[OWW-Discuss] Open journals' records to give reviewers their due

[John Cumbers]

*I missed this earlier, may be of interest,
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*cheers,*

*John*

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*Nature* *447*, 528 (31 May 2007) | doi:10.1038/447528d; Published online 30
May 2007
Open journals' records to give reviewers their due

Ariberto Fassati1<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v447/n7144/full/447528d.html#a1>

   1. 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

Sir

Sydney Brenner and Richard Robert's request in Correspondence (Nature 446,
725; doi:10.1038/446725a 2007 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/446725a>) for
authors to conserve records of their work and make them freely accessible is
of great importance to historians of science.

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.

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.

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.


-- 
John Cumbers,  Graduate Student
Biology and Medicine
Brown University, Box G-W
Providence, Rhode Island, 02912, USA
Tel USA: +1 401 523 8190,  Fax: +1 401 863-2166
UK to USA: 0207 617 7824
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