Peer reviewers can meet journals’ criteria for authorship
BMJ 2013; 346 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f166 (Published 16 January 2013) Cite this as: BMJ 2013;346:f166All rapid responses
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There are a few journals that not only post on-line the final accepted version of the article, but also all the prior versions together with the non-anonymized reviewer comments. It may be feasible to have these reviews indexed across different journals in a way that they would be searchable and ultimately serve as resource and provide a measure of public recognition for the hard work that reviewers do. However, with great transparency comes great responsibility to be mindful of grammar, spelling, logic, etc., which are sometimes absent from some of the reviews I have seen over the years.
Competing interests: No competing interests
The article evokes the impression that good research is defined as ‘writing (good) papers’ rather than ‘conducting (good) studies’. It further emphasises the tendency, which can often be noticed in medical research, to focus more on quantity than on quality of published papers. Though publishing is undoubtedly an important part of research, the main workload should rather be on carefully planning and thoroughly carrying out studies that contribute to knowledge. While well-planned and well-executed studies that never get reported are a waste of time and money, poorly-planned and poorly-executed studies that DO get reported are also a waste of time (and possibly dangerous).
The question is if a study needs to lead to more than one good article. Sometimes, results seem to be artificially split into several aspects in order to gain a long publication list. Reducing the strain of publishing may therefore gain time which can be used for improving research – and thus implicates the chance for high quality papers. On this basis, the reviewers’ workload would be reduced.
On the other hand, what is the reviewers’ role? Should it really be their business to fundamentally correct the design? If a study is poorly designed, it is not suitable for publication. That’s it. Detailed feedback on why a study was rejected may help to improve future research but is not mandatory. One can ask if it is not a genuine task for researchers to help to improve research quality. Moreover, the potential conflict of interest of reviewers associated with giving up their independency and objectivity needs to be taken into consideration.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: Peer reviewers can meet journals’ criteria for authorship
Though I agree with the principles laid out by the authors (due credit, transparency and conflict of interest), I believe the proposed ways to deal with them are not enough to keep the integrity of publication ethics. When a reviewer has contributed substantial work to warrant authorship and is eventually credited, there will always be a question of conflict of interest. Disclosure is one way to deal with the problem but unfortunately it is also the least effective. The editor should repeat the process of peer-review with a fresh set of reviewers. Additional resources would have to be spent but this is the only way that public trust can be maintained.
Competing interests: No competing interests