Reviewer selection biases editorial decisions on manuscripts

Journal of Neurochemistry

Volumn 146, Issue 1, 2018, Pages 21-46

  Hausmann, Laura ^a   Schweitzer, Barbara ^a   Middleton, Frank A ^b   Schulz, Jörg B ^a,c  

^a UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL RWTH AACHEN   (Germany)

^b SUNY UPSTATE MEDICAL UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c RWTH AACHEN UNIVERSITY   (Germany)

Author keywords

bias in publishing; cognitive particularism; editor; manuscript decision; peer review; referee

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ASIA; CANADA; CONTROLLED STUDY; EUROPE; INTERRATER RELIABILITY; MEDICAL LITERATURE; PACIFIC ISLANDS; PEER REVIEW; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PUBLICATION; PUBLISHING; RETROSPECTIVE STUDY; SELECTION BIAS; UNITED STATES;

EID: 85044866609     PISSN: 00223042     EISSN: 14714159     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/jnc.14314     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. Aleksic J., Alexa A. and Attwood T. K. et al. (2014) An open science peer review oath. F1000Res, 3, 271.
2. Bernstein J. (2013) Everyone (else) is conflicted. Clin. Orthop. Relat. Res. 471, 2434–2438.
3. Bornmann L. and Daniel H. D. (2010) Do author-suggested reviewers rate submissions more favorably than editor-suggested reviewers? A study on atmospheric chemistry and physics. PLoS ONE 5, e13345.
4. Callaway E. (2015) Faked peer reviews prompt 64 retractions. Nat. News. doi: 10.1038/nature.2015.18202
5. Earnshaw J. J., Farndon J. R., Guillou P. J., Johnson C. D., Murie J. A. and Murray G. D. (2000) A comparison of reports from referees chosen by authors or journal editors in the peer review process. Ann. R. Coll. Surg. Engl. 82, 133–135.
6. Fanelli D., Costas R. and Ioannidis J. P. A. (2017) Meta-assessment of bias in science. PNAS 114, 3714–3719.
7. Fang F. C., Steen R. G. and Casadevall A. (2012) Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 17028–17033.
8. Fox C. W., et al. (2017) ASRs: gender differences and influences on the peer review process at an ecology journal. Funct. Ecol. 31, 270–280.
9. Fox M. P. and Lash T. L. (2017) On the need for quantitative bias analysis in the peer-review process. Am. J. Epidemiol. 185, 865–868.
10. Galipeau J., Moher D., Skidmore B., Campbell C., Hendry P., Cameron D. W., Hebert P. C. and Palepu A. (2013) Systematic review of the effectiveness of training programs in writing for scholarly publication, journal editing, and manuscript peer review (protocol). Syst. Rev. 2, 41.
11. Gottlieb J. D. B. and Neil M. (2017) How should journals handle the conflict of interest of their editors? who watches the “watchers”? JAMA 317, 1757–1758.
12. Harris M., Macinko J., Jimenez G., Mahfoud M. and Anderson C. (2015) Does a research article's country of origin affect perception of its quality and relevance? A national trial of US public health researchers. BMJ Open 5, e008993.
13. Haug C. J. (2015) Peer-review fraud-hacking the scientific publication process. N. Engl. J. Med. 373, 2393–2395.
14. Hausmann L. and Murphy S. P. (2016) The challenges for scientific publishing, 60 years on. J. Neurochem. 139(Suppl 2), 280–287.
15. Helmer M., Schottdorf M., Neef A. and Battaglia D. (2017) Gender bias in scholarly peer review. Elife, 6, e21718.
16. Kowalczuk M. K., Dudbridge F., Nanda S., Harriman S. L., Patel J. and Moylan E. C. (2015) Retrospective analysis of the quality of reports by author-suggested and non-author-suggested reviewers in journals operating on open or single-blind peer review models. BMJ Open 5, e008707.
17. Lee C. J. S., Sugimoto C. R., Zhang G. and Cronin B. (2012) Bias in peer review. Adv. Inform. Sci. 64, 2–17.
