The Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE) is a free online bibliographic journal selection tool. Journal selection tools, also known as journal matching or journal comparison tools, are popular resources that help authors determine the most appropriate in scope journal to publish their manuscripts. JANE is one of the earliest journal selection tools, debuting in 2007 . The resJANE interfaces directly with the PubMed operating from the PubMed/MEDLINE data set, meaning both MEDLINE-indexed journals as well as articles deposited into PubMed Central can be retrieved when searching the resource. JANE’s indexing criteria include journals from PubMed/MEDLINE that contain abstracts published within the past ten years. JANE does not search categories that are not viewed as original research. For example, editorials, newspaper articles, comments, conferences, directories, retractions, errata, and so on are omitted. During a search, JANE uses the Lucene open source search engine to search for the most similar fifty articles based on user input and assigns similarity and confidence scores, which determine the search result order.Besides journal comparison functions, other uses of the JANE resource include convenient identification of related articles that authors can read and/or cite in their manuscripts, as well as aggregation of authors who could potentially serve on journal review boards. For example, publishers who need to fill editorial or peer-reviewer positions can search JANE, using the author search to identify relevant subject specialists .JANE’s simple search interface allows users to easily input data into an open text box. The home page search field defaults to a larger expanded “Title and/or Abstract” search box. Users can also select the keyword link to be taken to a smaller text box where keyword terms can be searched. Keyword searching also works when text is entered in the “Title and/or Abstract” search box .Both search boxes include a “Show extra options” button, where users can limit results by language ; publication type ; open access journal options; and journals only indexed for PubMed Central.Each search box also includes options to either “Find journals,” “Find authors,” or “Find articles” depending on the query users want to search. “Find journals” retrieves a list of journals that are most similar to the user’s input terms. Journals are sorted by confidence, with Eigenfactor article influence (AI) metrics displayed when available. A “Show articles” link is also displayed, which retrieves a list of relevant articles from each journal, listed by confidence . Users cThe “Find authors” link displays a list of published authors based on the input data. There is an email option to directly contact each author. The “Show articles” option works similarly to the “Find journals” option and retrieves a list of articles published by the relevant authors, based on input data. Again, articles link directly out to PubMed in a separate browser tab. The “Find articles” option retrieves articles that are most similar to input.For authors who are concerned about the confidentiality of their work, JANE does not store data sent to the resource server. As an additional measure of security, the resource offers a “scramble” feature that, when selected, alphabetizes input terms in the browser before the data are sent to the server. Schuemie notes in the FAQ section of the site, “that putting the words in alphabetical order does not completely disguise your input, but it does make it extremely hard to read, and it has no effect on the performance of JANE.” .While there have been minimal changes to the functionality and display of the website, in 2017, JANE began cautioning users about potential predatory publishers. In a statement appearing on the home page, JANE notes that it relies on PubMed data, acknowledging that predatory journals can appear in PubMed and, therefore, can potentially appear in JANE search results. In an effort to distinguish reputable journals from questionable ones, JANE now displays color-coded identifiers behind each journal name in the results page. The green “Medline-indexed” tab is defined as a journal currently indexed for MEDLINE. The orange “High-quality open access” tab is defined as a journal that does not charge readers or institutions for access and is considered to be of high quality according to the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The blue “PMC” tab is defined as a journal where some or all of its articles are deposited, sometimes after a delay, in PubMed Central (PMC).The JANE website is no frills but achieves its goal of journal matching, journal comparison, and relevant author retrieval. While the site offers a satisfactory amount of transparency on how the resource works, users who have questions or seek clarification can reach out directly to resource creator, Martijn Schuemie, who also maintains the JANE website. An email sent during the preparation of this review was responded to within twenty-four hours. A 2011 JANE review author also noted a one-day turnaround time in responding to that reviewer’s email .For those working in health and biomedical fields, JANE is a practical and streamlined journal selection tool that aggregates data directly from the PubMed/MEDLINE database. Because of this connection, results are in scope and generally more relevant when compared to other journal selection tools. As with any journal matching resource, authors should always vet journal information externally on the publishers’ pages to ensure correctness and completeness. JANE is recommended for researchers or authors looking to determine the best fit for their manuscripts as well as health sciences librarians who are working with junior researchers and others new to scholarly publishing.


Editors have increasing pressure as scholarly publishing tries to shore up trust and reassure academics and the public that traditional peer review is robust, fail-safe, and corrective. Hidden conflicts of interest (COIs) may skew the fairness of the publishing process because they could allow the status of personal or professional relationships to positively influence the outcome of peer review or reduce the processing period of this process. Not all authors have such privileged relationships. In academic journals, editors usually have very specialized skills and are selected as agents of trust, entrusted with the responsibility of serving as quality control gate-keepers during peer review. In many cases, editors form extensive networks, either with other professionals, industry, academic bodies, journals, or publishers. Such networks and relationships may influence their decisions or even their subjectivity towards a set of submitting authors, paper, or institute, ultimately influencing the peer review process. These positions and relationships are not simply aspects of a curriculum, they are potential COIs. Thus, on the editorial board of all academic journals, editors should carry a COI statement that reflects their past history, as well as actual relationships and positions that they have, as these may influence their editorial functions. Not knowing what constitutes best practice is incompetence. Knowing what best practice is, but not knowing how to achieve it, may be inexperience. Knowingly not following best practices, when one knows how to achieve it, is unethical. Smith , 205The structure of an editorial board of a scholarly, academic journal usually consists of a leading person, an editor in chief (EiC), senior or managing editors, associate editors, and advisory editors. There may also be linguistic editors, statistic editors, and even image or technical editors. All these editors carry responsibilities, for which they are given credit, and thus recognition, as academic acclaim, for being editors  and his or her responsibilities to scientific and publishing activities such that a reasonable observer might wonder if the individual’s behavior or judgment was motivated by considerations of his or her competing interests. COI in medical publishing affects everyone with a stake in research integrity including journals, research/academic institutions, funding agencies, the popular media, and the public. , editors, especially of scientific journals, have responsibilities towards authors, peer reviewers, the journal itself, advancement of science, and the general public  fortified their editorial functions and responsibilities, while abandoning the journal impact factor, by committing to post-publication peer review (PPPR) in which possible errors in the published literature would be freshly examined in the light of complaints made by academics or the public  involved non-financial COIs , personal relationships, and non-financial COIs. A non-financial COI can arise when the editors are in situations such as having an unpaid membership in a board, government, or committee, if they have earlier co-authored papers with the author of the paper submitted for review, or if they have worked in institutions where the author works. It can also stem from desires to return favours or seek status and fame , religious beliefs or nationalism may get in the way. A reviewer may be over-enthusiastic or unnecessarily hostile about a topic, without realizing he or she is an outlier in that respect. (p. 9)There are many sources of COIs in the general process of scientific communication –indexed biomedical journals showed that almost 90 per cent of these journals required that authors declare financial COIs , while the declaration of such COIs by editors was observed in only 38.8 per cent of such journals .Guest speaker or consultative positions, remuneration, and exact dates of recruitment.The COI forms or statement for editors should include the following information, which should not be limited to one or five years back, as suggested for the JAMA Network journals  with organizations and funding bodies including non-governmental organizations, research institutions, or charitiesMembership in lobbying or advocacy organizationsWriting or consulting for an educational companyPersonal relationships  with individuals involved in the submission or evaluation of a paper, such as authors, reviewers, editors, or members of the editorial board of a PLOS journalPersonal convictions  related to a paper’s topic that might interfere with an unbiased publication process .Further, disclosure of financial COIs itself is not enough to guarantee the prevention of editorial COIs. Prevention and management of COIs requires a broader approach. Editors are public figures and trustees of public good and thus are accountable both to the wider academia and to the public. Issues such as impact factor and biases also affect editorial judgements , competitors, or those addressing an issue in which they stand to gain financially . If they may have a perceived or actual conflict of interest, editors should delegate handling of any decision to other editors with decision-making responsibility. (CSE Second, handing over the decision-making process of an article to other editors if it addresses an issue of special interest to the editor. This is being followed by the CMJ and PLOS, is further recommended by the CSE and ICMJE, and is part of Elsevier’s COI policy. The CSE states that:Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts