Science 2017, vol 357, p 256

By Carole Lee and David Moher

My opinions:

The importance of ethics and transparency in scientific data reporting is a growing increasingly important for a number of reasons. For example, why are some good papers getting rejected and other squeaking through the cracks. And why are scientists having so much trouble reproducing published results. After spending 11 years in an academic lab researching various topics and publishing 14 first author papers, I understand the challenges associated with organizing and presenting a high quality paper as quickly as possible. Research is hard and when you finally have enough results to present the answer to a scientific question, you want to do so as quickly and efficiently as possible. The peer review process is established to ensure that any published scientific finding can be reproduced based on what is reported in the paper. There is a certain amount of responsibility on the scientists to report all the details and specifics of their published research, but since it is not required by many journals to have extensive supporting data and methods sections, scientists often will not include them. So, while there is a responsibility on the scientists to present clear data, there is also a responsibility on the journal to adequately screen publications. I think that implementation of more transparency in the peer review process would be a great idea, but I also think it is going to take a long time as it is a cultural shift in an extremely opaque industry. One short term solution to improving the process has been adopted by the organic chemistry journal, SynLett. They are trying a new model of peer review wherein submitted research articles can be reviewed using a crowdsourcing method. Here, in a pilot study, researchers will submit their journal article, then Synlett will release the submitted paper to a database of over a 100 scientist peer reviewers. Reviewers will have 3-5 days to read and add their comments on the publication. Only reviewers with the most relevant experience are expected to comment. Additionally, the peer reviewers will be able to comment on the comments of other peer reviewers. The peer reviewers are held to a higher standard because if they are inappropriate or include irrelavent comments, then they are out of the pool. The comments are more relevant and in depth because it is getting viewed by more scientists. And the authors of the article are happy because they get their paper back in days instead of weeks. In summary, the article published by Lee and Moher cited numerous structural changes that would improve the transparency of the journal article review and publication process leading to a higher quality of scientific publication, however, these changes will take many years to implement due to the current culture that is established across the world. It will take a few brave leaders in the largest publishing houses to truly change how science is communicated.