Editorial
Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening, 2015, Vol. 18, No. 1
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Editorial Peer Review Pitfalls Peer Review, the touchstone of the modern day publishing enterprise, offers a litmus test to the quality of a manuscript, its appropriateness to the journal and its scholarly relevance in advancing our current understanding of the field. Reviewing is crucial in ascertaining the relevance of protocols used, statistical treatment of the data and evaluating the conclusions drawn. Along the way, peer reviewers help to improve the quality of the manuscript in significant ways as well. The time-tested peer review process further helps to identify scientific misconduct, including plagiarism, image cropping, and originality of the conclusions derived. However, the peer review process is a thankless job, as in itself an enormously time consuming task to all involved with no monetary compensation. The origins of peer review could be traced to the Royal Society of London as far back as 1665, and almost a century later to the formation of ‘Committee on Papers’ established in 1752 for ensuring the quality of manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The Committee’s responsibility was to help in the selection of the manuscripts’ fit for the journal; the responsibility for the scientific integrity, the findings and the conclusions made relied solely on the author(s). The current system of using external reviewers (non-authors) to vet a manuscript by a process now known as ‘peer review’ started in the 1950s. By some accounts, there are now about 25, 500 scholarly journals in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) field, collectively processing ~1.8 million publications. Editorial decisions of acceptance or rejection of submitted manuscripts depend on honest peer reviews. As editors, we have first-hand knowledge of how difficult it is to achieve timely review by experts in the field. Last year, I discussed the pervasive problem of misconduct in biomedical sciences as a systematic malady that we have encountered in recent years. Scientific Misconduct, according to the Office of Research Integrity (United States Department of Health and Human Services) pertains mainly to three areas: fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. In recent years, however, a new avenue for misconduct has evolved – the rigging of the ‘peer review’ process. As editors we rely on honest, critical reviews from our peers, selected by the editorial board, and in some cases, recommendations made by the lead author. At least in the latter case, there is the threat of conflict of interest in relying on the author-recommended reviewers, but we rely on the ‘honor’ code. With the rate of peer-reviewed papers published increasing by 8-9% a year, the editorial board is under constant pressure to ensure ample scrutiny for all the submissions we receive. The right of authors to recommend specific people whom they feel well qualified to evaluate their work, and the courtesy of permitting an investigator to disqualify judgment from potentially biased rivals, seem sensible, but this unfortunately provides a mechanism through which substantial abuse can be injected into the process. An author’s scientific standing (promotion, grant awards, committee assignments, speaking engagements, awards bestowed, attracting graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, etc.) among his ‘peers’ is based on the quality, timeliness and the number of papers published in peer-reviewed journals with high impact in the field, thus putting enormous pressure in getting the manuscripts published. Over the last few years some authors have engaged in a scam to subvert the whole peer review process by using fabricated emails of fictitious experts (there are many ways to construct dubious, non-institutional, email IDs) to receive manuscripts by themselves and then submit their own ‘peer’ review of the manuscript, as one can guess, with glowing reviews. Unless editors take the time to reach out to each reviewer to confirm the authenticity of the review, the anonymity of peer review process enables the malpractice to continue without detection. We have now come to realize that there are organized agencies that offer ghost writing of manuscripts and providing fabricated email contacts and peer reviews. Email IDs that look fictitious, peer reviews that come in with fast turn around times, among others, ought to raise red flags to the editorial team and the publishing staff. The now infamous case of Hyung-In Moon of Dong-A University in South Korea is a prime example of this unscrupulous conduct. When confronted with proof, he did confess to the ‘crime,’ blamed the system of how easy it is to subvert the honor code, and retracted 12 of his papers that have been published under this racket. The notorious case of Guang-Zhi He, Guiyang College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China, is yet another example. More than 100 retractions, all attributed specifically to peer review rigging, have occurred over the last couple of years, and this latest form of scientific fraud is growing at an alarming pace. We understand that ‘peer review’ is protean, highly subjective and biased, and we do get opposing viewpoints about a given manuscript. We do realize where a reviewer is coming from, especially if the reviewer is a personal friend, colleague or a potential competitor. We also know that most ‘big’ name scientists tend to decline to review manuscripts for one reason or the other. We are also all too aware of the potential threat for the stealing of the ideas and concepts by the peer reviewers themselves, as illustrated by the case of Vijay Soman at Yale back in 1978. The case of Steven Hefner (University of Texas Health Sciences Center), who shared a New England Journal of Medicine manuscript on Avandia prior to its publication with GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of the drug, was a breach of peer reviewer confidentiality and bad judgment at its worst. As an Editor-in-Chief, I use my gut instinct, or use yet another reviewer to tilt the decision based on a statistical weigh-in. The names, authors and the associated institutions do sway us at times. We are ready to accept manuscripts with game-changing results, but never get quite so excited about manuscripts with negative results….because who wants to know that such and such conditions or drugs did not elicit any or the expected response? Peer review in itself is not meant to be a ‘policing’ process. We rarely pick
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Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening, 2015, Vol. 18, No. 1
Editorial
up the mainstream fraud during the peer review process, because we trust our peers in practicing the highest ethical code of conduct that personifies the scientist. With all its pitfalls, the peer review process still has a place in the publication process. Blinding reviewers to the identity of authors is one idea that has been much talked about, but hard to achieve in reality because there are ample clues within the manuscript to deduce the authorship, at least of the lead author. Another idea is to include the names of the reviewers as a footnote to the manuscript when it gets published, thus making the peer reviewers to be more accountable, open and honest. This latest form of scientific misconduct, rigging the honor-code based peer review process, can readily be addressed. The editorial boards must be genuinely dedicated to publishing manuscripts that meet the standards of the journal. While the peer review process is as subjective as it is, there are ways to improve the system by 1) offering small honoraria, 2) inviting corresponding authors to become part of the referee roster, 3) mandatory use of institutional IDs, 4) dropping the practice of soliciting the names of prospective reviewers from the authors, and 5) have competent publishing staff trained in identifying scientific misconduct that manifests in a myriad chameleon forms. It is imperative and incumbent upon the journals and the authors alike to exercise due diligence, and uphold the ethics of the venerable peer review process. At CCHTS, we have established stringent guidelines for facilitating the peer review process. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) provides us with excellent guidance on best practices related to ‘code of conduct’ we all should adhere to. We avail the help of 200-250 reviewers for each volume comprising of 10 issues published. I would like to extend my sincere appreciation for their constructive input in selecting each of the 90-100 manuscripts that eventually get published annually. Their efforts have contributed greatly to the high quality and continuous growth of the journal. My sincere thanks to all those who have helped-the authors, reviewers, section editors and publishing staff-for their time, advice, expertise, and tireless effort.
Rathnam Chaguturu (Editor-in-Chief) iDDPartners, 3 Edith Court Princeton Junction NJ 08550 USA E-mail:
[email protected]
