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66-454: The organization holds an annual meeting with strong global participation from spine surgeons and specialists from around the world. This annual scientific meeting includes scientific presentations related to spine surgery and spinal deformity, which are selected through a process of abstract submission and peer review . Both basic science and clinical research are presented during the meeting and all clinical research (involving surgical treatment)

132-487: A monograph or in the proceedings of an academic conference . If the identities of authors are not revealed to each other, the procedure is called dual-anonymous peer review. Academic peer review requires a community of experts in a given (and often narrowly defined) academic field , who are qualified and able to perform reasonably impartial review. Impartial review, especially of work in less narrowly defined or inter-disciplinary fields, may be difficult to accomplish, and

198-670: A Specialist" section offers patients access to an opted-in list of members of the Scoliosis Research Society, as well as their practice locations, contact information, and areas of expertise. For healthcare professionals, the Scoliosis Research Society website contains educational materials, outcomes questionnaires, meeting schedules, and research opportunities. These educational materials are written and designed for personnel more familiar with medical terminology. Scholarly peer review Scholarly peer review or academic peer review (also known as refereeing )

264-433: A decision back to the author(s), usually with the referees' comments. Referees' evaluations usually include an explicit recommendation of what to do with the manuscript or proposal, often chosen from options provided by the journal or funding agency. For example, Nature recommends four courses of action: During this process, the role of the referees is advisory. The editor(s) is typically under no obligation to accept

330-493: A field of sociological study, it has been replaced by more systematic studies of bias and errors. In parallel with "common experience" definitions based on the study of peer review as a "pre-constructed process", some social scientists have looked at peer review without considering it as pre-constructed. Hirschauer proposed that journal peer review can be understood as reciprocal accountability of judgements among peers. Gaudet proposed that journal peer review could be understood as

396-434: A fresh eye. Therefore, showing work to others increases the probability that weaknesses will be identified and improved. For both grant-funding and publication in a scholarly journal, it is also normally a requirement that the subject is both novel and substantial. The decision whether or not to publish a scholarly article, or what should be modified before publication, ultimately lies with the publisher ( editor-in-chief or

462-399: A minimum two-year post-operative patient follow-up for submitted research, the results of more recent surgical techniques can be presented for education and discussion. A number of smaller instructional courses and tutorials are also held throughout the year, including regional and international meetings. Furthermore, as an organization dedicated to the study and treatment of spinal deformity,

528-567: A more suitable journal. For example, the European Accounting Review editors subject each manuscript to three questions to decide whether a manuscript moves forward to referees: 1) Is the article a fit for the journal's aims and scope, 2) is the paper content (e.g. literature review, methods, conclusions) sufficient and does the paper make a worthwhile contribution to the larger body of literature, and 3) does it follow format and technical specifications? If "no" to any of these,

594-451: A peer reviewer comes from a reputation system where the quality of the reviewing work is judged and scored by other users, and contributes to user profiles. Peerage of Science does not charge any fees to scientists, and does not pay peer reviewers. Participating publishers however pay to use the service, gaining access to all ongoing processes and the opportunity to make publishing offers to the authors. With independent peer review services

660-427: A perception of fairness and equality in academic funding and publishing. Single-blind review is strongly dependent upon the goodwill of the participants, but no more so than double-blind review with easily identified authors. As an alternative to single-blind and double-blind review, authors and reviewers are encouraged to declare their conflicts of interest when the names of authors and sometimes reviewers are known to

726-484: A professional resource for health care providers. For patients, a variety of spinal deformity topics and treatment options are explained in layman's terms and serve as a way for patients and their families to educate themselves about an otherwise complex medical condition. The "Glossary" contains a comprehensive list of spinal terminology to help patients and their families make sense of the complex nomenclature and terms that are used in discussing spinal deformity. The "Find

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792-408: A publisher receives very positive and very negative reviews for the same manuscript, the editor will often solicit one or more additional reviews as a tie-breaker. As another strategy in the case of ties, the publisher may invite authors to reply to a referee's criticisms and permit a compelling rebuttal to break the tie. If a publisher does not feel confident to weigh the persuasiveness of a rebuttal,