should recuse themselves from editorial decisions if they have conflicts of interest or relationships that pose potential conflicts related to articles under consideration … Editors should publish regular disclosure statements about potential conflicts of interests related to the commitments of journal staff. Guest editors should follow these same procedures. ICMJE , p. 4According to the ICMJE:Elsevier’s COI policy considers relationships between the editor, current and recent colleagues, co-authors, and doctoral students for which the editor served as committee chair as having the potential for COIs. The policy recommends that in such cases, manuscripts should be assigned to co-editors, and if none of the editors satisfy all the conflict screens, the manuscript should be given to the least conflicted co-editor JAE , table 1PLoS ONE to $299 as one-time author fee charged by PeerJ to publish an unlimited number of papers by the author. They may also charge membership fees or be subsidized by universities and academic bodies (van Noorden Third, promotion of OA journals allows a larger readership to exercise control over editorial COIs Momen . InformaFourth, in medicine, in order to reduce dissemination bias, clinical trials should be registered, as was recently suggested by the ICMJE, which then backtracked on its promises Basken , while rFinally, an ethics committee with credible representative editors and academicians from various disciplines as members, having enforcement ability that allows them to oversee the adherence of journals to the guidelines set up by COPE, WAME, and ICJME, should be established, as was proposed by Ruff . In esseIn table The objective of this paper is to show how accountability and transparency in the publishing process can be increased by expecting editors to display their COIs. There is clear and repeated evidence in the literature and in the rules and guidelines regarding COIs, even among leading publishers table , that exAnesthesia & Analgesia to list the COIs of editors.At some point, editors who have largely remained free of scrutiny because academic scrutiny has tended to focus almost exclusively on authors will be increasingly scrutinized as academic publishing attempts to shore up trust and move towards a system that displays editorial COIs publicly, such as on the journal’s website (Thordarson


The Internet is rapidly changing the way the results of academic research are communicated within communities and with the wider public. In a push to accelerate change and make the results of research immediately and freely available online for all to read and use, the European Commission, with support from a group of high-profile funders, has proposed a plan to influence the way academic research is published. Here, we discuss the likely impact of this plan on the publishing landscape, the potential benefits, and some possible unintended consequences. To accelerate open access to publicly funded research and to reduce costs of publishing, several funders have proposed to introduce new rules for the way academics publish. Here, two active researchers discuss whether this is a cause for excitement or concern. Publishing plays a big part in the life of an academic. If someone else publishes similar work first or in a “high impact journal” that reaches a wider audience, it hurts. Such events can determine whether an academic is hired and their research funded. Publishing looms so large because it is the way academics test and share the findings of their research with colleagues and with the wider public. Peer-reviewed papers and their associated data are the main outcome of most funded research. They are a major source of reliable public knowledge that is used to advance technology and to inform future funding and rational policy decisions. This knowledge is a precious commodity in a world that is awash with falsehoods.A good publication system should meet several criteria: (1) Broad accessibility: Papers, past and present, should be available to be read, and their findings used, by as wide an audience as possible, as soon as possible. (2) High quality peer-review: Papers should be edited and reviewed impartially by relevant experts in the field so as to validate and improve the quality of work published. (3) Clear presentation: Papers should be written and organised clearly. (4) Standards of verification: There should be checks for plagiarism, and obligations to correct the record if errors are revealed .Meeting all of these criteria is not straightforward. As a result, the publishing system that has evolved is complex. The system also suffers from a host of problems, which will be readily apparent to anyone listening to the gossip in the coffee room of a research department. Many of these problems fall hardest on early stage researchers, who have yet to establish their names, and who have more constraints on funding, staff continuity, and publication time than do more established researchers. There are problems with peer review : multiplPLoS ONE have appeared that have minimal requirements for likely impact in the field, which in any case can only be properly assessed retrospectively. There are efforts by communities to highlight, critique, and review important papers in their field irrespective of where the paper has been posted or published . Thus, Given this changing landscape, how can academics, academic institutions, learned societies, funders, and publishers ensure that, as it changes, the system works well to achieve the goals outlined above? This is where Plan S comes in.Plan S has been drawn up by the European Commission and is being promoted by a host of important research funders from across Europe . The plaThe idea of making research findings freely available to all immediately on publication is laudable and addresses one of the criteria for a good publication system: broad accessibility. But what might the consequences of Plan S be on academic publishing as a whole?If a large number of funders follow Plan S, some currently successful subscription-based journals, including community journals, may find it hard to maintain their income streams, causing them to fold  –14. DoesAnother possibility is that some funders follow Plan S and others do not, creating a split in the community, with different groups of academics being constrained to submit to different journals . FurtherOne of the perceived benefits of Plan S is that the current system leads to subscription journals making excessive profits from science. This seems an inappropriate use of the public and charitable funds that are used to fund science. But is this argument fully justified?Many journals are run by non-profit organizations. These include the journals run by learned societies or institutions, which recycle surplus into the scientific community by funding meetings, studentships, grants, etc. These journals usually are small scale ventures, rely on subscriptions to remain financially viable, and will likely be hit even harder by Plan S than commercial publishing houses because they lack diversified revenue streams. Plan S may also make it harder for these journals to transition to open access .What is the scale of profiteering and misuse of public funds? Though the global figures for publication costs are large , these Some subscription-based journals use open access charges as an additional source of income. This situation arose, in part, as an unforeseen consequence of funders pushing for full open access publication (Gold). In principle, journals should reduce their subscription charge according to the level of this additional income, but some appear not have not done so . Would sMany academics would like more control over the publishing system. However, scientists have generally been free to choose where to submit their work. This freedom would be taken away by Plan S.Many academics also dislike the power that commercial journals wield over their lives. After all, they are forced to fight to publish, pay to publish, review for free, and pay to read their own papers. However, the decisions that commercial journals make are largely based on peer review by academics. So, although it can be comforting to blame the journal, much of the pain of publication comes from the hands of other academics. Of course, editors of journals exert some control by deciding whether to send out for review, choosing referees, and may influence decisions in equivocal cases. But would scientists in the relevant fields make better editors? Full-time researchers have less time to read a wide range of submissions and are influenced by personal knowledge and favouritism just as much (if not more) than professional editors. We currently have a mixed journal economy with some editors being full-time scientists, others full-time editors, some open access, some journal subscription. By reducing diversity would Plan S give scientists more or less control?Many scientists carry the scars of rejections from prestige journals. The more selective the journal, the more likely that work highly valued by an author has been rejected. It is natural for scientists to blame journals or editors for these rejections. Such personal reactions, although understandable, should not influence policy. Yet it is possible that they have been a factor in the resentment felt towards many journals that gives the notion of taking back control such resonance among some scientists.The current publication system has evolved over many years. It is far from perfect, but science under this system has flourished. With the Internet, the pace of change has increased dramatically. As a result, open access publishing of peer-reviewed papers (and freely accessible posts) now make up a significant fraction of the sector and are growing . And mosIn the face of these developments, although we agree with the aspiration of Plan S to increase access to published work, rushing to force change, starting in approximately half a year from now, without taking into account the potential negative consequences of such change, seems unwise. Plan S threatens to create unnecessary division and uncertainty within a community that, in the current post-truth era, stands out as a haven where shared values and agreed standards of openness and objectivity have enabled steady progress on firm foundations.We believe it would be prudent to delay forcing through top-down plans (with the threat of sanction for non-compliance) until all the parties involved have been properly consulted, until there is buy-in from other key global players, and until the likely unintended consequences across all aspects of publishing have been fully considered. We welcome that Plan S has invited feedback from the community, but it is unclear which, if any, of its key proposals or timetables are amenable to change. At the same time, the changing landscape of academic publishing should be surveyed, and other measures to widen access explored. These should include finding a way to promote public free access to historic issues of all journals (not just new submissions), looking at mandating preprints as a simple way of removing paywalls for new publications   into ways of improving it. All agree broader accessibility is good. The aim should be to achieve it through evolution not revolution.