18. Lerback J. and Hanson B. (2017) Journals invite too few women to referee. Nature 541, 455–457.
19. Luo L. and Rubens F. D. (2016) Traditional peer review and post-publication peer review. Perfusion 31, 443–444.
20. McKinney R. E., Jr and Pierce H. H. (2017) Strategies for addressing a broader definition of conflicts of interest. JAMA 317, 1727–1728.
21. Murphy E. J. (2015) The importance of ethical peer-review: why do we ask authors to suggest reviewers anyway? Lipids 50, 1165–1166.
22. Newton D. P. (2010) Quality and peer review of research: an adjudicating role for editors. Account Res. 17, 130–145.
23. O'Connor S. J. (2012) Peer review: problem or solution in relation to publication bias, transparency and the internationalisation of scientific research outputs? Eur. J. Cancer Care (Engl) 21, 701–702.
24. Palombo E. (2017) Gender bias: strategy to balance reviewers. Nature 543, 40.
25. Reingewertz Y. and Lutmar C. (2018) Academic in-group bias: An empirical examination of the link between author and journal affiliation. J. Informetr., 12, 74–86.
26. Resnik D. B. (2011) Ethics: a troubled tradition. Am. Sci. 99, 24–27.
27. Rivara F. P., Cummings P., Ringold S., Bergman A. B., Joffe A. and Christakis D. A. (2007) A comparison of reviewers selected by editors and reviewers suggested by authors. J. Pediatr. 151, 202–205.
28. Schroter S., Tite L., Hutchings A. and Black N. (2006) Differences in review quality and recommendations for publication between peer reviewers suggested by authors or by editors. JAMA 295, 314–317.
29. Schulz J. B., Cookson M. R. and Hausmann L. (2016) The impact of fraudulent and irreproducible data to the translational research crisis - solutions and implementation. J. Neurochem. 139(Suppl 2), 253–270.
30. Siedlecki S. L. (2016) The ethics of peer review: What to know before saying “yes”. Nurs. Manage. 47, 44–48.
31. Siler K., Lee K. and Bero L. (2015) Measuring the effectiveness of scientific gatekeeping. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 360–365.
32. Sposato L. A., Ovbiagele B., Johnston S. C., Fisher M. and Saposnik G. (2014) A peek behind the curtain: peer review and editorial decision making at Stroke. Ann. Neurol. 76, 151–158.
33. Stahel P. F. and Moore E. E. (2014) Peer review for biomedical publications: we can improve the system. BMC Med. 12, 179.
34. Teixeira da Silva J. A. and Al-Khatib A. (2018) Sci. Eng. Ethics. 24, 275.
35. Teixeira da Silva J. A. D. and Dobránszki J. (2015) Problems with traditional science publishing and finding a wider niche for post-publication peer review. Account. Res. 22, 22–40.
36. Thaler K., Kien C., Nussbaumer B., Van Noord M. G., Griebler U., Klerings I. and Gartlehner G. (2015) Inadequate use and regulation of interventions against publication bias decreases their effectiveness: a systematic review. J. Clin. Epidemiol. 68, 792–802.
37. The Lancet (2015) China's medical research integrity questioned. Lancet, 17 385, 1365.
38. Tonks A. (1995) Reviewers chosen by authors. BMJ 311, 210.
39. Travis G. D. L. and Collins H.M. (1991) New light on old boys: cognitive and institutional particularism in the peer review system. Sci. Tech. Hum. Val., 16, 322–341.
40. Wager E., Parkin E. C. and Tamber P. S. (2006) Are reviewers suggested by authors as good as those chosen by editors? Results of a rater-blinded, retrospective study. BMC Med. 4, 13.
41. Walker R., Barros B., Conejo R., Neumann K. and Telefont M. (2015) Personal attributes of authors and reviewers, social bias and the outcomes of peer review: a case study. F1000Res, 4, 21.
42. Yarris L. M., Gottlieb M., Scott K., Sampson C., Rose E., Chan T. M. and Ilgen J. (2017) Academic primer series: key papers about peer review. West J. Emerg. Med. 18, 721–728.