858-466: A referee may opt to sign a review, thereby relinquishing anonymity. Published papers sometimes contain, in the acknowledgments section, thanks to anonymous or named referees who helped improve the paper. For example, Nature journals provide this option. Sometimes authors may exclude certain reviewers: one study conducted on the Journal of Investigative Dermatology found that excluding reviewers doubled

924-468: A requirement for full membership of the Association of American University Presses . In the case of proposed publications, the publisher ( editor-in-chief or the editorial board , often with assistance of corresponding or associate editors) sends advance copies of an author's work or ideas to researchers or scholars who are experts in the field (known as "referees" or "reviewers"). Communication

990-419: A social form of boundary judgement – determining what can be considered as scientific (or not) set against an overarching knowledge system, and following predecessor forms of inquisition and censorship. Pragmatically, peer review refers to the work done during the screening of submitted manuscripts . This process encourages authors to meet the accepted standards of their discipline and reduces

1056-459: A social science view of the history of peer review carefully tending to what is under investigation, here peer review, and not only looking at superficial or self-evident commonalities among inquisition, censorship, and journal peer review. It builds on historical research by Gould, Biagioli, Spier, and Rip. The first Peer Review Congress met in 1989. Over time, the fraction of papers devoted to peer review has steadily declined, suggesting that as

1122-424: A willingness to referee for that journal or book division. Granting agencies typically recruit a panel or committee of reviewers in advance of the arrival of applications. Referees are supposed to inform the editor of any conflict of interests that might arise. Journals or individual editors may invite a manuscript's authors to name people whom they consider qualified to referee their work. For some journals this

1188-536: Is a matter of professional ethics and individual integrity. Even when the reviews are not public, they are still a matter of record and the reviewer's credibility depends upon how they represent themselves among their peers. Some software engineering journals, such as the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering , use non-blind reviews with reporting to editors of conflicts of interest by both authors and reviewers. A more rigorous standard of accountability

1254-484: Is a requirement of submission. Authors are sometimes also given the opportunity to name natural candidates who should be disqualified , in which case they may be asked to provide justification (typically expressed in terms of conflict of interest). Editors solicit author input in selecting referees because academic writing typically is very specialized. Editors often oversee many specialties, and can not be experts in all of them. But after an editor selects referees from

1320-435: Is currently not the case. All other incentives have failed. Referees have the opportunity to prevent work that does not meet the standards of the field from being published, which is a position of some responsibility. Editors are at a special advantage in recruiting a scholar when they have overseen the publication of his or her work, or if the scholar is one who hopes to submit manuscripts to that editor's publishing entity in

1386-494: Is designed to reduce the time it takes to review papers and permit the authors to choose the most appropriate reviewers. But a scandal in 2015 shows how this choosing reviewers can encourage fraudulent reviews. Fake reviews were submitted to the Journal of the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System in the names of author-recommended reviewers, causing the journal to eliminate this option. If

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1452-632: Is known as an audit . Because reviewers are not paid, they cannot be expected to put as much time and effort into a review as an audit requires. Therefore, academic journals such as Science , organizations such as the American Geophysical Union , and agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation maintain and archive scientific data and methods in

1518-423: Is nowadays normally by e-mail or through a web-based manuscript processing system such as ScholarOne , Scholastica , or Open Journal Systems . Depending on the field of study and on the specific journal, there are usually one to three referees for a given article. For example, Springer states that there are two or three reviewers per article. The peer-review process involves three steps: An editor evaluates

1584-542: Is printed", and informing him that he would "publish the paper elsewhere" – which he did, with substantial modifications. While some medical journals started to systematically appoint external reviewers, it is only since the middle of the 20th century that this practice has spread widely and that external reviewers have been given some visibility within academic journals, including being thanked by authors and editors. A 2003 editorial in Nature stated that, in

1650-474: Is required to have a minimum of two-year post-operative follow-up. A second annual meeting, entitled International Meeting on Advanced Spine Techniques (IMAST) focuses on emerging technologies and techniques. This second meeting includes scientific presentations pertaining to all aspects of spinal surgery and treatment, not specifically relating to spinal deformity. Also, because the IMAST meeting does not require