We present a decentralised solution for managing scientific communication, basedon distributed ledger technologies, also called blockchains. The proposed systemaims to solve incentive problems displayed by traditional systems in scientificcommunication and publication. A minimal working model is presented, definingroles, processes, and expected results from the novel system. The proposedsolution is viable, given the current status of blockchain technology, andshould lead to a rethinking of current practices and their consequences forscientific communication. They fall into three maincategories: (i) traditional closed access: free to publish but access only bysubscription; (ii) “gold” open access: free access to article content, author pays topublish; (iii) delayed open access: published articles accessible only after an embargoperiod.Beyond these main models, there are hybrid journals in which authors can choose betweenmodels and self-archiving and preprint servers whose models do not aim to replacepeer-reviewed publication. For a detailed view of open access terminology, seehttps://www.plos.org/how-open-is-it.In this article, we consider that the ideal open access model is based on two mainfeatures: (1) no economic barriers to either reading or writing of scientificpublications, and (2) reviewers and authors are properly incentivised to play theirparts in the system. Since someone must pay the cost of any business model, we propose ablockchain-based system in which everyone is rewarded proportionally to the value theyprovide.A true peer-to-peer system - In all models of scientific publication,scientists are responsible for content generation (as authors) and quality control (aseditors and reviewers). Other professionals are also necessary , and they must be remunerated for their work in a self-regulatingmarket.To fulfil the two main principles of the ideal scientific publication model, as statedabove, a number of other features are essential: (a) cost of entry for both consumer andproducer of scientific articles must be either zero or negligible; (b) the regulatoryframework of this new system should be decentralised, to prevent the rise of a monopolyor any other form of special interest group that could dominate the system; (c)authorship must be absolutely secure; (d) archiving must be decentralised, to preventcensorship; (e) anonymity and privacy must be possible when required, e.g., for blindreviews; (f) reviewing must be decentralised, both in assigning and delivering reviews,but also in terms of rating by peers.With these features, the whole system begins to resemble a decentralised autonomousorganisation DAO, , a conceScientific publishing as a decentralised autonomous organisation - Fora decentralised organisation to work well, all members of the organisation must have astake in it. The stake may be represented monetarily, in the form of a token minted bythe organisation. Let’s call this token a Review token and start bydefining the types of members proposed and by looking at their stakes.(i) authors - Authors join the organisation by submitting theirpreprints. At this point in time, they buy some tokens, which represent the entry cost.Their stake in the organisation is the combined value of their tokens and their peers’recognition, as measured by article metrics. Authors can be awarded tokens based on thecombined metrics of peer-reviewed articles. An award table is defined by the steeringcommittee, to attract high impact research.(ii) reviewers - Reviewers join the organisation spontaneously,incentivised by the rewards of the reviewing process and their own interest in being apart of the organisation. The reviewers’ stake in the organisation is defined by the sumof the tokens they earn from reviewing, plus the average rating of their reviews. Thehigher their rating, the more likely they are to fetch new review tasks.(iii) editors - Editors begin as reviewers and reach editor status as aresult of their reviewer score. They can earn tokens by organising special collections,writing editorials to place publications in a wider context, and other tasks that mayhelp to organise the scientific information flow. In this scenario, editors resemble“curators of science”.(iv) To manage the DAO, a steering committee  is formed from a random sample of editors and reviewers - Membershipin the committee is kept private, to avoid collusion among members. The mandate durationis also random. The size of this committee must be defined in the DAO smart contract, orcan be dynamically set to a fixed fraction of stakeholders.Technology stack - Throughout this article, we will assume a particulartechnology stack, which should be understood as one possible implementation. We will useEthereum as the blockchain platform, and the interplanetary file system (IPFS) as thestorage layer. These two elements will be referred to as the backendsystem. Frontend systems will be possible on any web or mobile platform; noparticular requirements will be placed on them, other than the assumption that theyconnect to the backend system through the API specified in the backend system. Examplesof frontend systems include: journal websites, institutional repositories, preprintservers, self-publishing scientific platforms , and any other organisation interested in participating in thisopen market, either by providing services or by merely publicising its contents.Publication workflow - In this section, we will describe the workflowof the publication process, establishing the foundation for the introduction of thesmart contracts that will encode its logic. It should be noted from the start thatchanges to this workflow are possible and must be decided and specified by the steeringcommittee, but all control of the process must be delegated to the contracts, whose codeis open-sourced to make the entire process transparent. The proposed workflow iscomposed of the following stages or steps:Manuscript submission - The submission process consists of simplydepositing the document on IPFS and submitting its address to the submission contract.This action can be performed by any author, without necessarily going through a journalfrontend system. The identification of the author will be based on the Ethereum walletaddress used to perform the submission transaction but may make use of otherblockchain-based identification systems,,preprint.The submission fee should be set by the steering committee. The fee is locked in thecontract to pay the minimum number of independent reviewers for each article, asspecified by the steering committee.Reviewer allocation - The list of preprints awaiting review can be readdirectly from the submission contract and exposed in multiple ways through frontendsystems. Reviewers already registered in the system may search for interesting work toreview on any frontend of their preference. Once reviewers pick a review task, they aregiven a predetermined amount of time to turn in their review before the task expires.The first reviewers to turn in good reviews  will getpaid.Review process - Once a reviewer decides to review a manuscript, he orshe must prepare the document with his/her comments and upload it to IPFS. A transactionis made to register the review and broadcast it as being available for rating. Thiscycle may repeat multiple times until the reviewer is satisfied and makes a separatetransaction, indicating a substantive improvement of the article in response to issuesraised by his/her review. To avoid review spam, payment is delayed until the reviewreceives an approval rating by a minimum number of independentreviewers (details below). The reviewer pays the transaction fees related to submittingtheir review in the hope that if their review receives a good rating, they will be paidmore than the fees cost. The author will respond to a review only once the review isapproved (has reached the minimum rating), because the contract will release paymentonly for approved reviews, and only these will count towards the evolution of thepreprint to peer-reviewed status. Since it is hoped the manuscript will improve withtime, the authors may decide to make a new submission for a new review cycle. Allversions of the manuscript during the review must be preserved to allow for auditing ofthe review process.Review rating - Review rating is done by authors, editors, or otherreviewers, and by general readers, with a minimal stake in the system. Given theirstake, they should be incentivised to rate reviews strictly on the basis of fairness andcontribution to the manuscript, so that the overall quality of the peer-reviewedpublications remains high. Furthermore, in this way, unethical reviewers who mightotherwise attempt to provide biased reviews to benefit colleagues or trivial reviewsjust to earn tokens can be weeded out. Reviewers obtain a certificate (ERC-721 token)for every review approved. The rating of the review is recorded in this token, whichwill count towards their stake in the system.Evolution to peer-reviewed status - Once a preprint undergoes a reviewcycle leading to its improvement, it evolves to peer-reviewed status. At this point, allpayments locked in the contract when the preprint was submitted will have been releasedto the reviewers. However, this does not mean the article is permanently closed foralterations: a new review cycle may be started if an author  decides to change the article. Starting a newreview cycle for an article that already has peer-reviewed status causes a versioningevent. The peer-reviewed original receives a ‘version 1’ tag, and the new version goesthrough the new review process (with a different group of reviewers), leading eventuallyto a peer-reviewed ‘version 2’. This is necessary to preserve the context of anycitations that ‘version 1’ may have already attracted.Once this open market is established, a number of other independent organisations can beset up on top of it. For example, scientific journals can organise special issues, selleditorial services, promote speedier peer-review, etc.Final remarks - The proposed model for a decentralised autonomousorganisation to oversee scientific publication is an idea which builds on variousexperiments in decentralised science, making use of blockchain technology.,,The implementation of a decentralised publication system as described here, even with thelimitations of its current design, can serve as the cornerstone for a revolution in theway scientific communication is currently done. New decentralised processes andcommunities can build on these foundations and expand into areas that are traditionallyclosely associated with science: higher education platforms, science disseminationinitiatives, and others. The rehabilitation of the scientific publication as a livecorpus of knowledge can lead to a model of continual improvements of scientific work,reducing the fragmentation of knowledge and facilitating the coalescence of results intomore cohesive and well-supported theories.The ideas behind this work represent, in a sense, a return to fundamental principles ofthe scientific method and its culture of openness, in which central authorities have norole in deciding which results should be publicised, and results should stand on theirown against valid criticism from peer scientists.Although the current presentation of the system was conceived in the context of theEthereum blockchain, other blockchain platforms are currently available and should beconsidered for its implementation. Current issues of scalability in transaction rates,present in many blockchain platforms, are not so important for this model. Scientificcommunication is of rather low volume when compared to other transaction-based systemssuch as digital payments, which are the staple of most blockchain systems. Nearreal-time transaction confirmation is not a requirement here, since authors andreviewers can comfortably wait a few minutes for a confirmation.


