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I agree strongly with Sjors, and think that more openness and more
data availability can only strengthen science. It was not too long
ago where some people refused to make reconstruction volumes
available AFTER publication, since there was no journal policy
dictating submission to a repository. As for double-blind reviewing,
in a recent NSMB there is an editorial about the new double blind
submission possibility. They provide a link to a rather equivocal
editorial evaluation of the system that appeared in one of the first
Nature journals to institute this, Nature Nanotechnology:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v9/n11/full/nnano.2014.265.html">http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v9/n11/full/nnano.2014.265.html</a><br>
<br>
In that editorial, they state:<br>
<br>
<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial, helvetica,
'ＭＳ Ｐゴシック', 'ＭＳ ゴシック', Osaka, 'MS PGothic', sans-serif; font-size:
14.4949998855591px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height:
23.9167499542236px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent:
0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline
!important; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"However,
the</span><i style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);
font-family: arial, helvetica, 'ＭＳ Ｐゴシック', 'ＭＳ ゴシック', Osaka, 'MS
PGothic', sans-serif; font-size: 14.4949998855591px; font-variant:
normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height:
23.9167499542236px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent:
0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> American Economic Review</i><span
style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial, helvetica, 'ＭＳ
Ｐゴシック', 'ＭＳ ゴシック', Osaka, 'MS PGothic', sans-serif; font-size:
14.4949998855591px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height:
23.9167499542236px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent:
0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline
!important; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>dropped double-blind
review in 2011, citing the role of search engines in limiting
their capacity to maintain author anonymity as a major reason for
the decision.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>"<br>
<br>
In our field (as opposed to economics) it would be even harder to
have anonymous authors, as one needs to describe the microscope and
camera, cite previous publications, etc. One could not say "the
protein was prepared as previously described" and give a citation. <br>
They also state that although 80% of respondents to some survey
supported double-blind, less than 20% of submitted manuscripts chose
that option (what they actually state is that is that the monthly
percentage has never risen above 20% for the each of the two
journals, so this is the maximum of something that is fluctuating
and the overall percentage may be 10% or less!).<br>
Regards,<br>
Ed<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/2/15 7:10 AM, Sjors Scheres wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:7413a52b8e5e38c6badde100686996fa.squirrel@mail.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear all,
I think moving towards more openness will be a good thing. As a reviewer
it is often hard to assess the quality of a map from 2D still pictures
alone, and having a look at the map will surely help to assess its
quality. Trust already is at the foundation of the review process. Whether
the reviewer also gets access to the map and the model does not change
much in that respect.
Reversed anonymity in the review process as suggested by Matthijn is
problematic because the identity of the authors is usually very easy to
distill from the paper itself. A useful comment on this (in the context of
double-blind review) is in Nature this week. Going the other way, with
open identities of both authors and reviewers, is attractive in some ways,
but also has its difficulties. I personally tend to tick the option to
reveal my identity as a reviewer in eLife, and have also had my papers
reviewed by people who revealed their identity. Last year I wrote one
negative review for a journal that did not have this option, and later
revealed myself to one of the authors and had an open, face-to-face
discussion with the intention to be helpful. 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.
Perhaps I'm naive, but I think most of us are in this for the fun of it,
and to ultimately change the world for the better. More openness will
probably help in speeding up the scientific process. In that context I
also agree with Grant that discussing options like (bio)-arxiv may be
useful.
Sjors
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">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 of
submission for the purposes of evaluating the manuscript. Peer-reviewers
may be asked to 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
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.biochem.mpg.de/foerster">www.biochem.mpg.de/foerster</a>
_______________________________________________
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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mail.ncmir.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/3dem">https://mail.ncmir.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/3dem</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
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
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:egelman@virginia.edu">egelman@virginia.edu</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ehe2n">http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ehe2n</a>
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