1716-407: Is speed and transparency of the review process. Anyone can give feedback, typically in form of comments, and typically not anonymously. These comments are also public, and can be responded to, therefore author-reviewer communication is not restricted to the typical 2–4 rounds of exchanges in traditional publishing. The authors can incorporate comments from a wide range of people instead of feedback from

1782-473: Is submitted to a journal and/or after it is published by the journal. Manuscripts are typically reviewed by colleagues before submission, and if the manuscript is uploaded to preprint servers, such as ArXiv , BioRxiv or SSRN , researchers can read and comment on the manuscript. The practice to upload to preprint servers, and the activity of discussion heavily depend on the field, and it allows an open pre-publication peer review . The advantage of this method

1848-450: Is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed (usually anonymously) by experts (or "peers") in the same field. Peer review is widely used for helping the academic publisher (that is, the editor-in-chief , the editorial board or the program committee ) decide whether the work should be accepted, considered acceptable with revisions, or rejected for official publication in an academic journal ,

1914-432: Is usually no requirement that the referees achieve consensus , with the decision instead often made by the editor(s) based on her best judgement of the arguments. In situations where multiple referees disagree substantially about the quality of a work, there are a number of strategies for reaching a decision. The paper may be rejected outright, or the editor may choose which reviewer's point the authors should address. When

1980-553: The National Center for Biotechnology Information , asserts that the system has "well-known ills" and advocates " open peer review ". Open peer review is the various possible modifications of the traditional scholarly peer review process. The three most common modifications to which the term is applied are: The process of peer review is not restricted to the publication process managed by academic journals. In particular, some forms of peer review can occur before an article

2046-472: The editorial board ) to which the manuscript has been submitted. Similarly, the decision whether or not to fund a proposed project rests with an official of the funding agency. These individuals usually refer to the opinion of one or more reviewers in making their decision. This is primarily for three reasons: Reviewers are often anonymous and independent . However, some reviewers may choose to waive their anonymity, and in other limited circumstances, such as

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2112-414: The 1905 issue of Annalen der Physik were evaluated by the journal's editor-in-chief, Max Planck , and its co-editor, Wilhelm Wien , both future Nobel prize winners and together experts on the topics of these papers. On a much later occasion, Einstein was severely critical of the external review process, saying that he had not authorized the editor in chief to show his manuscript "to specialists before it

2178-404: The 1950s and remains more common in the social sciences and humanities than in the natural sciences, the identity of the authors is concealed from the reviewers (" blinded "), and vice versa, lest the knowledge of authorship or concern about disapprobation from the author bias their review. Critics of the double-blind review process point out that, despite any editorial effort to ensure anonymity,

2244-602: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science , 2022 It is difficult and time-consuming for authors and researchers, whether individually or in a team, to spot and provide feedback on every mistake or flaw in a complicated piece of work. This is not necessarily a reflection on those concerned, but because with a new and perhaps eclectic subject, an opportunity for improvement may be more obvious to someone with special expertise or who simply looks at it with

2310-558: The SRS periodically releases position statements and holds symposia on various topics of interest, such as bracing, intraoperative neuromonitoring , and school scoliosis screening. In the last fourteen years, SRS, in conjunction with OREF and the Cotrel Foundation , have provided more than $ 2.6 million for spinal deformity research projects. The Scoliosis Research Society website serves as an educational resource to patients, and

2376-406: The article's author. In some cases, the author's identity can also be anonymised for the review process, with identifying information stripped from the document before review. The system is intended to reduce or eliminate bias. Some experts proposed blind review procedures for reviewing controversial research topics. In double-blind peer review , which has been fashioned by sociology journals in

2442-406: The author usually retains the right to the work throughout the peer review process, and may choose the most appropriate journal to submit the work to. Peer review services may also provide advice or recommendations on most suitable journals for the work. Journals may still want to perform an independent peer review, without the potential conflict of interest that financial reimbursement may cause, or