The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) clarified a policy about what we now would call redundant or duplicate publication. The Editor-in-Chief of NEJM at the time, Franz J. Ingelfinger, made it clear that (apart from a few exceptions) his journal would not publish research that had been submitted to any other journal or published in the media [NEJM and elsewhere as the “Ingelfinger rule” has endured, largely unchanged [Fifty years ago, he media . What hanchanged , 15, to The Bone & Joint Journal (BJJ), Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research® (CORR®), The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), and the Journal of Orthopaedic Research (JOR) not to accept research papers submitted or published elsewhere either as a whole or in part. We are not alone in this regard. The leading international bodies whose standards of scholarly publishing we seek to adhere to, including the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), both consider  prior submission or publication of work sent to a journal for review to be an ethical and practical problem; according to COPE, it is grounds for retraction of a published paper [It also has been the explicit policy of ed paper , and theed paper .But science and changes within the world of scholarly publication march on, and perhaps restrictions on prior publication are no longer necessary or even reasonable. Certainly, that is the viewpoint of those who espouse the development of medical preprint servers , 5, 12, For those who are unfamiliar, a preprint server allows authors to make public full-length versions of complete manuscripts that have not yet passed peer review. Preprint servers offer the benefits of durability, speed of posting, and easy access by the public. Other potential advantages include the ability for authors to establish precedent (“we are the first to report…”), to receive feedback on the work from other scientists, and to disseminate results without barriers such as journals’ subscription paywalls or the delays associated with peer review. Advocates of preprint servers feel that posting work to these servers can help mitigate positive-outcome bias, and that they increase transparency and data sharing , 12, theBMJ [JAMA, are staying on the sidelines or actively discouraging authors from posting to preprint servers [The Lancet [BMJ) are on board with the concept of preprint servers.Preprint servers have been an accepted part of the scholarly publishing landscape in the physical sciences and mathematics for many years, and a preprint server in the biological sciences—bioRχiv —has posted year-over-year increases in usage and now publishes clinical research , 8, inclBMJ . Others BMJ . While s servers , dozens e Lancet  and of cDespite the high-octane support already behind the unproven concept of medical preprint servers, we believe that there are fundamental differences between the communities served by the existing preprint servers in mathematics, physics, and biology and the patients whose lives may depend on high-quality, peer-reviewed biomedical research. We believe that the benefits proposed by advocates of medical preprint servers can be better achieved in other ways, and that medical preprint servers pose serious health and safety dangers to the patients for whom are supposed to be caring.We have many concerns about medical preprint servers and their potential to cause far more harm than benefit. Five of the most important are:Preprint servers may be perceived by some (and used by less-scrupulous investigators) as evidence even though the studies have not gone through peer review; the public may not be able to discern an unreviewed preprint from a seminal article in a leading journal. We are concerned that publishing in a preprint server may be a self-serving move by individuals with secondary-gain incentives and by those whose work is unlikely to withstand serious scrutiny by peer-reviewed journals. These individuals may benefit from the likelihood that most researchers in academic medicine have neither the time nor the inclination to peruse these servers and offer unsolicited comments on what may be junk science. But content on these servers still can be referenced on web sites, cited in peer-reviewed publications, and used to promote treatment approaches to unsuspecting—and sometimes desperate—patients. The weaker the idea, the greater the incentive for the unscrupulous to use preprint servers in medicine or surgery. Although content on many preprint servers is identified as not having been peer reviewed, the watermarks indicating this often are small or obscure.1. It seems unlikely that the kind of prepublication dialogue that has taken place in other academic disciplines (such as mathematics and physics) will take place in medicine or surgery because the incentives are very different. Even high-quality journals in medicine and surgery struggle to attain and retain the best peer reviewers, especially in some of the smaller specialties where the reviewer pools can be quite limited; in fact, whole industries have sprung up in an effort to address this problem [BJJ, CORR, JOR, and JBJS provide.2.  problem . And thi problem ; althoug problem , that stPreprint servers may lead to two competing, and perhaps even conflicting, versions of the “same” content being available online at the same time, which can cause (at least) confusion and (at most) grave harm. A typical article undergoing revision in our journals receives dozens of reviewers’ comments that call for modifications or clarifications, and 80 to 100 editors’ queries in the margins of the edited manuscript that require substantive changes. However, someone can search and reference some early version of the “same” work on a preprint server, meaning that, despite all that effort, patients can be harmed by the continued circulation of errors of fact, problematic claims, and unsubstantiated recommendations that were later removed from the “definitive”  version.3. For the vast majority of medical  diagnoses, a few months of review of a study’s findings do not make a difference; the pace of discovery and dissemination generally is adequate. For the rare situations where an article reports a time-sensitive discovery (such as a product failure or an unexpected problem with a drug or treatment), all reputable journals provide a fast-track option; certainly, the four journals represented here do. The far-larger risk is that ideas with insufficient support come out too quickly and gain a hold among practitioners or patients. This is not theoretical: Our specialty has seen a surfeit of well-intentioned ideas that have harmed patients, even after being vetted through peer-review and governmental approval processes. It would be far worse if we lowered the bar and presented concepts based on untested data to a wider audience that is unprepared to assess them critically. Preprint servers in medicine may attract the kinds of investigators who wish to get such ideas out, will likely not attract the kind of corrective dialogue needed to fix (or discredit) those ideas, and therefore run a very real risk of harming patients.4. There are better ways to mitigate positive-outcome bias and promote transparency, which are two main purported benefits of preprint servers. These include prospective registration of randomized trials—which all of our journals now require [5.  require —and goodAs an important aside, there is nothing particularly “transparent” about a clinician-scientist writing whatever (s)he wishes to, without having to respond to a review process that might modify overstated elements of the message, insist on caveats, identify shortcomings, correct errors, and require full disclosure of any industry involvement in the research. Our reviewers and editors spend considerable time and effort identifying shortcomings in articles that authors did not disclose because they did not support the story that the authors wished to tell. The truth is, first-draft scientific manuscripts often fall quite short in the transparency department, and first drafts are all we are likely to see on medical preprint servers. As far as we know, there is no robust evidence to suggest that preprint servers mitigate positive-outcome bias, as their advocates hope will be the case.One of us (SSL) visited at length with one of the developers of medRχiv . AnotherClinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, The Bone & Joint Journal, the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, and The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery will not accept clinical research manuscript submissions—which we define as research involving human subjects or their medical records—that have been posted to preprint servers prior to submission, and we will withdraw from consideration any papers posted to those servers prior to publication. We exempt from this policy all laboratory research that does not involve human subjects, and we recommit ourselves to offering fast-track publication to those papers that share time-sensitive messages pertaining to patient health or safety.For those reasons and others,


Publishing a manuscript in an academic journal represents more than just ‘promotional currency.’ It provides the opportunity to provoke debate, share your experiences, and challenge the status quo on provider practices. Writing a manuscript relies on collaboration and shared responsibility from a research team, which can often challenge mentors as they supervise and guide its development. While there are numerous online resources and peer-reviewed journal articles on ‘How to write a scientific article,’ we aim to tackle an even larger and overarching theme that transcends specific journal categories, writing styles, and citation formatting. In order to guide new researchers in navigating the expansive ocean of scientific publications, we collected, reviewed, and revised 11 tips based on multiple focus-group discussions with junior and senior researchers to determine common barriers for publishing manuscript. The goal is to help mentors and mentees navigate the research and publication processes. The tips include: 1) recognizing leadership styles; 2) initiating the groundwork; 3) establishing backup plans; 4) making a deadline; 5) courting the editor; 6) determining authorship; 7) finding personal incentives; 8) writing what you know; 9) sharing with caution; 10) following directions; and 11) Consider open-access journals. There are few phrases in emergency medicine (EM) that can induce as much intimidation and even visceral pain as these four simple words strung together.But why does this have to be the case? Publishing a manuscript in an academic journal represents more than just ‘promotional currency’ or another line on your curriculum vitae. It provides the opportunity to provoke debate, share your experiences, and challenge the status quo on provider practices. Writing a manuscript relies on collaboration and shared responsibility from a research team, which can often challenge mentors as they supervise and guide its development.As a junior faculty in EM, I have had the experience with researchers from various levels of training, from medical students to residents and fellows, and I have encountered, both personally and vicariously through my research colleagues, the significant amount of fear and resistance to writing scientific manuscripts. While there are numerous online resources and peer-reviewed journal articles on ‘How to write a scientific article,’ we aim to tackle an even larger and overarching theme that transcends specific journal categories, writing styles, and citation formatting.In order to guide new researchers in navigating the expansive ocean of scientific publications, we collected, reviewed, and revised 11 tips based on multiple focus-group discussions with junior and senior researchers to determine common barriers for publishing manuscripts , primary author, and co-authors. As the mentor, it is imperative to recognize your leadership characteristics to optimize your interactions with your co-authors. Common leadership styles include contingency, exchange, path-goal, laissez-faire, situational, transformational, transactional, and