BioMed Central Blog
Q&A: The re-review opt-out experiment in Journal of Biology
Miranda Robertson
What is the re-review opt-out experiment?
Read the editorial in Journal of Biology, I’m not repeating myself. (But briefly, where authors have revised their paper in response to referees they will be asked to choose whether referees see it again.)
Why should referees bother to review papers if they know their criticisms can be ignored?
Most of the Editorial Board members we canvassed about this experiment said it wouldn’t deter them from refereeing papers, and anyway the authors will be asked to respond to the criticisms and their responses will be scrutinized by the editors, so they won’t exactly be ignored.
So it will be the editors who will judge whether the criticisms have been met?
In some cases the editors should be competent to make that judgement, yes. (Quite a few Editorial Board members took the view that this is the proper responsibility of editors and most of them aren’t doing it.) If it seems clear to the editors that authors have elected not to meet a serious criticism, the paper may be rejected. In any case, Journal of Biology always commissions a commentary on any paper published: for the duration of the experiment, in those cases where authors have opted out of re-review, the author of the commentary will have access to the referees’ reports and the authors’ responses.
What if the commentary author writes a damning critique because the referees’ objections haven’t been met?
In those circumstances we may offer the authors the opportunity to withdraw the paper.
But what if the authors refuse and insist that the commentary author is wrong? Why not offer to publish the authors’ rebuttal along with the commentary?
Journal of Biology is aimed at informing a broad readership about important developments in many fields. For that reason it has a responsibility to try and ensure that what it publishes presents a valid picture of the field at the time of publication. It is not clear that nonspecialist readers’ interests are best served by being presented with two sides of a picture and having to judge for themselves. The authors will have had the option of answering the referees’ criticisms directly in the traditional way, and the possibility of a critical commentary if they opt out of re-review will have been made clear to them at the time that they opted out. We will not offer them the opportunity to rebut the commentary.
What if you can’t find anyone to write an appropriately critical commentary?
We may have to write it ourselves. With advice, of course.
Some authors find re-review very helpful and wouldn’t want to be deprived of it – What about them?
They can opt to have their papers re-reviewed: it will be the authors’ choice – As we have already said. You haven’t been concentrating.
What about the reviewers? If some Editorial Board members have said they would be reluctant to referee if authors were allowed to opt out of re-review, might not some reviewers want to opt out of refereeing papers you send them?
Yes. The system will be explained to referees when we invite them to review papers and they may then refuse if they don’t like it.
Isn’t this just a rather half-hearted version of other existing schemes for avoiding the frustrations of the reviewing process?
Of course there are other schemes that go further, yes – The BioMed Central journal Biology Direct for example allows authors to choose their own referees from a panel, and publishes the referees’ comments alongside the paper. Several BMC medical journals have open peer review in which again the referees’ comments appear with the paper on publication.
Half-hearted, no. Our experiment is very specifically addressed to the major target of adverse comment by researchers we have spoken to – That is, re-review (see Box 1 in the editorial in Journal of Biology). We do not, sadly, think open review is likely always to be consistent with candour. But we do think that a system in which authors have the option of deciding against re-review may encourage everyone to take their responsibilities more seriously. Referees may need to be clearer about which of their criticisms are critical to the validity of the paper; authors may need to ask themselves harder questions than whether they can talk referees/editors into accepting their papers; and editors may need to take more responsibility themselves for what they publish, and not leave all the thinking to hard-pressed referees.
If this is an experiment, how long will it run?
Until it becomes clear that it is unworkable – for example, if it is too difficult to find adequate referees willing to look at papers under the scheme; or if we are publishing a significant number of papers that are savaged in the accompanying commentary; or other insuperable problems arise that we haven’t thought of.
Will you be publishing the results?
Yes, unrefereed.
Posted by Miranda Robertson at 12:48 Comments (0)
Announcing the launch of BioMed Central's premier medical journal - Genome Medicine
The premier
medical journal Genome Medicine proudly announces the
publication of its inaugural issue.
This issue features content from the biggest names in the field Charles Auffray, Leroy Hood and Zhu Chen, examine systems medicine and discuss its increasing importance to the future of global healthcare. Timothy D Veenstra and Que Van review new prospects in biomarker discovery via metabolomics and mass spectrometry approaches. In addition, Timothy Caulfield highlights the challenges inherent in the use of race and ancestry in biomedical research.