2508-446: The chances of article acceptance. Some scholars are uncomfortable with this idea, arguing that it distorts the scientific process. Others argue that it protects against referees who are biased in some manner (e.g. professional rivalry, grudges). In some cases, authors can choose referees for their manuscripts. mSphere , an open-access journal in microbial science, has moved to this model. Editor-in-Chief Mike Imperiale says this process

2574-401: The dissemination of irrelevant findings, unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations, and personal views. Publications that have not undergone peer review are likely to be regarded with suspicion by academic scholars and professionals. Non-peer-reviewed work does not contribute, or contributes less, to the academic credit of a scholar (such as the h-index ), although this heavily depends on

2640-616: The early 20th century, "the burden of proof was generally on the opponents rather than the proponents of new ideas." Nature itself instituted formal peer review only in 1967. Journals such as Science and the American Journal of Medicine increasingly relied on external reviewers in the 1950s and 1960s, in part to reduce the editorial workload. In the 20th century, peer review also became common for science funding allocations. This process appears to have developed independently from that of editorial peer review. Gaudet provides

2706-411: The editor, noting weaknesses or problems along with suggestions for improvement. Typically, most of the referees' comments are eventually seen by the author, though a referee can also send ' for your eyes only ' comments to the publisher; scientific journals observe this convention almost universally. The editor then evaluates the referees' comments, her or his own opinion of the manuscript before passing

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2772-408: The event another researcher wishes to replicate or audit the research after publication. The traditional anonymous peer review has been criticized for its lack of accountability, the possibility of abuse by reviewers or by those who manage the peer review process (that is, journal editors), its possible bias, and its inconsistency, alongside other flaws. Eugene Koonin , a senior investigator at

2838-558: The examination of a formal complaint against the referee, or a court order, the reviewer's identity may have to be disclosed. Anonymity may be unilateral or reciprocal (single- or double- blinded reviewing). Since reviewers are normally selected from experts in the fields discussed in the article, the process of peer review helps to keep some invalid or unsubstantiated claims out of the body of published research and knowledge. Scholars will read published articles outside their limited area of detailed expertise, and then rely, to some degree, on

2904-625: The field, and although they do not specify whether the rejection is pre- or post- desk evaluation, their figures in 2016 ranged from a low of 49% to a high of 90%. If the paper is not desk rejected, the editors send the manuscript to the referees, who are chosen for their expertise and distance from the authors. At this point, referees may reject, accept without changes (rare) or instruct the authors to revise and resubmit. Reasons vary for acceptance of an article by editors, but Elsevier published an article where three editors weigh in on factors that drive article acceptance. These factors include whether

2970-461: The field. [P]eer review in its ideal form is both an act of altruism and an act of investment in the continuation of the scholarly enterprise by our colleagues. That is why it is so important to engage in thoughtful peer review as a scholar, and that is why it is important to do it well, acting not as a gatekeeper, but as a fellow contributor in the creation of knowledge. Collective wisdom. Anna Marie Roos , editor-in-chief of Notes and Records:

3036-437: The future. Granting agencies, similarly, tend to seek referees among their present or former grantees. Peerage of Science was an independent service and a community where reviewer recruitment happens via Open Engagement: authors submit their manuscript to the service where it is made accessible for any non-affiliated scientist, and 'validated users' choose themselves what they want to review. The motivation to participate as

3102-461: The goals of reviewer anonymity and avoidance of conflicts of interest. Low-prestige or local journals and granting agencies that award little money are especially handicapped with regard to recruiting experts. A potential hindrance in recruiting referees is that they are usually not paid, largely because doing so would itself create a conflict of interest . Also, reviewing takes time away from their main activities, such as his or her own research. To

3168-422: The identity of the reviewers is kept anonymised (also called "blind peer review"). The alternative, attributed peer review involves revealing the identities of the reviewers. Some reviewers choose to waive their right to anonymity, even when the journal's default format is blind peer review. In anonymous peer review, reviewers are known to the journal editor or conference organiser but their names are not given to

3234-483: The manuscript has not been rejected during peer review, it returns to the authors for revisions. During this phase, the authors address the concerns raised by reviewers. William Stafford Noble offers ten rules for responding to reviewers. His rules include: At a journal or book publisher, the task of picking reviewers typically falls to an editor . When a manuscript arrives, an editor solicits reviews from scholars or other experts who may or may not have already expressed