servant -3. You c2. Initiate the groundwork: One of the most crucial elements as a research mentor is to provide the necessary groundwork and articulate specific and tangible expectations for all responsible stakeholders  during the write-up. Consider the following questions your mentees may ask, and prepare for constructive feedback and guidance: 1) How does this research impact the scientific community? Is this an original study? What is your elevator pitch?; 2) Are there any particular journal preferences for publication?; 3) Which category  should this manuscript be written in?; 4) How often should the team meet to review progress?; 5) Are there any institutional research personnel  who can assist with the data analysis?; 6) Is there any supporting literature regarding the research topic?; 7) What is the backup plan if the manuscript gets rejected?3. Establish early backup plans: Specifying particular backup plans, such as revision or resubmission to another journal, can alleviate some of the stress from your fellow authors by ensuring multiple paths for publication. Editors receive countless submissions on a regular basis; so, in the event, your submission gets rejected, your co-authors know what the next steps will be for the manuscript . Remind your team to not give up and make it clear that this is always an expected outcome. For example, if Journal A doesn’t accept, then reformat and resubmit to Journal B, followed by Journal C, and finally Journal D.4. Make a deadline and stick to it!: Having a reasonable timeline allows all members of the team to contribute their weight and justify their authorship. The key is to have a group consensus with an agreed-upon deadline and send it via a traceable platform  so it can be readily referenced. Common deadline milestones include 1) completion of the literature search; 2) completion of the data analysis; 3) draft of the abstract; 4) manuscript draft; 5) abstract revision and submission in journal format; and quite likely 6) manuscript revision and resubmission. 'Tomorrow' may be variable, but deadlines are always constant.For Co-authors5. Courting the editor: The next step should be to pitch your manuscript submission to the editor-in-chief of the journal of interest. A well-crafted ‘would you be interested in . . . ' letter may peak editors’ interests and potentially save you hours of formatting your manuscript if the editors were not interested in your work.6. Determine authorship order early: Given that first or last authorship on a publication is often considered to be of high value towards academic promotion, physicians interested in pursuing an academic career should be mindful of both authorship considerations and authorship etiquette. This should not minimize the efforts of other authors, as being an author on any paper will be beneficial to one’s academic career. The primary author is responsible for collating the authors’ inputs into a scientific deliverable . The sen7. Find your personal incentive: To ensure a teamwork and a smooth process to packaging your scholarship, it is imperative to motivate your team with the proverbial ‘incentive carrot.’ Discovering your respective incentives early during the write-up can ensure prompt and timely submissions. Here are some common publication incentives: 1) Departmental promotion (mentor); 2) Residency requirement ; 3) Departmental funding to attend a conference for abstract acceptance(s) and/or presentations(s); 4) Curriculum vitae builder.8. Start writing what you know: Sometimes the best way to build momentum and overcome writer’s block is to start writing what you already know . A common tool to alleviate the stress associated with starting to write your manuscript is to consider leveraging sections from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) application that was submitted at your sponsoring institution. Always, save the abstract for last; it’s often the most challenging part of any manuscript and will require that you have reflected on the other sections of your paper.9. Sharing is caring – but use with caution: Shared documents  allow authors to contribute to the submission in real time; however, it can also result in procrastination. Additional challenges to shared documentation include citation placements, which are compiled in piecemeal fashion in a free-form sharing model. As a result, cloud-sharing and editing should be considered only after the initial rough draft is compiled in order to allow for a revision. There are numerous institutionally-provided, free citation software programs, such as Mendeley, which can streamline the integration of your citations.10. Follow directions!: You must ensure that your paper fulfilled all of the journal’s requirements, including, but not limited, to word count, margin size, font, citation style, and/or image limits. A submission that is riddled with errors, formatting faux-pas, or poorly reference citations may be permanently rejected.11. Consider open-access journals: Once you get published, you are going to want readers to notice your work, share your ideas, and maximize your regional impact. Unfortunately, however, unless readers have access to the journal you are published in, they are not going to have access to your submission. Open-access journals are readily available online to all readers and do not require a subscription fee to access articles. With improved access to content, individuals in your academic circle  can learn more about your work and even cite you in subsequent scholarly publications. If you want to get noticed, and if you do not mind having your full article appear in Google Scholar, then consider submitting your manuscript to an open-access journal.Ready, set, publish!Now that you’ve survived reading this research guide, dust-off your work and start writing it up by first building your team and creating a plan to get it completed in a timely fashion. Most importantly, do not forget to motivate your team members and have them take pride in their scientific achievements as they declare their findings to the rest of the academic world.


Our editorial model is a collaborative one; the in-house professional team of editors works together with external editors in selecting the papers we publish. Here we discuss how this editorial model is set up and share the thoughts of some of our board members. Communications Biology is a mix of in-house professional editors and external Editorial Board Members (EBMs). Whereas all of the professional editors at the journal have a research background, our external editors are actively conducting research and, as such, bring additional technical expertise as well as knowledge of the current state of their research area. Working very similarly to the in-house team, our EBMs handle papers from the initial submission up to the formal acceptance stage.The editorial team at We strive to be clear and transparent in our editorial decisions so that, even if the outcome is not positive, authors should understand the reason for the rejection.https://www.nature.com/commsbio/journal-policies/editorial-process for more on our editorial processes.Our dedicated EBMs (there are currently 20) work in diverse fields of biology, but together with the in-house editors, they share the wish to provide the best possible service to our authors. We do try to be fast, but speed is not at the expense of rigour and thoughtfulness in our assessments. For a majority of the papers, the handling editor discusses the paper with at least one other member of the editorial team. This holds true for papers handled both by in-house and external editors. Such discussions are held throughout the peer review process and are essential in order for us to share editorial and scientific expertise and to be consistent in our decision making. See Open communication is key goal for us. We strive to be clear and transparent in our editorial decisions so that, even if the outcome is not positive, authors should understand the reason for the rejection. Equally important is providing guidance when inviting our authors to revise a paper following peer review. The editors will specify what referee points are the most essential ones to address and may overrule on requests that appear beyond the scope of the study.https://drkatiedavis.wordpress.com/), finds that she has learnt a lot about the editorial process. “I’m a lot more understanding and patient with my own manuscripts now that I know just how hard editors have to work,” she remarks. “It’s informative to see the other side of the submission process and how the mechanics work,” agrees Ngan Huang (http://med.stanford.edu/huanglab.html), who handles papers in biomedical engineering and stem cells. Georgios Giamas (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/lifesci/giamaslab/) notes, “I am (or have been) part of different editorial boards. However, in this case, there is more interaction and discussion with the in-house editorial team, which gives me the opportunity to see some things from a different perspective”.Many of our EBMs are at a relatively early stage of their careers as independent researchers and feel that taking part in editorial work gives them some useful insights. We asked four of them about their experience so far and their feedback was similar and reassuringly positive. Our expert in macro-ecology and evolution, Katie Davis  remarks: “I have learnt that I have to tell the editor what is important and put together a well-written manuscript.” Indeed, clarity in presentation helps the editor, and more importantly, makes the review process smother and helps readers understand the importance of the work.Although Communications Biology aims to provide a home for papers in a wide range of biological research areas. Therefore, just like the in-house editors, our EBMs sometimes have to handle papers somewhat outside of their own research focus, which initially can be a challenge. “This was daunting at first,” admits Si Ming, who is in the field of innate immunity. “But,” he continues, “I realised that you do not need to be an expert but you have to invest more time to understand the contribution.” The four EBMs we spoke to here also appreciate the opportunity to learn about science outside of their immediate research areas.Communications Biology. As a new journal that is still fighting to be a “household name,” we are very grateful for their efforts in promoting the journal among their colleagues. They can also provide feedback and suggestions on editorial processes and journal content and constitute a sounding board for testing new ideas.Finally, our EBMs are so much more than manuscript editors. They are in a great position to actively engage with their research communities as ambassadors for We are privileged to work with our group of external editors, and we look forward to develop our collaboration further as the journal grows and evolves.


Since its foundation in 2002, Experimental and Clinical Sciences  published more than 760 original articles and reviews, particularly in the field of cancer research  to our journal (under his authorship). As soon as this case was reported, the manuscript was of course retracted. Moreover, another author copied and pasted parts of an already published review of other authors and submitted the faked manuscript to us. Since we did not yet routinely use plagiarism software in these days, the copy-paste-plagiarism was unfortunately not detected by the editors and reviewers and the review had to be rejected after publication. The editors of EXCLI Journal are sometimes surprised by the lack of foresight; even if a forged manuscript passes our controls, it will certainly be identified by readers and subsequently be retracted. EXCLI Journal does not take any fees from authors, nor fees from readers accessing the published papers. Therefore, we have to manage the journal with fewer resources compared to commercial publishing houses and depend on the collaboration of members of the scientific community. If you wish to join the board of reviewers or editors, please do not hesitate to send your CV and list of publications for evaluation.