Genome Medicine is a forum for the discussion and critical review of information about all areas of medicine informed by genomic research. The journal publishes open access research articles of outstanding quality in all areas of medicine studied from a genomic or post-genomic perspective, as well as reviews, minireviews, and commentaries that have a special focus on the latest technologies and findings that impact on the understanding and management of human health and disease. As discussed in our launch editorial, Genome Medicine will perform a crucial role in assisting scientists and clinicians to better understand the evolving medical landscape and in translating the most recent advances to their patients.
Genome Medicine is led by six renowned Section Editors and is supported by an internationally recognized Editorial Board.
Visit the journal website to read the first articles published and to submit an article of your own.
For more details
about the journal, please visit the journal 'About' page or contact the editorial office
. To keep up to date
with the latest developments, news and articles being published in this
exciting new journal, please register to receive regular alerts.
Submit your outstanding research now to join our list of prestigious authors and take advantage of the rapid, high-quality peer review service, high visibility, and immediate, free access to all research papers.
Nicole Nogoy
Managing Editor – Genome Medicine.
Posted by Nicole Nogoy at 09:14 Comments (0)
Hereditary Cancer in Clinical Practice joins BioMed Central
The launch of Hereditary
Cancer in Clinical Practice marks the third journal to transfer to
BioMed Central’s open access publishing platform this year. The move benefits
both authors and readers of Hereditary Cancer in Clinical Practice with
increased visibility and comprehensive indexing. This will complement the
exposure generated from the journal’s recent acceptance for tracking by Thomson Reuters
(Impact Factor due 2010).
Hereditary Cancer in Clinical Practice first began publishing in 2003 and remains under the auspices of the International Union Against Cancer. Led by Editors-in-Chief, Jan Lubiński, Rodney J. Scott and Rolf Sijmons, the journal continues to provide a discussion forum for the development of appropriate health care strategies for cancer genetics. The first articles published with BioMed Central reflect this cause. Dr Inmyanitov and colleagues present a case report of genetic testing for BRCA1 mutations, while Professor Scott’s team look for a possible association between MUTYH genetic variation and colorectal and endometrial cancers.
If you are interested in this area of research and would like to receive regular emails detailing the most recently published articles then please sign up for article alerts.
Posted by Anne Braae at 16:40 Comments (0)
Bioinformatics - alive and kicking
Five years ago, Lincoln Stein, then a bioinformatician based at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, predicted that bioinformatics would cease to exist as a separate discipline within ten years. He envisioned that it would inevitably be absorbed into other biological disciplines that would increasingly take computational tools and methods for granted.
At the midway point on his timeline, Dr Stein, now head of the Informatics and Biocomputing Platform at Ontario’s Institute for Cancer Research, reassesses his prediction in a thought-provoking opinion piece for Genome Biology. He was half right, he concludes - bioinformatics has certainly become all pervading. But somewhat to his surprise, it remains stronger than ever as a field in its own right. Read more…
Posted by Clare Garvey at 16:47 Comments (0)
White Rhino - a guest post from Writers Without Borders
This post is from Omar Khan and Tim Brookes of Writers Without Borders:
[Read More]
Posted by Matthew Cockerill at 16:05 Comments (0)
A SMARTT future for sports medicine
Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy & Technology (SMARTT) has launched with BioMed Central as a new open access publication. The journal aims to bring together research from sports medicine, arthroscopy, rehabilitation, therapy and technology, which may previously have been found in a range of journals, to facilitate the cross-fertilisation of ideas from these related disciplines.
Editors-in-Chief, Professor Kai-Ming Chan and Professor Masahiro Kurosaka, are supported by an international Editorial Board. Professor Chan is no stranger to open access publishing as co-Editor-in-Chief of another BioMed Central journal, Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research. We are pleased to be working with Professor Chan and Professor Kurosaka on this new title.
SMARTT is the official journal of the Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (APOSSM) and is affiliated with six other societies. For further details about the journal, please visit the journal “About” page and read the launch Editorial.
Posted by Lisa Phelps at 13:12 Comments (0)
Two more BioMed Central journals on track for Impact Factors
We recently heard that two BioMed Central journals, Parasites & Vectors and Plant Methods, have been accepted for tracking by Thomson Reuters and will both receive Impact Factors in 2010.
Plant Methods launched in 2005 as part of BioMed Central’s independent journals program and has matured into a well-respected title in the field. Parasites & Vectors, which launched in January 2008, has rapidly become an authoritative home for research in parasitology, reflected by its acceptance for tracking by Thomson Reuters from its first issue.
