<p id="cite"><i><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">I missed this earlier, may be of interest, <br></span></span></i></p><p id="cite"><i><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">
cheers,</span></span></i></p><p id="cite"><i><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">John</span></span></i></p><p id="cite"><i><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">
<br> </span></span></i></p><p id="cite"><i><span style="font-style: italic;"><br></span></i></p><p id="cite"><i><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Nature</i> <b>447</b>, 528 (31 May 2007) | <span class="doi"><abbr title="Digital Object Identifier">
doi</abbr>:10.1038/447528d</span>;
Published online 30 May 2007</p><h2 id="atl">Open journals' records to give reviewers their due</h2><p id="aug">Ariberto Fassati<sup><a title="affiliated with " href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v447/n7144/full/447528d.html#a1">
1</a></sup></p><div id="affiliations-notes">
<ol class="decimal"><li id="a1">Wohl Virion Centre and MRC-UCL Centre
for Medical Molecular Virology, Division of Infection and Immunity,
University College London Medical School, 46 Cleveland Street, London
W1T 4JF, UK</li></ol></div><div id="articlebody"><h3 class="norm">Sir</h3><p class="norm">Sydney Brenner and Richard Robert's request in Correspondence (<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/446725a"><span class="i">Nature
</span><span class="b"> 446</span>, 725; doi:10.1038/446725a 2007</a>) for authors to conserve records of their work and make them freely accessible is of great importance to historians of science.</p><p class="norm">However,
unlike an artist's preparatory sketches or a novelist's drafts,
scientific papers describing major discoveries have gone through the
process of peer review. Reviewers often make significant contributions
in shaping discoveries. They suggest new experiments, propose novel
interpretations and reject some papers outright. Clearly, this is also
important 'behind the scenes' work by scientists usually at the
forefront of their discipline, and is an intrinsic part of the
scientific process. It is well worth keeping a record of such work, for
no history of science will be complete and accurate without it.</p><p class="norm">I
therefore propose that journals' records should be made publicly
available after an adequate lapse of time, including the names of
reviewers and the confidential comments exchanged between editors and
reviewers. The Nobel Foundation makes all its records available after
50 years, as do many governmental and other institutions. This delay
may be reduced for scientific journals to, perhaps, 15 or 20 years.
This is also likely to have a positive impact on the peer-review
process itself.</p><p class="norm">The scientific community and future
historians will gain from this transparency and from full knowledge of
all the events that have contributed to a great discovery.</p></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br> John Cumbers, Graduate Student<br>Biology and Medicine <br>Brown University, Box G-W<br>Providence, Rhode Island, 02912, USA
<br>Tel USA: +1 401 523 8190, Fax: +1 401 863-2166 <br>UK to USA: 0207 617 7824