The journal impact factor contest leads to erosion of quality of peer review

IF 0.2 Q4 EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY Ideas in Ecology and Evolution Pub Date : 2014-01-01 DOI:10.4033/IEE.2014.7.17.C
D. Wardle
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

In his commentary, Hochberg (2014) makes the case that the quality of scientific research is maintained and enhanced over time through a process akin to Darwinian evolution, and that high quality peer review is a necessary ingredient for this to occur. It is a good analogy. This is not to mean that peer review is infallible, and there are many cases in which it has helped impede publication of truly innovative work, including several studies that have subsequently delivered Nobel prizes (Campanario 2009). As such, it has been claimed that peer review ‘favors unadventurous nibblings at the margin of truth rather than quantum leaps’ (Lock 1985). Ecology is not immune from this problem; the ‘why is the world green’ paper by Hairston, Smith and Slobodkin (1960), arguably the most influential publication in trophic ecology in the past 60 years, was first rejected by Ecology (Schoener 1989). Nevertheless, peer review overall does more good than bad, and so long as that is the case, its contribution to the evolutionary process that Hochberg (2014) describes should be positive overall. Erosion of the quality of peer review, when combined with the shortcomings that the peer review process already has, will inevitably retard this evolutionary process. Hochberg (2014) also makes the case that overexploitation of reviewers (i.e., ‘tragedy of the reviewer commons’) is likely to reduce the effectiveness of reviewers which will then push overall scientific quality downwards. He then identifies three mechanisms that should counter this effect. However, I suggest that Hochberg overlooks an important issue contributing to reviewer exploitation, and that until this is resolved by the scientific community to some satisfaction, declining effectiveness of the peer-review process in maintaining scientific quality is inevitable. The issue in question relates to journal ‘impact factors’ (hereafter IFs) and the obsession that many journals and scientists have with them. This appears to have contributed to many ecological journals implementing ever-decreasing acceptance rates (now 10–20% for most of the main ecological journals), on the belief that being more selective and publishing only work that is likely to be generously cited will elevate their impact factor relative to that of competing journals. It has also contributed to scientists flooding high-IF journals with submissions. Inevitably many of these manuscripts will be submitted to three or four (or more) journals over time before publication, and may consume the time of many reviewers and editors in the process (not to mention greatly delaying communication of the science to those who might find it useful). This may not always be due to the authors aiming too high—given that the fate of any manuscript following submission to any highly selective journal is partly determined by stochastic factors (i.e., based on whose desk it happens to lands on), an author of even an excellent paper might need to submit to two or more leading journals before they happen to encounter the ‘right’ combination of reviewers and editors. This problem is a key contributor to the overexploitation of the reviewer pool or the ‘tragedy of the reviewer commons’ and, potentially, evolutionary decline in manuscript quality. I suggest two shifts that will be needed in the scientific community for this problem to be reversed: The first is for the scientific (and science publishing) community to abandon journal IFs. Impact factors are widely recognized as seriously flawed indicators of scientific merit for several reasons (Seglen 1997), including that high journal IFs are driven by a tiny proportion of manuscripts that are extremely heavily
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期刊影响因子竞赛导致同行评议质量下降
Hochberg(2014)在他的评论中指出,科学研究的质量是通过类似于达尔文进化的过程随着时间的推移而保持和提高的,而高质量的同行评议是实现这一目标的必要因素。这是一个很好的类比。这并不意味着同行评议是绝对正确的,在很多情况下,它阻碍了真正创新工作的发表,包括后来获得诺贝尔奖的几项研究(Campanario 2009)。因此,有人声称,同行评议“倾向于在真理的边缘进行不冒险的蚕食,而不是巨大的飞跃”(Lock 1985)。生态学也不能幸免于这个问题;由Hairston, Smith和Slobodkin(1960)撰写的“为什么世界是绿色的”论文,可以说是过去60年来营养生态学中最具影响力的出版物,最初被ecology (Schoener 1989)拒绝。然而,同行评议总体上是利大于弊的,只要是这样,它对Hochberg(2014)所描述的进化过程的贡献应该是积极的。同行评议质量的下降,再加上同行评议过程已经存在的缺陷,将不可避免地延缓这一进化过程。Hochberg(2014)还提出,过度利用审稿人(即“审稿人公地的悲剧”)可能会降低审稿人的有效性,从而导致整体科学质量下降。然后,他确定了三种应对这种影响的机制。然而,我认为Hochberg忽略了一个导致审稿人剥削的重要问题,并且在科学界满意地解决这个问题之前,同行评审过程在保持科学质量方面的有效性下降是不可避免的。这个问题涉及到期刊的“影响因子”(以下简称IFs),以及许多期刊和科学家对它们的痴迷。这似乎导致了许多生态期刊的接受率不断下降(目前大多数主要生态期刊的接受率为10-20%),因为他们相信,更有选择性,只发表可能被大量引用的作品,将提高他们相对于竞争期刊的影响因子。它还促使科学家们向高影响因子期刊投稿。不可避免的是,这些手稿在发表之前会被提交给三到四家(或更多)期刊,并且可能在这个过程中消耗许多审稿人和编辑的时间(更不用说大大延迟了科学与那些可能发现它有用的人的交流)。这可能并不总是由于作者的目标太高——考虑到任何手稿在提交给任何高选择性期刊后的命运部分取决于随机因素(即,取决于它碰巧落在谁的桌子上),即使是一篇优秀论文的作者,也可能需要提交给两家或更多的领先期刊,才能碰巧遇到审稿人和编辑的“正确”组合。这个问题是过度利用审稿人池或“审稿人公地悲剧”的关键因素,并且可能导致稿件质量的逐步下降。为了扭转这个问题,我建议科学界需要做出两个转变:首先是科学界(和科学出版界)放弃期刊if。由于几个原因,影响因子被广泛认为是有严重缺陷的科学价值指标(Seglen 1997),包括高期刊影响因子是由一小部分极其严重的手稿驱动的
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Ideas in Ecology and Evolution
Ideas in Ecology and Evolution EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY-
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