Authorship andthe reviewer process

Joana Pinto VieiraMatthieu Delincé

Nicole Zürcher

Responsible Conduct in Biomedical Research, EPFL, April 13th 2012

Authorship – Case Study

A. Team Alex: Why should he have been a co-author?

B. Team Anna/PI: Why should he not be a co-author?

AuthorshipAuthorship should be limited to those who meet all the following criteria

[1.] have made a significant personal contribution to the concept, design, execution or interpretation of the research study; [2.] participate in the writing of the manuscript; and [3.] approve the final version of the manuscript.

Guidelines for research integrity and good scientific practice at the EPFL, 2009

Authorship – other issues

• Who takes responsibility for the study as a whole ?

• Clearly declare who contributed and how

• Acknowledgements (technical help, material contribution, general support)

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, Ethical Considerations (www.icmje.org)

Review process – Current standard

Authors submit manuscript to Journal

EditorReject Reviewers suggestions:

- reject - major changes- minor changes- accept

Decision communicated to the authors: - Rejected - modify according to reviewers- Accepted

Current review process

Advantages Disadvantages

A peer = an expert in the field reviews the study reassures the public, trust that the

review was well conducted publication record is useful for

allocation of funding

Conflict of interests for reviewers Collaborator Competitor Financial profit Antipathy, etc…

Weeds out most of the flawed studies Bias towards publication of positive resultsNon-detection of fraudulent research

Inefficiency, as it is a slow process

Anonymity of reviewer?

Postnote, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Number 182, September 2002PLoSONE Guidelines for Reviewers (www.plosone.org)

In our opinion:

Signed review

Disadvantage Advantage

Reviewer does not dare criticizing too harshlye.g younger scientists vs. established senior scientist or vs. someone they may want to collaborate with in the future

reviews will be less critical

Renders reviewers more accountable

reduces abuses

Harder to find reviewers willing to leave the anonymity

Increases credit given to a review

Postnote, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Number 182, September 2002

An alternative, arχiv.org

• Open access to preprints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics

• More than 6000 submissions / month• Moderators for different topics (non-anonymous)• “Endorsement system”• Majority of articles later sent to peer-review journals• Dubious preprints reclassified (not deleted)

arχiv.org

What do you think of this system?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the arχiv system compared to the current peer-review system?

Thank you for your attention

and (hopefully) for your participation!