Prepublication histories and open peer review at The BMJ | The BMJ

"Over the past 15 years peer reviewers for The BMJ have shown, by signing their reviews and declaring to authors and editors any relevant competing interests, that they are unafraid of transparent scientific discourse. Now we are opening up our process to make our reviewers’ role as authors’ critical friends visible to all. From this autumn on thebmj.com all research articles, and certain scholarly articles in The BMJ’s Analysis section, will have an article tab marked 'Reviews.' Clicking on this will open the article’s prepublication history, comprising all signed reviews (including those by statisticians and patient peer reviewers), previous versions of the article, the study protocol for any clinical trial, the report from The BMJ’s manuscript committee meeting, and the authors’ responses to the editors’ and reviewers’ comments. As now, reviewers will not be able to make private comments to editors, except in the rare case when a reviewer wants to express concerns about the scientific integrity of the work (www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-reviewers/guidance-peer-reviewers). Such open peer review should increase the accountability of reviewers and editors, at least to some extent. Importantly, it will also give due credit and prominence to the vital work of peer reviewers. At present, peer review activities are under-recognised in the academic community. We hope that reviewers will find this increased visibility helpful when demonstrating the extent and impact of their academic work and that they and others will cite and share their reviews as a learning resource. Greater accountability and transparency are clearly laudable goals.1 2 3 But is there a downside to open peer review? Does it, for instance, provide 'more scope for power relationships to favour ‘the great and the good,'' as Karim Khan, editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, feared?4 Or might it produce a flurry of spurious criticism motivated by commercial interest, academic jealousy, or pettiness? Such problems may occur, but we think the good consequences of more open editorial and peer review practices will outweigh any harms. One beneficial result may be that access to prepublication histories will encourage readers and other interested parties to participate in the self correction processes that are vital to the credibility of medical research ..."