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It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

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Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#31
post #26
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the things that peer reviewers do, in my experience, in biology: - question whether or not the conclusions you are making are supported by the data you are presenting - ask for additional experiments - evaluate whether or not your research is sufficiently novel and properly contextualized - spotting obvious red flags - you seem to discount this, but it's quite valuable In my experience, the process of peer re…

I also work in biological sciences research, but I'm more skeptical of peer review than you appear to be. My main criticism is that peer review is an n=2 process. Why not publish an unreviewed pre-print in bioRxiv and explicitly solicit constructive, public feedback directly on the pre-print on bioRxiv? I envision something similar to GitHub where users can open issues and have nuanced discussions about the work. The…

Exactly. The quality of peer review is generally pretty poor. There are a lot of really terrible studies and reviews being published in high quality journals from people like the Mayo clinic, that you have to wonder how they passed peer review.

And then on the other hand, if you ever actually have to submit a paper to peer review, you'll see how clueless a lot of the reviewers actually are. About half do give useful critiques and comments, but the other half seem to have weird beliefs about the subject in question, and they pan your paper due to you not sharing said weird beliefs.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#32
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also work in biological sciences research, but I'm more skeptical of peer review than you appear to be. My main criticism is that peer review is an n=2 process. Why not publish an unreviewed pre-print in bioRxiv and explicitly solicit constructive, public feedback directly on the pre-print on bioRxiv? I envision something similar to GitHub where users can open issues and have nuanced discussions about the work. The…

As it happens, I'm building "Github for Journals". I pivoted away from attempting a crowd source review approach with a reputation system to trying to support journals in going Diamond Open Access. But the platform I've built supports co-author collaboration, preprints and preprint review, journal publishing flows, and post publication review - all in a continuous flow that utilizes an interface drawing from Github P…

When you say "submit to a journal" does that mean you are not a journal? Why operate as a preprint server, but not offer to publish with peer-review? (Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your comment).

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it happens, I'm building "Github for Journals". I pivoted away from attempting a crowd source review approach with a reputation system to trying to support journals in going Diamond Open Access. But the platform I've built supports co-author collaboration, preprints and preprint review, journal publishing flows, and post publication review - all in a continuous flow that utilizes an interface drawing from Github P…

When you say "submit to a journal" does that mean you are not a journal? Why operate as a preprint server, but not offer to publish with peer-review? (Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your comment).

It doesn't sound like that poster operates as a journal, and that makes sense. Academic researchers need to publish papers in long-standing and highly respected journals in order to be promoted and eventually gain tenure. Journals do not add value by simply providing space for researchers to publish their work—they add value by existing as a reputable brand that can endow select researchers with academic and social credit.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it happens, I'm building "Github for Journals". I pivoted away from attempting a crowd source review approach with a reputation system to trying to support journals in going Diamond Open Access. But the platform I've built supports co-author collaboration, preprints and preprint review, journal publishing flows, and post publication review - all in a continuous flow that utilizes an interface drawing from Github P…

When you say "submit to a journal" does that mean you are not a journal? Why operate as a preprint server, but not offer to publish with peer-review? (Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your comment).

The platform is intended to host many journals in the same way Github hosts many open source projects. And to facilitate interactions, conversation, and collaboration among authors, editors, and reviewers across them.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "submit to a journal" does that mean you are not a journal? Why operate as a preprint server, but not offer to publish with peer-review? (Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your comment).

