Re: Taking Our Academic Medicine

["Lisa Dittrich" <lrdittrich@aamc.org>]

I don't think Peter or anyone would suggest that volunteer reviewers are 
doing a bad job (well, SOME of them do, and they usually aren't 
re-invited!).  All of our reviewers are volunteers, and, unlike Peter's 
journal, our journal does not have associate eds, etc., so we don't have 
to pay any outside support costs, etc.  However, I think the point is that 
MANAGING a peer-review system does cost money, from the staff needed to 
assign reviewers (which can vary in complexity--in our multi-disciplinary 
journal, it is quite a complex task), to the cost of an online submission 
and review system, to the staff needed to track and "review the reviews," 
etc.  It is not a simple thing.

Also, as greater minds than mine have noted, peer-review is a flawed 
system.  Peer-reviewers do not catch everything.  And this is where, at 
least at my journal, the editorial staff is in fact indispensible.  We do 
substantive editing, and the editorial staff catches many things reviewers 
miss, both in their review of the reviewers comments (which the staff 
works on with the editor) and in their editing of the mss.  These include 
simple discrepancies (numbers in text not matching numbers in tables) to 
larger errors which may actually point to deeper problems with a study. 
Because reviewers are volunteers, and often because they are reviewing in 
an area they are interested in, they sometimes miss what seem to be minor 
problems and only see the "big" picture.  Our editors, who look very 
closely at the text, can often catch problems reviewers missed.

Now, I am happy to say that most of the time these errors are not 
significant enough to lead us to change a decision.  But they are often 
the difference between an author being embarrassed in print and not being 
embarrassed.  And in the pre-decision stage, sometimes reviewers are so 
PRO a topic that they will overlook errors (or downplay them) simply 
because they believe in the great significance of the piece.  This is the 
kind of bias often overlooked in these discussions.  I often say that I am 
grateful not to work on a clinical journal, because the errors we see will 
not make the difference in dosing, etc.--no one will die because of an 
error we make.  But for clinical journals, it is vital that text be as 
error free as possible.  This is where the idea of "post-publication 
peer-review" falters.

So the idea that peer-review can be done cheaply, that peer-reviewers 
catch everything, and that copyeditors are either mindless automatons or 
unnecessary--is, to my mind, a bit naive.

Lisa

Lisa Dittrich
Managing Editor
Academic Medicine
2450 N Street NW
Washington,D.C. 20037
lrdittrich@aamc.org (e-mail)
202-828-0590 (phone)
202-828-4798 (fax)
Academic Medicine's Web site: www.academicmedicine.org

>>> jkleiner@lsu.edu 11/30/05 7:02 PM >>>
I don't think you should discount the reviewers' time and expertise if
they do a proper review. You're taking time away from university
responsibilities to do a good review if it is truly evaluative and/or
includes suggestions for improvement and maybe other journals where it may
be more suitable.

Jane Kleiner
Associate Dean of Libraries for Collection Services
The LSU Libraries
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
E-Mail: jkleiner@lsu.edu


To:    <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>, <mefunk@med.cornell.edu>
Subject:    Re: Taking Our Academic Medicine

The real "myth" is the timesome one you put forth here--that peer review
is conducted by unpaid volunteers.

For a journal of any size and stature, it isn't. Yes, reviewers are
unpaid. But the university based editors and associate editors who invite,
manage and reconcile the conflicting views of those invited reviewers are
paid, and well. For a journal like Diabetes, costs at the university
(including rent, salary support, supplies, etc) are $250,000 per year,
minimum.

Peter Banks
Acting Vice President for Publications/Publisher
American Diabetes Association
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org

>>> mefunk@med.cornell.edu 11/28/05 6:09 PM >>>

Besides smearing the peer reviewers for Open Access journals, this comment
also perpetuates the myth that traditional publishers employ a more
expensive peer review process.

Peer review, a most important aspect of the publishing process, is mostly
done by invited volunteers. Very few scientific journals have paid,
in-house reviewers. It is these unpaid volunteers, chosen for their
expertise, who assure the quality and authority of academic journals,
whether Open Access or not. I fail to see how "unpaid" is more expensive
for traditional journals than it is for Open Access journals. Copy
editing, used by some journals and not others, is not peer review.

I'm not sure the "trained monkey" reviewers for BMC, PLoS, and other Open
Access journals appreciate your comment.

Mark Funk
Head, Collection Development
Weill Cornell Medical Library
New York, NY 10021
mefunk@med.cornell.edu