as far as is possible. I conclude with a discussion of whether or not you should sign your review openly and the importance of reviewer confidentiality. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.