Peer review failure
Encyclopedia
Peer review
failures occur when a peer-reviewed article contains obvious fundamental errors that undermines at least one of its main conclusions, when a journal publishes well-known information as a new discovery, or when important valid work is rejected out of hand. Peer review is not considered a failure in cases of deliberate fraud
by authors. Letters-to-the-editor that correct major errors in articles are a common indication of peer review failures.
Peer review, in scientific journal
s, assumes that the article reviewed has been honestly written, and the process is not designed to detect fraud. The reviewers usually do not have full access to the data from which the paper has been written and some elements have to be taken on trust. It is not usually practical for the reviewer to reproduce the author's work, unless the paper deals with purely theoretical problems which the reviewer can follow in a step-by-step manner.
of prose than fraudulent data. A few cases of such textual plagiarism by historians, for instance, have been widely publicized. On the scientific side, a poll of 3,247 scientists funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health
found 0.3% admitted faking data and 1.4% admitted plagiarism..
Additionally, 4.7% of the same poll admitted to autoplagiarism, in which an author republishes the same material or data without citing their earlier work. An author often uses autoplagiarism to pad their list of publications. Journals and employers often do not punish authors for autoplagiarism, though it is against the rules of most peer-reviewed journals, which usually require that only unpublished material be submitted.
that is sometimes reported is a reviewer using the not-yet-published information from a manuscript or grant application for personal or professional gain. The frequency with which this happens is unknown, but the United States Office of Research Integrity
has sanctioned reviewers who have been caught exploiting knowledge they gained as reviewers.
A possible defense (for authors) against this form of misconduct
on the part of reviewers is to pre-publish their work in the form of a preprint
or technical report
on a public system such as arXiv
. The preprint can later be used to establish priority, although this violates the stated policies of some journals.
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
failures occur when a peer-reviewed article contains obvious fundamental errors that undermines at least one of its main conclusions, when a journal publishes well-known information as a new discovery, or when important valid work is rejected out of hand. Peer review is not considered a failure in cases of deliberate fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
by authors. Letters-to-the-editor that correct major errors in articles are a common indication of peer review failures.
Peer review, in scientific journal
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...
s, assumes that the article reviewed has been honestly written, and the process is not designed to detect fraud. The reviewers usually do not have full access to the data from which the paper has been written and some elements have to be taken on trust. It is not usually practical for the reviewer to reproduce the author's work, unless the paper deals with purely theoretical problems which the reviewer can follow in a step-by-step manner.
Peer review and plagiarism
Reviewers generally lack access to raw data, but do see the full text of the manuscript, and are typically familiar with recent publications in the area. Thus, they are in a better position to detect plagiarismPlagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
of prose than fraudulent data. A few cases of such textual plagiarism by historians, for instance, have been widely publicized. On the scientific side, a poll of 3,247 scientists funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
found 0.3% admitted faking data and 1.4% admitted plagiarism..
Additionally, 4.7% of the same poll admitted to autoplagiarism, in which an author republishes the same material or data without citing their earlier work. An author often uses autoplagiarism to pad their list of publications. Journals and employers often do not punish authors for autoplagiarism, though it is against the rules of most peer-reviewed journals, which usually require that only unpublished material be submitted.
Abuse of inside information by reviewers
A related form of professional misconductMisconduct
A misconduct is a legal term meaning a wrongful, improper, or unlawful conduct motivated by premeditated or intentional purpose or by obstinate indifference to the consequences of one's acts....
that is sometimes reported is a reviewer using the not-yet-published information from a manuscript or grant application for personal or professional gain. The frequency with which this happens is unknown, but the United States Office of Research Integrity
United States Office of Research Integrity
The Office of Research Integrity is one of the bodies concerned with research integrity in the United States. It was created when the Office of Scientific Integrity in the National Institutes of Health and the Office of Scientific Integrity Review in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for...
has sanctioned reviewers who have been caught exploiting knowledge they gained as reviewers.
A possible defense (for authors) against this form of misconduct
Misconduct
A misconduct is a legal term meaning a wrongful, improper, or unlawful conduct motivated by premeditated or intentional purpose or by obstinate indifference to the consequences of one's acts....
on the part of reviewers is to pre-publish their work in the form of a preprint
Preprint
A preprint is a draft of a scientific paper that has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.-Role:Publication of manuscripts in a peer-reviewed journal often takes weeks, months or even years from the time of initial submission, because manuscripts must undergo extensive...
or technical report
Technical report
A technical report is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and conclusions of the research...
on a public system such as arXiv
ArXiv
The arXiv |Chi]], χ) is an archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers in the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, and quantitative finance which can be accessed online. In many fields of mathematics and physics, almost all...
. The preprint can later be used to establish priority, although this violates the stated policies of some journals.
Corrective Measures
Many journals deal with peer review failures by publishing letters, though some opt not to do so. The author of a disputed article is allowed a published reply to a critical letter. However, neither the letter nor the reply is usually peer-reviewed, and typically the author rebuts the criticisms. Thus, the readers are left to decide for themselves if a peer review failure occurred.Examples
- "Perhaps the most widely recognized failing of peer review is its inability to ensure the identification of high-quality work. The list of important scientific papers that were initially rejected by peer-reviewed journals goes back at least as far as the editor of Philosophical Transaction's 1796 rejection of Edward JennerEdward JennerEdward Anthony Jenner was an English scientist who studied his natural surroundings in Berkeley, Gloucestershire...
's report of the first vaccinationVaccinationVaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...
against smallpoxSmallpoxSmallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
." - Tai's methodTai's methodTai's method is a mathematical algorithm for finding the total area under glucose tolerance and other metabolic curves that has been dismissed as merely a rediscovery or simply plagiarism of the trapezoidal rule, and has been widely ridiculed....
, in which the method of Riemann sums for numerical integration was republished in a Diabetes research journal, Diabetes Care. The method is almost always taught in high school calculus, and was thus considered an example of an extremely well known idea being re-branded as a new discovery.