[3dem] sharing em maps during peer-review process

Edward Egelman egelman at virginia.edu
Thu Apr 30 15:11:18 PDT 2015


Hi,
   But for those who are paranoid (and there really may be people out to 
get you, so perhaps the paranoia is warranted) the main danger in the 
review process is that your conclusions become known, perhaps to your 
competitors. So I do not view the map as more important than the 
conclusions, which are no longer secret. But while the reviewers are 
anonymous to the authors, they are certainly not anonymous to the 
editor. So if one suspects that material was compromised during the 
review process, you can simply write to the editor of the journal and 
say that you suspect Dr. X of using your results, and it is important to 
determine whether Dr. X was one of the reviewers. Almost all editors 
would take this extremely seriously, as it goes to the foundation of 
peer-review. I speak as a former editor of a journal, where I did 
receive such inquiries (and in every instance, Dr. X was not one of the 
reviewers!).
Regards,
Ed

On 4/30/15 5:48 PM, Mike Strauss wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Unlike Ed, I do understand the basis for the paranoia, but I do not 
> see a sensible way around it.  Our system is currently based on 
> anonymous peer review, be that good or ill.  As such, if we expect 
> thorough, honest, accurate, and ultimately helpful reviews, it only 
> makes sense that the reviewer can look at the maps to assess the 
> claims made, and to suss out potential errors in processing or 
> methodology.  Ultimately they will have to be deposited regardless.  I 
> don’t see how you can avoid trusting the reviewers to behave honourably.
>
> Having said that, perhaps we should consider implementing a system 
> where reviewers are de-anonymised in the event of a controversy (ie. 
> your paper is scooped after a 4 month review process).
>
> mike
>
>> On Apr 30, 2015, at 5:01 PM, Edward Egelman <egelman at virginia.edu 
>> <mailto:egelman at virginia.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>   First, let me say that I was not the reviewer! Second, I recently 
>> spoke at an NIH workshop on reproducibility in structural biology:
>> http://wals.od.nih.gov/reproducibility/
>> and making maps and models available to reviewers BEFORE publication, 
>> and not AFTER, was one of my recommendations. I gave several examples 
>> of papers in high profile journals that would never have been 
>> published had reviewers actually compared the maps and models during 
>> review. I do not understand the basis for the paranoia.
>> Regards,
>> Ed
>>
>> On 4/30/15 4:19 PM, Friedrich Foerster wrote:
>>> dear colleagues,
>>>
>>> i would be interested in experiences / suggestions / views of others 
>>> in the field on  the following issue that may be of interest to many 
>>> of us:
>>> the editor of our manuscript forwarded the request of a 
>>> peer-reviewer to access the cryo-em map of our beloved complex. this 
>>> has never happened to us, but to our surprise the editor did not 
>>> consider the request to be unusual.
>>> of course, we share the point that the map would be of great help in 
>>> judging the interpretation of the data. however, we also feel very 
>>> uncomfortable sending the condensed result of lengthy research to an 
>>> anonymous colleague, who could theoretically make considerable 
>>> misuse of it. nevertheless, the policy of the journal seems to let 
>>> us little choice: "Supporting data must be made available to editors 
>>> and peer-reviewers at the time ofsubmission for the purposes of 
>>> evaluating the manuscript.Peer-reviewersmay be askedto comment on 
>>> the terms of access to materials, methods and/or data sets".
>>> in any case we would be curious whether others indeed got similar 
>>> requests and how they dealt with it. a good solution for (paranoid?) 
>>> people like us could be a good web-based viewer that lets others 
>>> view our map, but i would not know of such a tool.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Friedrich
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Dr. Friedrich Foerster
>>> Max-Planck Institut fuer Biochemie
>>> Am Klopferspitz 18
>>> D-82152 Martinsried
>>>
>>> Tel: +49 89 8578 2632
>>> Fax: +49 89 8578 2641
>>>
>>> www.biochem.mpg.de/foerster <http://www.biochem.mpg.de/foerster>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 3dem mailing list
>>> 3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu
>>> https://mail.ncmir.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/3dem
>>
>> -- 
>> Edward H. Egelman, Ph.D.
>> Professor
>> Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
>> University of Virginia
>>
>> President
>> Biophysical Society
>>
>> phone: 434-924-8210
>> fax: 434-924-5069
>> egelman at virginia.edu
>> http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ehe2n
>> _______________________________________________
>> 3dem mailing list
>> 3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu <mailto:3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu>
>> https://mail.ncmir.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/3dem
>

-- 
Edward H. Egelman, Ph.D.
Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
University of Virginia

President
Biophysical Society

phone: 434-924-8210
fax: 434-924-5069
egelman at virginia.edu
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ehe2n

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