These journals bring to a total of 71 BioMed Central journals that are tracked by Thomson Reuters and either have or are on course to receive an Impact Factor. More details are available from our website.
We would like to pass our congratulations to the Editors-in-Chief of each of these journals.
Posted by Lisa Phelps at 11:30 Comments (0)
Genetics Selection Evolution transfers to BioMed Central
Genetics Selection Evolution has recently joined the growing number of journals opting to transfer to BioMed Central’s open access platform. In the inaugural Editorial that opens the journal’s forty-first year of publication, Executive Editor Helene Hayes reflects on the collective sentiment of the journal’s Editors, explaining: “Converting GSE to open access to provide an online journal freely accessible to all readers without charge is an opportunity we did not want to miss.”
Overseen by Editor-in-Chief Didier Boichard, Genetics Selection Evolution presents original research that will aid understanding of the genetics and selective mechanisms in farm and experimental animals.
The journal invites basic, applied and methodological content and publishes results from all levels of study, from the gene to the quantitative trait, from the individual to the population, breed or species, and welcomes material concerning both biological as well as mathematical approaches.
More details about Genetics Selection Evolution, including the instructions for authors, are available from the information page.
Posted by Sally Robertson at 15:46 Comments (0)
Alan Storey new Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Cancer
We are delighted to welcome Dr Alan Storey as the new Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Cancer. Dr Storey is the Head of HPV Apotosis and Cancer Group at the University of Oxford with much of his research being based on the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK, non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC). Dr Storey is pleased to be taking on this new role and is looking forward to building on the previous successes of the journal.
We would like to take the opportunity to thank Dr Munger who is stepping down as Editor-in-Chief. His efforts in the last two years have been crucial to the journal’s development, which is reflected in the journal’s first official impact factor of 3.69, received in 2008. We are pleased to have Dr Munger’s ongoing support for the journal as a member of the Editorial Board.
Molecular Cancer was first launched in 2002 and aims to promote the exchange of ideas, concepts and findings in any area of cancer and related biomedical science. To find out more about Molecular Cancer, please visit the journal website.
Written by Tim Allen, Acquisitions Editor.
Posted by Lisa Phelps at 14:11 Comments (0)
Head & Neck Oncology: a new open access publication
BioMed Central has launched a new open access publication, Head & Neck Oncology. Led by Editors-in-Chief Adel El-Naggar, Colin Hopper, Waseem Jerjes and Tahwinder Upile, the journal encompasses all aspects of clinical practice, basic and translational research relating to tumours of the head and neck. The journal is the official publication of the Head & Neck Optical Diagnostics Society.
By providing researchers and clinicians in the field with practical updates at the edge of translational research, the journal aims to facilitate collaboration between specialists for the benefit of the patients. For further information please visit the journal ‘About’ page, or read the inaugural Editorial.
Head & Neck Oncology is providing financial assistance to support the journal's important contribution to the field. Authors who would like to request assistance with article-processing charges are encouraged to contact the Editors-in-Chief.
Register now to receive article alerts when new research is published, or visit the instructions for authors before submitting your own research to Head & Neck Oncology.
Posted by Lisa Phelps at 16:23 Comments (0)
Visit BioMed Central at the Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference
BioMed Central will be exhibiting at the forthcoming 7th Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference, which is being held in Beijing from 13th-16th January. If you are attending please drop by our stand so that we can introduce you to our portfolio of relevant journals, which include BMC Bioinformatics, BiologyDirect and Genome Biology. Selected proceedings from the conference will be published in BMC Bioinformatics in due course.
I hope to see you in Beijing!
Posted by Charlotte Hubbard at 20:10 Comments (0)
Journal of Biomedical Science embarks on an open access future
Today, Journal of Biomedical Science published its first articles as an open access publication. As an established journal launched in 1994, Journal of Biomedical Science is indexed in MEDLINE and Web of Science and has an Impact Factor of 2.02.
Editor-in-Chief Professor Michael M. C. Lai discusses in his Editorial how the transition to BioMed Central’s open access publishing platform will further develop the journal, enabling the high-quality research to be more accessible to readers and authors internationally.
The journal is supported by the National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan, and authors will not be required to pay any article processing charges to publish in the journal.
With the support of an esteemed Editorial Board, Journal of Biomedical Science aims to be an important forum for communication among experts from different biomedical fields and between the scientific community in Asia and the rest of the world.
