All new submissions to @nathumbehav.nature.com that are published will be accompanied by referees’ reports and author responses. Let’s go!!!! Anyone (wanna) study(ing) this as a natural experiment? 🙃 #Metascience #SciSci #TransparentScience - ThreadSky

shahanmemon.bsky.social • 5 days ago

All new submissions to @nathumbehav.nature.com that are published will be accompanied by referees’ reports and author responses. Let’s go!!!!

Anyone (wanna) study(ing) this as a natural experiment? 🙃

#Metascience #SciSci #TransparentScience

Comments

tuomaspernu.bsky.social•5 days ago

I'm not sure why I don't feel 100% good about this. I guess my worry is that this might create illusory transparency. If this makes the process more constructive, this is obviously a good thing. But there's always negative, unconstructive feedback. Will this now be processed some other way?

shahanmemon.bsky.social•5 days ago

What do you mean by “processed”? I am guessing this wasn’t an adhoc step on Nature’s part. Since 2020 or so, they have been giving a choice to publish reports.

Nature communications took this step of making all reports public three years ago (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33056-8).

shahanmemon.bsky.social•5 days ago

So I am guessing this was an informed choice. The reviewer identity still remains anonymous.

tuomaspernu.bsky.social•5 days ago

Sure, and I've welcomed the eLife model. However, some were criticising it too on the basis that it shifts the power to the editors/board - precisely because that's where the negative, unconstructive feedback gets processed. But note that they aim to publish everything - not the case with Nature.

shahanmemon.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yeah eLife model is interesting. I have been ambivalent about it too. That said, I do appreciate publishers and journals willingness to experiment new models. I feel like the way we review papers is quite archaic. I was attending ICSSI this year and can tell that many researchers echo this thought.

tuomaspernu.bsky.social•4 days ago

Oh, I'm totally critical of the current model; peer review is problematic in many ways. For starters, it's a very new invention, and it's development was not driven by reasons related to quality (as thought). In this case, I was just wondering about the pros & cons of publishing the reviews.

michaelandrades.bsky.social•5 days ago

Recognizing reviewers is great (long overdue!), but could it backfire?

1️⃣ Discourage honest critiques due to fear of backlash?

2️⃣ Might it push reviewers to go easy, just to get name recognition, lowering the rigor?

Thoughts?

shahanmemon.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think there might be a confusion. They are not revealing the identity of the reviewers, just the reviewer reports.

michaelandrades.bsky.social•4 days ago

You're right. Still, the text says the reviewers can opt to be acknowledged.

shahanmemon.bsky.social•4 days ago

That option has been available for some time if I am not wrong.

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