Research involvement and Engagement is the world’s first co-produced journal dedicated to developing the evidence base of patient and public involvement and engagement in health and social care research. Alongside traditional academic peer review we also involve other key stakeholders, including patients, carers, the public, policy makers, funders and practitioners. Following a recent survey looking at the motivations and feedback from patient reviewers in academic journals, we consider the key findings, reflect on what we already do and based on the feedback from the survey, we outline plans for future development. These plans include improving training and guidance for reviewers, changes to systems and workflows, acknowledging and engaging reviewers, and building a sense of community.Peer review is a well-established part of academic publishing. Its function is to assess the quality of a manuscript before publication in a journal. Research involvement and Engagement is the world’s first co-produced journal dedicated to developing the evidence base of patient and public involvement and engagement in health and social care research. Alongside traditional academic peer review we also involve other key stakeholders, including patients, carers, the public, policy makers, funders and practitioners. Following a recent survey looking at the motivations and feedback from patient reviewers in academic journals, we consider the key findings, reflect on what we already do and based on the feedback from the survey, we outline plans for future development. These plans include including improving training and guidance for reviewers, changes to systems and workflows, acknowledging and engaging reviewers, and building a sense of community.Peer review is a well-established part of academic publishing. Its function is to assess the quality of a manuscript before publication in a journal.  Peer review is a traditional and well-established part of academic publishing. Its function is to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Submitted manuscripts are assessed by reviewers for originality, validity and significance, to help editors determine whether a manuscript should be published in their journal . Peer reResearch Involvement and Engagement (RIE) has extended the concept of peer review beyond the confines of traditional academia, to draw on a broader range of people, including patients, carers, the public, policy makers, funders and practitioners. We believe this enhances the diversity of review and offers authors a broader evaluation of their work, through a wider assessment of relevance, acceptability, appropriateness and robustness, arguably a form of ‘community validity’ [As the world’s first co-produced journal dedicated to developing the evidence base of patient and public involvement and engagement in health and social care research, alidity’ . The acaThe British Medical Journal (BMJ), who also include patients in peer review, we surveyed patient peer reviewers who had completed reviews for both RIE and the BMJ [If the publishing community is to embrace patient review as standard, then we need to understand how patients experience a publisher’s systems and processes, so we can ensure a high quality experience for patients, as well as for academics. Together with colleagues at the British Medical Association and  the BMJ . In thisn = 157, 90% felt this was either 'extremely' or 'very' important). Of the respondents, 81% (n = 157) would recommend being a patient reviewer to other patients and carers, and 92% (n = 157) thought more journals should adopt patient review. Survey questions on patient reviewers’ perceptions of open peer review process highlighted that 81% (n = 224) had no concerns with open peer review, 5% had concerns and 7% were unsure [Across both journals, the key motivation of patients to review was the opportunity to add the patient or carer perspective to an article  reported feeling either not at all or only slightly confident when doing their first review. This proportion fell to 8% (n = 141) for those who had done more than one review. Overall, the survey highlighted that only 61% (n = 157) of patient reviewers found the reviewer instructions ‘extremely’ or ‘very helpful’ (for RIE reviewers this was 51%). The feedback highlighted many ways in which these could be improved, including more guidance on how to conduct a review, diagrams or videos of the submission process that explain what to expect at different stages, and sample reviews for reference [Confidence in reviewing emerged as a challenge in how patients experienced peer review, 27% n = 17 reporteRIE reviewer guidelines [RIE, academics and patients are treated equally and these guidelines have been developed, and are used, by both our academic and patient reviewers, which is fundamental for a co-produced journal. We will also continue to update the guidance as we receive feedback.Based on this feedback, improving our training and guidance is an important area for us to develop, as we want our reviewers to be as confident as possible when conducting a review for the journal. In response to the survey we have redeveloped the idelines  ensuringOur reviewer guidelines now have a prominent place on the journal homepage so people can access it more easily. To help patient reviewers understand the wider publishing process we have also developed a manuscript workflow image that summarises what happens when an author submits to the journal, which is available on our reviewer guidelines page see Fig. .Fig. 1ExTrials [Within the survey patients highlighted that they would like more support, encouragement, training and forums that enable them to ask questions. Some patients highlighted peer-to-peer mentoring, which some journals have recently begun implementing, such as Trials .RIE, adding a frequently asked questions section to the reviewer guidelines, and to investigate tools for collaborative peer review.In the longer term, areas we feel are important for future development include assessing how peer-to-peer mentoring might work within a journal like There was a range of feedback on how the system and workflows could be improved. Some are unfortunately not possible due to limitations with editorial software, some are already possible and has highlighted that we need to improve our guidance to ensure this is clear, and some we will investigate further.For example, some patients wanted more time to review so we will ensure it is clear that reviewers can ask for an extension in the deadline to submit a review; we prefer people do this over declining to review. Patient reviewers also wanted better matching of the content of manuscripts to reviewers’ experience. Last year we redeveloped the classifications used within our editorial system to support better matching of reviewers to manuscripts. We encourage all reviewers to ensure their details within the editorial system are up-to-date and encourage them to also use personal keywords to help us find the right people for particular topic areas.There were also important messages for us as Editors. Patients wanted feedback on the usefulness and benefits of their reviews, and how manuscripts have changed as a result to help them understand the value of the review. We are exploring different options for this and would also like to encourage authors to provide a few key points about how the patient review helped them develop their manuscript in their point-by-point response to reviewers, which authors sometimes provide when submitting a revised manuscript.RIE, both patient and academic, should receive a notification when a decision has been made on an article they reviewed. Feeling valued was important, and being asked to review again was central to this. From RIE’s perspective, this partly depends on the number of manuscripts submitted and what areas they fall in but is something we will monitor. The final key element was treating patient reviewers as equal partners in the peer review process. For RIE this is the essence of our mission and already embedded in the way we work, valuing the important and unique contribution patients bring to the review of research.Patients also requested better sharing of information around decisions made on manuscripts they reviewed; all reviewers in RIE publicly acknowledges its peer reviewers on an annual basis [Improving the way we acknowledge and engage with our reviewers is essential for any journal as we would not survive without the generous time and insightful comments of our reviewers. For these reasons, al basis .Over recent years we have ensured that on an annual basis, following the posting of the reviewer acknowledgment list, that we send personal thank you emails to all reviewers from the previous year. We highlight in this email that we can provide reviewer certificates or confirmation of review on branded letterheaded paper, if reviewers require one for their own personal or professional records. We also invite some of our reviewers to become Editorial Board Members for a period, to help shape the journal going forward.RIE are freely available for anyone to read. Instead, if our patient reviewers are interested in submitting manuscripts to the journal and have submitted a certain number of reviewer reports in the last year, they can request a waiver for the Article Processing Charge associated with publishing in the journal. It was promising to hear from the survey that at least one patient reviewer from the survey had used this waiver to publish an article from their patient group [Within the survey, patients called for access to articles published in subscription journals. We understand that this would be of great benefit but as an open access journal, all articles published in nt group .There were a range of other suggestions for acknowledging reviewers, which are fully detailed in the survey . We are The final area identified focused on building a sense of community, which is the most challenging area, given that reviewing by its nature is a solitary activity, and our reviewers are spread across the globe. We plan to explore opportunities for more tangible ways of creating a sense of community by potential collaborations with key organisations leading on involvement and engagement internationally. One possibility is the newly formed International Patient and Public Involvement Network .RIE, capturing the essence of collaboration and the co-production of knowledge (Table Patient peer reviewer is a cornerstone of ge Table . As one RIE we place equal value on academic and patient peer review, but there is still much to understand about the way in which patient peer review strengthens research. Our joint survey with the BMJ forms a key stepping stone in our journey, helping us understand how we support and develop patient peer review. Going forward, we want to strengthen our understanding of the contribution and impact of patient peer review. Such evidence will help drive the paradigm change required in academia, enabling research to orientate itself towards the co-production of high quality, relevant and impactful knowledge that truly creates patient and public benefit.As Editors of


The progress of JDI travels in optimistic paces with optimistic persons. A remarkable rise in Impact Factor was observed after the introduction of Open Access. It seems that there is a positive relationship between online usage and Impact Factor. Journal of Diabetes Investigation (JDI) to ignore this new challenge. Leaving that topic to be discussed later, it is worth first looking back on JDI's progress over the past ten years.Scientists and publishers worldwide are closely following developments in the European Open Access landscape following the announcement that "top European research funders announce ‘Plan S’ to make all scientific works free to read”J Diabetes Investigation, the official journal of the Asian Association for the Study of Diabetes (AASD) has reached the 10th Anniversary of its establishment in 2019. In Figure At the moment, I am afraid the Impact Factor has the same status for scientific journals as the Michelin Guide does for restaurants. It is true that most medical scientists prefer to submit their fruitful manuscripts to journals with a higher Impact Factor. This is inevitable because the quality of their work is widely evaluated based on Impact Factor. Accordingly, we have no choice but to follow the trends of the time in the world of medical science. Therefore, we will not spare any effort toward our aim to achieve a higher Impact Factor for our team of contributors, readers, reviewers, Editorial Board members and the publisher. We hope that JDI makes a significant contribution to the advancement of medical science and better treatment and care for patients.https://www.coalition-s.org/). According to an analysis of publishing models in 2017Now, let’s turn to ‘Plan S’, the ‘Plan S’ restriction on hybrid journals potentially bars researchers from publishing in 85% of journals, including influential journals like Nature and ScienceAlso, ‘Plan S’ does not allow for scientists to publish their papers in hybrid journals. Despite an extended timeline for transition away from hybrid journals until 2024One piece of bright news, however, is that Open Access publication fees would be covered by funders or research institutions, not by individual researchers. Moreover, the articles would be free for anyone to download, read or translate without payment.Nature and Science, are unshakable. Our middle‐ranking journals, however, will be forced to make strenuous efforts to preserve high‐quality articles.Given that the publishing industry is approaching a new era in which 85% or more of journals are Open Access, it is necessary for us to develop a survival strategy against this coming fierce competition. Although our journal is already Open Access, we have some concerns regarding the publication fee being covered by either researchers or institutions. No one knows for sure what will happen in the future. It is clear that influential journals, such as For JDI to survive fierce competition, we plan to do the following: (1) give a clear message on the direction of our journal to researchers and readers, (2) shorten the time from first peer review to publication, (3) provide very helpful update papers attractive to many researchers and readers, and (4) differentiate our position from other journals. The reality is that most contributors consider submitting their papers to journals with a higher Impact Factor. We must keep this in mind.In the future, we will continue to publish new research work and provide new information on diabetes and related matters for researchers and readers. To achieve our aim, we won't hold back our best effort in contributing to the development of diabetology including treatment and care for patients with diabetes. It is natural that we are conscious of our situation as a middle‐ranking journal in the category of Metabolism and Endocrinology and we plan to execute the best policy for our position in the coming new era.The author declares no conflict of interest.