It doesn't sound like that poster operates as a journal, and that makes sense. Academic researchers need to publish papers in long-standing and highly respected journals in order to be promoted and eventually gain tenure. Journals do not add value by simply providing space for researchers to publish their work—they add value by existing as a reputable brand that can endow select researchers with academic and social c…

As mentioned in my other comment, crappy peer-review is a big problem for most journals, so a solution to that needs to be found.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#36
post #26
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the things that peer reviewers do, in my experience, in biology: - question whether or not the conclusions you are making are supported by the data you are presenting - ask for additional experiments - evaluate whether or not your research is sufficiently novel and properly contextualized - spotting obvious red flags - you seem to discount this, but it's quite valuable In my experience, the process of peer re…

I also work in biological sciences research, but I'm more skeptical of peer review than you appear to be. My main criticism is that peer review is an n=2 process. Why not publish an unreviewed pre-print in bioRxiv and explicitly solicit constructive, public feedback directly on the pre-print on bioRxiv? I envision something similar to GitHub where users can open issues and have nuanced discussions about the work. The…

> Junior researchers are also pressured into acquiescing to the peer reviewers rather than having an actual scientific debate

Yes. When I was teaching at the graduate school level, doctoral students sometimes came to me for advice about how they should respond to peer reviewer comments. Those comments were usually constructive and worthwhile, but sometimes they seemed to indicate either a misunderstanding or an ideological bias on the part of the reviewer. (This was in the social sciences, where ideology comes with the territory.) But even in those latter cases, the junior researchers just wanted to know how they could best placate the reviewer and get their paper published. None had the nerve, time, or desire for an actual scholarly debate.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#37
post #24

Peer review is a joke. Peer reviewers don’t look at your data and the programs you used to analyze it. They don’t look at your experimental apparatus, they don’t repeat your experiment, they don’t talk to the subjects you interviewed, at best they can spot obvious “red flags”. (Of course, in 2023 you should be able to publish your data and all your software with the paper.)

Idk about you guys but the only reason I do peer review is to reject competitors and enemies. If I really hate them, I give them a "Major Revision" aka a laundry list of expensive follow-up experiments and then reject them on the 2nd or 3rd round after a few months. There's actually zero benefit to earnestly engaging in peer review.

It sounds like you would do well in many other businesses. Don't let academia hinder your potential. Have you considered selling timeshares to elderly people?

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#38

Peer review is a joke. Peer reviewers don’t look at your data and the programs you used to analyze it. They don’t look at your experimental apparatus, they don’t repeat your experiment, they don’t talk to the subjects you interviewed, at best they can spot obvious “red flags”. (Of course, in 2023 you should be able to publish your data and all your software with the paper.)

If you make your code available, I'm going to make sure it runs and does what you say.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#39
post #26
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the things that peer reviewers do, in my experience, in biology: - question whether or not the conclusions you are making are supported by the data you are presenting - ask for additional experiments - evaluate whether or not your research is sufficiently novel and properly contextualized - spotting obvious red flags - you seem to discount this, but it's quite valuable In my experience, the process of peer re…

I also work in biological sciences research, but I'm more skeptical of peer review than you appear to be. My main criticism is that peer review is an n=2 process. Why not publish an unreviewed pre-print in bioRxiv and explicitly solicit constructive, public feedback directly on the pre-print on bioRxiv? I envision something similar to GitHub where users can open issues and have nuanced discussions about the work. The…

I think the key is that peer review is a promise of an n=2 process.

There's no promise that an unreviewed pre-print is going to get two constructive readers. It's also wildly subject to bias - being on a pre-print with a junior, female researcher was eye opening as to the merits of double blind review.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#40
post #36
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also work in biological sciences research, but I'm more skeptical of peer review than you appear to be. My main criticism is that peer review is an n=2 process. Why not publish an unreviewed pre-print in bioRxiv and explicitly solicit constructive, public feedback directly on the pre-print on bioRxiv? I envision something similar to GitHub where users can open issues and have nuanced discussions about the work. The…

> Junior researchers are also pressured into acquiescing to the peer reviewers rather than having an actual scientific debate Yes. When I was teaching at the graduate school level, doctoral students sometimes came to me for advice about how they should respond to peer reviewer comments. Those comments were usually constructive and worthwhile, but sometimes they seemed to indicate either a misunderstanding or an ideol…

As both a grad student and a postdoc I wrote appeals to rejections for peer review that succeeded.
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