‘Nature’ Opts for Open Peer-Review Systems
Scientific journal Nature has reportedly adopted an open peer-review system to review papers submitted for publication. Under the initiative, manuscripts will be uploaded to a pre-print server and made available online to members of the scientific community in a blog format.
Comments submitted are subject to review themselves prior to being published, and those commenting will be required to put their name and institution to their words. In addition to public review via the Peer Review Trial, manuscripts will continue to be sent to Nature’s experts for a closed review. Also, authors can choose not to have their work reviewed in this manner, as there are some disadvantages associated with having an open peer-review. Although access is intended primarily for the scientific community, anyone can access the pre-published material.
However, the journal will discard any comments found to be irrelevant, intemperate or inappropriate. According to Nature’s editors, both sets of comments — the traditional peer-review opinions as well as the online remarks – will be taken into consideration while deciding whether or not to publish a study.
Interested readers can also visit the Nature web debate on Peer Review, and are invited to comment on the articles published there.
Knowledgespeak, 9/18/06 (and Issues in Scholarly Communication: SC News for the UIUC Community, Sept 18, 2006)