According to the Council of Science EditorsWhen reporting the “inadequate treatment of the individual”, a more favorable situation is perceived, considering the need for submitting the studies to organizations that regulate the bioethical issues involving animals, human beings, or the environment. When identifying misconduct, it is important to verify whether it was intentional or “accidental”, whereas both deserve some type of penalty. Reports and penalties for research misconduct have been increasingly exposed, and they may appear as a warning, text revision, or even layoffs and fines.There are several types of misconduct in research reports. Among the most serious ones are forgery  or the fabrication of data and images, because they detract from the truth and lead to false premises, confusing clinical professionals and/or researchers.The partial or full copy of a text, unauthorized or unreferenced, characterizes plagiarism. Perhaps this is one of the main problems found in publications, and it is serious to the point of causing several education, research, and development institutions to create codes of instruction and conduct, such as the Research Support Foundation of the State of São Paulo, Brazil (FAPESP)th, XXVII of the Constitution of the Brazilian Republic“authors hold the exclusive right of use, publication, or reproduction of their work, transferable to the heirs for the time determined by the law.” The copyright legislation is hereby verified only in order to complement the issue under analysis, in Law 9610/1998“the moral and property right over the work they created”.The legal system in Brazil states that plagiarism is, in the terms of article 184 of the Criminal CodeThus, it is easy to realize that authors hold the inherent rights over their creations and, in the case of self-plagiarism, which is an element that is not typified in the Brazilian legislation, they would be considered simultaneously victim and offender. Therefore, it may be affirmed that some authors report the definition of “self-plagiarism” incorrectly. Ultimately, a potential accountability might be conceived in the civil context regarding the assignment of copyrights to third parties.The authorship of the publications is also a significant problem, because authors do not often standardize the citation of authors in the text, either placing incorrect authors or neglecting to insert them. The health field relies on the norms of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)Unfortunately, it is common to hear reports of pressure from coordinators, professors, and advisers who compel the subordinates - mostly undergraduate and graduate students - to cite the names of people who most often are not even aware of the content of the article to be published. Thus, influence and “gratitude” do not determine the authorship of a scientific article“the relationship between science and scientific output is evident: the latter being the product of the former, science is done by conducting ethical studies and then disseminated by publication of technical-scientific articles.” Hence, honesty is essential for authors and ignorance can no longer be clai med. As the popular saying goes, “Trust is like paper, once it is crumpled it can never be perfect again.”According to Rode and Galletti Queiroz,Good readings!Sigmar de Mello Rode, Rodrigo Rios Faria de Oliveira, Luiz Renato Paranhos


Peer reviewed research is paramount to the advancement of science. Ideally, the peer review process is an unbiased, fair assessment of the scientific merit and credibility of a study; however, well-documented biases arise in all methods of peer review. Systemic biases have been shown to directly impact the outcomes of peer review, yet little is known about the downstream impacts of unprofessional reviewer comments that are shared with authors.In an anonymous survey of international participants in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, we investigated the pervasiveness and author perceptions of long-term implications of receiving of unprofessional comments. Specifically, we assessed authors’ perceptions of scientific aptitude, productivity, and career trajectory after receiving an unprofessional peer review.We show that survey respondents across four intersecting categories of gender and race/ethnicity received unprofessional peer review comments equally. However, traditionally underrepresented groups in STEM fields were most likely to perceive negative impacts on scientific aptitude, productivity, and career advancement after receiving an unprofessional peer review.Studies show that a negative perception of aptitude leads to lowered self-confidence, short-term disruptions in success and productivity and delays in career advancement. Therefore, our results indicate that unprofessional reviews likely have and will continue to perpetuate the gap in STEM fields for traditionally underrepresented groups in the sciences. A growiIn the traditional peer review process, the content, tone and thoroughness of a manuscript review is the sole responsibility of the reviewer (the identity of whom is often protected by anonymity), yet the contextualization and distribution of reviews to authors is performed by the assigned (handling) editor at the journal to which the paper was submitted. In this tiered system, journal editors are largely considered responsible for policing reviewer comments and are colloquially referred to as the “gatekeepers” of peer review. Both reviewers and editors are under considerable time pressures to move manuscripts through peer review, often lack compensation commensurate with time invested, experience heavy workloads and are subject to inherent biases of their own, which may translate into irrelevant and otherwise unprofessional comments being first written and then passed along to authors .We surveyed STEM scientists that have submitted manuscripts to a peer-reviewed journal as first author to understand the impacts of receiving unprofessional peer review comments on the perception of scientific aptitude (confidence as a scientist), productivity (publications per year) and career advancement (ability to advance within the field). This study defined an unprofessional peer review comment as any statement that is unethical or irrelevant to the nature of the work; this includes comments that: (1) lack constructive criticism, (2) are directed at the author(s) rather than the nature or quality of the work, (3) use personal opinions of the author(s)/work rather than evidence-based criticism, or (4) are “mean-spirited” or cruel  and California State University, Northridge . The survey was administered between 28 February 2019 and 10 May 2019 using the online-based platform in English and was open to anyone self-identifying as a member of the STEM community that published their scholarly work in a peer reviewed system. Participation in the survey was voluntary and no compensation or incentives were offered. All respondents had to certify that they were 18 years or older and read the informed consent statement; participants were able to exit the survey at any point without consequence. Participants were recruited broadly through social media platforms, direct posting on scientific list-serves and email invitations to colleagues, department chairs and organizations focused on diversity and inclusive practices in STEM fields  To what degree did the unprofessional peer review(s) make you doubt your scientific aptitude? (1–5) 1 = not at all, 5 = I fully doubted my scientific abilities; (2) To what degree do you feel that receiving the unprofessional review(s) limited your overall productivity? Please rate this from 1 to 5. 1 = not at all, 5 = greatly limited number of publications per year; (3) To what degree do you feel that receiving the unprofessional review(s) delayed career advancement? Please rate this from 1 to 5. 1 = not at all, 5 = greatly impacted/delayed career advancement. Finally, respondents were invited to provide direct quotes of unprofessional reviews received . Participants choosing to share peer review quotes were able to specify whether they gave permission for the quote to be shared/distributed. Explicit permission from each respondent was received to use and distribute all quotes displayed in We recognize that there are limitations to our survey design. First, our survey was only administered in English. There also may have been non-response bias for individuals who did not experience negative comments during peer review even though any advertisement of this survey indicated that we sought input from anyone who has ever published a peer-reviewed study as first author. There could also be a temporal element, where authors who received comments more recently may have responded differently than those who received unprofessional reviews many years ago. Additionally, the order of questions was not randomized and participants were asked to complete demographic information before answering questions about their peer review experience, which may have primed respondents to select answers that were more in line with racial or gender-specific stereotypes . In ordeWe tested for the pervasiveness and downstream effects of unprofessional peer reviews on four intersecting gender and racial/ethnic groups: (1) women of color and non-binary people of color, (2) men of color, (3) white women and white non-binary people and (4) white men. Due to the small number of respondents identifying as non-binary (<1% of respondents), we statistically analyzed women and non-binary genders together in a category as marginalized genders in the sciences. However, refer to N = 1,106) were given the opportunity to opt out of any question; therefore, the sample sizes were different for each statistical analysis. We tested for differences in the probability of receiving an unprofessional peer review across four intersectional groups  using a Bayesian logistic regression . Of the 642 people who indicated that they received an unprofessional peer review, 617, 620 and 618 answered the questions regarding perceived impacts to their scientific aptitude, productivity and career advancement, respectively. We ran individual Bayesian ordinal logistic regressions  for each of the three questions to test for differences in probabilities of selecting a 1–5 across the four groups. All models were run using the BRMS package .Survey respondents ( package  in Rv3.5 in STAN . Each moN = 642) indicated that they