4-2 Discussion: Peer Review | Quick Homework Help

I need help with a Psychology question. All explanations and answers will be used to help me learn.

After reading several of the articles from the Nature debate on peer review (attached), what do you think is the best way that articles in psychology should be selected for publication? What are the key strengths of your suggested method? The weaknesses? When responding to your classmates, offer an alternative perspective to their suggestion or point out factors that they did not consider.

To complete this assignment, review the Discussion Rubric document (attached).

please also reply in one-two paragraphs to the following students posts regarding the same topic!

STUDENT ONE:

One of the processes I think is quite interesting is the open-peer-review. This takes papers through several rounds of edits of an initial scrutinization and then the traditional review (“Overview: Nature’s peer review trial,” 2006). I am fond of the hybrid system of peer review because it allows for an editor to submit it to the Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (ETAI) so that members of the peer community can make comments without anonymity (“Systems: Opening up the process,” 2006). In addition, they ensure that the material is relevant to the criteria of ETAI and it denies the submission of pseudoscience papers. The discussion takes approximately three months with means to extend. Afterwards, the authors can then make edits to their paper or continue for a decision from an expert to review the final version and determine if it should cease movement or move forward.
I feel what makes this process so efficient is that it uses the internet to make the appropriate edits and set the author up for success. Additionally, all comments are open and allows the author to see different perspectives and how they arrived at the final review edits. This is important when considering if they should continue with their paper or find a different route entirely. However, as the article suggests, authors must expedite responses to criticism or risk having their journal rejected in an open forum (“Systems: Opening up the process,” 2006). This, as you can imagine, can be very difficult for someone who committed time to the development of the research journal. The stress over the course of three months or longer can also be difficult for the author as they may have to constantly defend their position. The article also says that the authors are more cautious when submitting a journal because of the public criticism and because any discussion can quickly lead to a rejection. I live on honest and straight-forwardness because it allows someone to know immediately that they must improve. These discussions are either a make or break for some authors which is a weakness depending on the type of person submitting the journal.

References
Overview: Nature’s peer review trial. (2006). Retrieved April 2, 2019, from https://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature05535.html
Systems: Opening up the process. (2006). Retrieved April, 2, 2019, from https://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature04994.html

STUDENT TWO:

In the last year I read a book title The Dispossessed about a physicist who runs away from an extremist socialist moon to the capitalist planet the moon orbits so that he can continue his life’s work in physics. The reason his work could not be continued on his home was the “government” (this society did not believe in governments but in the collective people) would not publish his work because his peers did not understand the science behind it nor did they want him to get all the credit for the science (Le Guin, 1974). While this is an extreme, this kind of thinking may be at play when researchers don’t get published in peer-review journals. According to the article Analysing the purpose of the peer review, 90% of articles submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet are rejected (Nature, 2006). This is a staggering number. While I understand not all manuscripts can (or should) be published, more should be offered to the researchers who have devoted their time to their research to better our population as a whole.

A method of publishing that seems to make the most sense to me would be a combination of the traditional peer review method we all know, and a method discussed in the article Scientific publishers should let their online readers become reviews which includes comment sections and rating systems for online peer reviewed articles (Nature, 2006). Having manuscripts that are reviewed by peers prevents wildly mistaken data from being published regularly but online comments and rating systems allows the public to have a say in what the article content is about and how it was created as well. This creates accountability for all stakeholders involved, including the readers. The only weakness in this system would be the internet trolls who would comment on articles negatively, or nonsensically, just for the sake of chaos. This may be the price to pay for having more involvement in the peer review process.

References

Le Guin, U. K. (1974). The Dispossessed. New York, NY: Harper Voyager.

Nature. (2006). Analysing the purpose of the peer review. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature04990

Nature. (2006). Scientific publishers should let their onine readers become reviews. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature04992