For further details about Journal of Biomedical Science, please visit the journal information page or see the instructions for authors before submitting your next research article to the journal.
Posted by Lisa Phelps at 17:28 Comments (0)
Epigenetics & Chromatin inaugural print issue
Following the successful launch of Epigenetics & Chromatin earlier this year, a special print issue containing some of the first articles will be available at the forthcoming Keystone Symposium ‘Epigenetics, Development & Human Disease’ (Breckenridge, Colorado; Jan 5th-10th).
Although only a recent addition to BioMed Central’s online open access journals, Epigenetics & Chromatin has already published a number of high quality articles, including a groundbreaking publication from the Brockdorff lab which was highlighted in a mini-review by Barbara Panning in Journal of Biology.
Epigenetics & Chromatin co-Editor-in-Chief, Steven Henikoff, will give the Keynote Address on the opening evening of the symposium. Over the course of the meeting Editorial Board members William Kelly, Amanda Fisher, Barbara Meyer and Timothy Bestor will each chair a session of lectures.
The special print issue will be in circulation at the symposium; all published articles are available on the journal website and you can subscribe to email alerts detailing any new publications here.
Posted by Ciaran O'Neill at 11:15 Comments (0)
Evidence Informed Health Policy - a new thematic series published by Implementation Science
The new series ‘Evidence
Informed Health Policy’ published in Implementation Science discusses
the implementation of multi method studies conducted in three phases and the
synthesis of these three studies. This series of articles, all
written by John N Lavis,
Ray Moynihan, Andrew D Oxman and Elizabeth J Paulsen, provides support for the use of
research evidence in developing health policies.
The series is comprised of four articles as follows:
Research article
Evidence-informed health policy 1 - Synthesis of
findings from a multi-method study of organizations that support the use of
research evidence
John N Lavis, Andrew D Oxman, Ray Moynihan,
Elizabeth J Paulsen
Implementation Science 2008, 3:53
(17 December 2008)
[Abstract]
[Provisional
PDF] [PubMed]
Research article
Evidence-informed health policy 2 - Survey of
organizations that support the use of research evidence
John N Lavis, Elizabeth J Paulsen, Andrew D Oxman,
Ray Moynihan
Implementation Science 2008, 3:54
(17 December 2008)
[Abstract]
[Provisional
PDF] [PubMed] [Related
articles] [Cited on
BioMed Central]
Research article
Evidence-informed health policy 3 - Interviews with the
directors of organizations that support the use of research evidence
John N Lavis, Andrew D Oxman, Ray Moynihan,
Elizabeth J Paulsen
Implementation Science 2008, 3:55
(17 December 2008)
[Abstract]
[Provisional
PDF] [PubMed]
Research article
Evidence-informed health policy 4 - Case descriptions
of organizations that support the use of research evidence
John N Lavis, Ray Moynihan, Andrew D Oxman,
Elizabeth J Paulsen
Implementation Science 2008, 3:56
(17 December 2008)
[Abstract]
[Provisional
PDF] [PubMed]
To keep up-to-date with articles published in Implementation Science you can register to receive regular email article alerts. Implementation Science aims to publish research relevant to the scientific study of methods to promote the uptake of research findings into routine healthcare in both clinical and policy contexts. The journal is overseen by Editors-in-Chief Martin Eccles and Brian Mittman.
Written by Tim Allen, Aquisitions Editor.
Posted by Anne Braae at 17:38 Comments (0)
Silence is ready to receive submissions
Silence, a new journal soon to be launched by BioMed Central, is now accepting submissions.
Silence is an online,
peer-reviewed open access journal that covers all aspects of genetic and
epigenetic 
control that is mediated by RNA. Silence
aims to feature research involving small RNA molecules and submissions are
invited describing novel insights into the biogenesis and activity of such
molecules.
The journal is overseen by co-Editors-in-Chief David Baulcombe FRS (Professor of Botany, University of Cambridge, UK) and Phillip D Zamore (Gretchen Stone Cook Professor of Biomedical Sciences, University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA) who are supported by an internationally recognized Editorial Board.
For more information about Silence please visit the journal website, where you can also sign up for regular updates keeping you abreast of any developments, or alternatively contact the editorial office.
Submit your research to Silence and take advantage of an efficient online submission process, a rapid, high quality peer-review service and high visibility. There are no extra charges or limits on the number of color figures or movies you wish to include.
Posted by Andrea Melendez at 16:55 Comments (0)