had received an unprofessional review, with 70% of those individuals reporting multiple instances . There were no significant differences in the likelihood of receiving an unprofessional review among the intersectional groups  after receiving an unprofessional peer review , with a 5.7 times higher probability of selecting a 1 than a 5 . Notably, white men were 1.3, 2.0 and 1.7 times more likely to indicate no resultant doubt of their scientific aptitude than men of color , white women and white non-binary people  and women of color and non-binary people of color , respectively . TogetheSimilar patterns among intersectional groups emerged for reported impacts of unprofessional reviews on productivity (measured in number of publications per year). Specifically, women of color and non-binary people of color, white women and white non-binary people and men of color were mostly likely to select a 3 (moderate level of perceived negative impact on productivity), whereas white men were most likely to select a 1  Make peer review mentorship an active part of student and peer learning. For example, departments and scientific agencies should hold workshops on peer review ethics. (2) Follow previously published best practices in peer review . (3) PraOur study shows that unprofessional peer reviews are pervasive and that they disproportionately harm underrepresented groups in STEM. Specifically, underrepresented groups were most likely to report direct negative impacts on their scientific aptitude, productivity and career advancement after receiving an unprofessional peer review. While it was beyond the scope of this study, future investigations should also focus on the effect of unprofessional peer reviews on first-generation scientists English as a second language, career stage, peer review in grants, and other factors that could lead to differences in downstream effects. Unprofessional peer reviews have no place in the scientific process and individual scientists have the power and responsibility to enact immediate change. However, we recognize and applaud those reviewers and editors (and there are many!) that spend a significant amount of time and effort writing thoughtful, constructive, and detailed criticisms that are integral to moving science forward.10.7717/peerj.8247/supp-1Supplemental Information 1Click here for additional data file.10.7717/peerj.8247/supp-2Supplemental Information 2Detailed information on survey distribution for this study.Click here for additional data file.10.7717/peerj.8247/supp-3Supplemental Information 3Click here for additional data file.10.7717/peerj.8247/supp-4Supplemental Information 4Click here for additional data file.


Negative data and refutations are a crucial element of the scientific process. But it needs solid arguments to convince editors and reviewers to publish negative results. Central to the scientific method are the concepts of falsifiability and hypothesis testing: We cannot prove a hypothesis, merely acquire evidence that supports or refutes it Let us assume that you are an idealistic PhD student who has spent the better part of three years attempting to replicate a much‐hyped finding that was originally published in a top‐tier journal. Much to your dismay, and despite your very best efforts, a successful replication has eluded you. How should you proceed? First, it is important to appreciate that failure to reproduce a study can arise for a number of reasons. While the initial hypothesis may be false, it may also be attributed to different reagents or conditions, lack of statistical power, or the complexity of the biological system. For this reason, a replication study should use the exact same reagents and methods, and in the case of cellular experiments, the identical cell line. The latter is particularly important, as it has been shown that cell lines are not genetically stable and that lines from different labs are functionally distinct. Whole genome analysis of 27 strains of the MCF2 breast cancer cell line showed that ten chromosome arms were differentially gained or lost, and more than 688 copy number variations were detected. This genetic heterogeneity had a major impact on the viability of these cells when exposed to a panel of 321 chemotherapeutic drugs New Negatives in Plant Science (Elsevier) or the Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine (Springer) to specifically publish negative results and refutations, but both have now been discontinued. Only the Journal of Negative Results (which published a single article in 2018) and the Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis remain.Nevertheless, in some instances the problem lies with a primary hypothesis that is false and publication of your data will be imperative. What are your options? A number of scientific publishing houses established journals such as These avenues are not very attractive to students or postdocs who need a fellowship to continue their scientific careers. For this reason, we encourage authors to submit negative data to the journal in which the original manuscript was published. Editors may be little reluctant to accept manuscripts that question high‐profile findings, but they are open to the persuasive argument that hypothesis testing requires both refutation and replication in equal measure. While railing against editors might be a favorite pastime of scientists, most editors are conscience of their privileged position to ensure the integrity of peer review and the scientific record. In fact, many reputable journals have clear policies that detail how to handle and accept refutations.If a journal chooses to send your refutation out for review, it will likely give the original authors an opportunity to respond to your manuscript. In this position, many scientists will defend their original findings and will attempt to cast doubt on their challengers by focusing on methodological discrepancies. Accordingly, to convince editors and reviewers, you should emphasize the lengths that you went to adopt the same protocols and use the same reagents. It is advisable to assume a measured and neutral tone, and to offer a number of reasons that might explain your failure to replicate this particular study. Your goal should be to persuade the editors and the scientific community that your study is superior. This objective will be advanced by demonstrating lack of reproducibility in another system, or through the addition of orthogonal experiments.PLoS One, that accepts technically sound manuscripts without specific requirements for novelty. Alternatively, pre‐print servers, such as the BioRxiv platform, enable authors to publish their data swiftly in a citable form with the potential to ignite interest and attention. Overall, the responsibility lies with us, the scientific community, to recognize the importance of negative data and to make sure it is made public.Submitting your manuscript to the journal in which the original paper appeared will be successful sometimes, but not always. In this case, we advocate submission to an open‐access journal, such as


Heard of “Plan S”? You will. Plan S arose from the work of an international group called Coalition S. Their aim is to have all published research available open access immediately on publication. The coalition has some powerful membership organizations, mainly across Europe but in some other countries too. Coverage is not yet universal, and some key organizations have not signed up. However, the coalition has one powerful financial backer in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and, given the widespread—and sometimes misplaced—enthusiasm for open access, this is likely to gather momentum. On the face of it “Plan S” seems entirely laudable and altruistic, however, it raises a number of issues for both researchers and publishers.1Researchers will have to obtain funding to publish open access if their funding body is a member of Coalition S. Open access is not cheap with some journals charging several thousand pounds in APCs (article processing charges). Few individuals will be prepared to pay from their own pockets or to have funding available for this. Only a few universities will have funding to spare, although more will have subscriptions to PLOSOne (Public Library of Science) and BMC  whereby their staff may submit, without the need to pay an APC, to journals published by these two major open access publishing houses. An alternative source of funding is via the research funding bodies, if they decide to make such funding available, and it seems likely that they will. But these are publicly funded bodies who will either require more money from their governments to accommodate this or will have to divert resources from research discovery funding to open access funding. Either way, this has consequences for those who ultimately fund such research: the general tax‐paying public who will either—without consultation—have a deficit in research, a deficit in other government‐funded amenities or an increase in tax. Open access, but hardly democracy.2per se where researchers may publish. But if they want to publish in reputable journals that are also Clarivate listed with an impact factor then the field becomes very narrow. The consequences for publishers vary from carrying on regardless and continuing to publish articles not emanating from research funded by Coalition S organizations to going out of business  and this is, essentially, “crowdfunded.” As such it is an attractive model but once you become involved in submitting to and editing one of these journals you realize what the major publishing houses have to offer. The main thing they offer is online journal managing platforms and full‐time staff to support editorial teams. But it is possible that this model could see an injection of cash from some philanthropist who supports open access.Another open access option exists and that is diamond open access. Currently, very few journals operate this model and one of these is the 4plus ça change. Whatever Plan S achieves for Coalition S in terms of increasing open access and forcing the hands of publishers, they should recognize how we got where we are, with a plethora of reputable journals in which to publish and “Rolls Royce” journal management systems. This was not funded by open access and, unless open access delivers income to the publishers, we endanger these systems.Of course, Coalition S might attenuate its plans and it will be another case of