Co-reviewing and ghostwriting by early-career researchers in the peer review of manuscripts
Co-reviewing and ghostwriting by early-career researchers in the peer review of manuscripts
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早期职业研究人员在手稿同行评审中共同评审和代笔
作者：
Gary Mcdowell;John D Knutsen;June M Graham;Sarah K Oelker;Rebeccah S. Lijek
本研究的目的是阐明早期职业研究人员 (ECR) 在对期刊发表的手稿进行同行评审期间的参与情况。特别是，我们试图更好地了解 ECR 在不是受邀审稿人（“共同审稿”）时向同行评审报告贡献想法和/或文本的常见情况，以及 ECR 不因这些学术努力而获得期刊编辑人员的署名的情况（“代写”）。首先，我们评估了由“早期职业研究员”和“同行评审”同义词组合而成的详尽搜索词生成的同行评审文献中的 1,952 篇出版物，发现之前没有关于 ECR 代写同行评审报告的研究。然后，我们对 498 名研究人员进行了调查，了解他们对共同审稿和代写 ECR 的经验和看法。四分之三的受访者进行了共同评审，大多数人认为这是一种有益（95% 同意）且符合道德（73% 同意）的同行评审培训形式。除了接受自己论文的评审之外，共同评审是同行评审中第二种最常见的培训形式。尽管 4/5 的大多数人认为代写是不道德的，但一半的调查受访者代写了同行评审报告。调查受访者表示，将共同审稿人姓名纳入同行评审报告的三大障碍是： PI 和 ECR 之间缺乏沟通；错误地认为共同作者是手稿而非同行评审报告；与当前实践和最佳实践观点不符的禁止性期刊政策。因此，我们提出改变这种现状的建议，以阻止不道德的同行评审报告代写，并鼓励高质量的共同评审经验作为同行评审的正常培训。
The goal of this study is to shed light on the involvement of early career researchers (ECRs) during peer review of manuscripts for publication in journals. In particular, we sought to better understand how commonly ECRs contribute ideas and/or text to peer review reports when they are not the invited reviewer (“co-review”), and how commonly ECRs do not receive named credit to the journal editorial staff for these scholarly efforts (“ghostwrite”). First, we evaluated 1,952 publications in the peer-reviewed literature generated by exhaustive search terms that combined synonyms of “early career researcher” and “peer review” and found no previous studies about ECRs ghostwriting peer review reports. We then surveyed 498 researchers about their experiences with, and opinions about, co-reviewing and ghostwriting as ECRs. Three quarters of those surveyed have co-reviewed and most find it to be a beneficial (95% agree) and ethical (73% agree) form of training in peer review. Co-reviewing is the second most commonly reported form of training in peer review besides receiving reviews on one’s own papers. Half of survey respondents have ghostwritten a peer review report, despite the 4/5ths majority opinion that ghostwriting is unethical. Survey respondents report that the three major barriers to including co-reviewer names on peer review reports are: a lack of communication between PIs and ECRs; a false belief that co-authorship is for manuscripts but not peer review reports; and prohibitive journal policies that are out of alignment with current practice and opinions about best practice. We therefore propose recommendations for changing this status quo, to discourage unethical ghostwriting of peer review reports and encourage quality co-reviewing experiences as normal training in peer review.