Relax

RelaxEU proposal submitted today, acceptance rate last year was 7%… so something for relaxing is required;-) As everybody relaxes differently, you have the choice of looking at the photograph or watching the video Bad project (disclaimer: a parody – thanks to Thiemo for the link).

For unrelated reading, but following up some other notes on publishing and peer review (see overview of posts here), an insightful post by Cameron Neylon: What is it with researchers and peer review? or; Why misquoting Churchill does not an argument make. If you are researcher, peer review is (and will remain) important. Therefore, staying up to date is not only interesting (e.g., you get to see the real Churchill quote;) but also useful to see its pros and cons more clearly. Interesting may be this Nature Materials editorial on Transparency in peer review (free with registration). Out of curiosity I just checked: I reviewed 21 papers in 2010, so a couple more than I (or a coauthor) actually submitted, but a lot less than I was asked to review…

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2 thoughts on “Relax”

  1. 21 papers, wow, I thought I reviewed a lot and I ‘only’ did 14 papers last year.

    Now we have supp. info. for nearly every paper, I can’t see there being any problem with publishing the review process in full, as a guide to readers. Of course, you don’t need to publish reviewers’ names, but if reviewers are worried their reviews will look bad to the public , then this can only be a positive force for improvement. It’s not the peer review system which is imperfect; only the peers who do the reviews. Also, if the review is published freely, a disagreement between author and reviewer can be left open.. let the readers decide if the reviewer is making a fair criticism or not.

    I will definitely try and put my review in the Supp of my next paper.

  2. I also think that some referee reports might look a little different when they’d to be published along with the paper. For one or two of the reports I received upon which my papers were accepted, I am glad they are not public: although I am fully convinced that these papers deserved to be published (of course I am;-) I think the referee “did not get it”. Might also be funny once in a while, I heard of a comment along the lines “The content of this paper should be reduced, or better oxidised…” ;-) Thus, although I agree that it might improve the peer review system to a certain degree, I think the publishing of the referee reports will take a little longer to be generally accepted (if it ever is). Thus, I am a bit pessimistic about the success changes of putting the comments into the Supp, but hope you will share your experience here!

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