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

[Morgan Beeby]

Hi all,

Thought I'd chime in to support openness, but also to respond to Sjors' 
comment about potential dangers of revealing one's identity as a reviewer.

In the era of intense pressure to 'succeed' as a new PI, requirement to 
reveal one's identity might easily lead to a junior PI holding back on 
full criticism in reviews of established PIs (who are likely to 
reciprocally review one's own manuscripts), while senior PI colleagues 
with less at stake (i.e., careers that don't hang on a single 
publication) could afford to be more open with full criticism. I'm not 
suggesting senior colleagues are 'out to get' junior colleagues! (indeed 
-- open criticism is needed to mature as scientists). But (quite 
possibly subconscious) self-censorship surely cannot be a good thing? 
Anonymous peer review circumvents any such potential power imbalance.

I've really appreciated past reviewers revealing their identity to me in 
person, as that has often facilitated great discussions. In my opinion, 
however, the system is fairest if reviewer anonymity is the default 
option that can be opted out of either on paper, or in person.

Morgan



On 02/05/2015 12:10, Sjors Scheres wrote:
> However, revealing one's
> identity as a reviewer also has a potential danger of bias towards being
> less critical (perhaps especially for less established reviewers?), or the
> danger of a culture where positive reviews are expected to be 'paid back'
> later. Again, I think trust is the key word, and recognizing the
> difficulties of every option is a good start.


-- 


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Morgan Beeby, Ph.D.
Lecturer in Structural Biology
Department of Life Sciences
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Imperial College London
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