3300-464: The manuscript receives a desk rejection. Desk rejection rates vary by journal. For example, in 2017 researchers at the World Bank compiled rejection rates of several global economics journals; the desk rejection rate ranged from 21% ( Economic Lacea ) to 66% ( Journal of Development Economics ). The American Psychological Association publishes rejection rates for several major publications in

3366-420: The manuscript to judge whether the paper will be passed on to journal referees. At this phase many articles receive a "desk reject", that is, the editor chooses not to pass along the article. The authors may or may not receive a letter of explanation. Desk rejection is intended to be a streamlined process so that editors may move past nonviable manuscripts quickly and provide authors with the opportunity to pursue

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3432-400: The manuscript: delivers "new insight into an important issue", will be useful to practitioners, advances or proposes a new theory, raises new questions, has appropriate methods and conclusion, presents a good argument based on the literature, and tells a good story. One editor notes that he likes papers that he "wished he'd done" himself. These referees each return an evaluation of the work to

3498-553: The mid-19th-century, and did not become commonplace until the mid-20th-century. Peer review became a touchstone of the scientific method , but until the end of the 19th century was often performed directly by an editor-in-chief or editorial committee. Editors of scientific journals at that time made publication decisions without seeking outside input, i.e. an external panel of reviewers, giving established authors latitude in their journalistic discretion. For example, Albert Einstein 's four revolutionary Annus Mirabilis papers in

3564-404: The opinions of the referees, though he or she will most often do so. Furthermore, the referees in scientific publication do not act as a group, do not communicate with each other, and typically are not aware of each other's identities or evaluations. Proponents argue that if the reviewers of a paper are unknown to each other, the editor(s) can more easily verify the objectivity of the reviews. There

3630-431: The other. When conflicts are reported, the conflicting reviewer can be prohibited from reviewing and discussing the manuscript, or his or her review can instead be interpreted with the reported conflict in mind; the latter option is more often adopted when the conflict of interest is mild, such as a previous professional connection or a distant family relation. The incentive for reviewers to declare their conflicts of interest

3696-401: The peer-review process to have provided reliable and credible research that they can build upon for subsequent or related research. Significant scandal ensues when an author is found to have falsified the research included in an article, as other scholars, and the field of study itself, may have relied upon the invalid research. For US universities, peer reviewing of books before publication is

3762-415: The pool of candidates, the editor typically is obliged not to disclose the referees' identities to the authors, and in scientific journals, to each other. Policies on such matters differ among academic disciplines. One difficulty with respect to some manuscripts is that, there may be few scholars who truly qualify as experts, people who have themselves done work similar to that under review. This can frustrate

3828-403: The process is explicitly not to reach consensus or to persuade anyone to change their opinions, but instead to provide material for an informed editorial decision. One early study regarding referee disagreement found that agreement was greater than chance, if not much greater than chance, on six of seven article attributes (e.g. literature review and final recommendation to publish), but this study

3894-521: The process often fails to do so, since certain approaches, methods, writing styles, notations, etc., point to a certain group of people in a research stream, and even to a particular person. In many fields of " big science ", the publicly available operation schedules of major equipments, such as telescopes or synchrotrons , would make the authors' names obvious to anyone who would care to look them up. Proponents of double-blind review argue that it performs no worse than single-blind, and that it generates

3960-407: The publisher may solicit a response from the referee who made the original criticism. An editor may convey communications back and forth between authors and a referee, in effect allowing them to debate a point. Even in these cases, however, publishers do not allow multiple referees to confer with each other, though each reviewer may often see earlier comments submitted by other reviewers. The goal of

4026-703: The quality of published papers is scarce. The first record of an editorial pre-publication peer-review is from 1665 by Henry Oldenburg , the founding editor of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society at the Royal Society of London . The first peer-reviewed publication might have been the Medical Essays and Observations published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1731. The present-day peer-review system evolved from this 18th-century process, began to involve external reviewers in

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4092-422: The risk that an author has contracted multiple peer review services but only presents the most favorable one. An alternative or complementary system of performing peer review is for the author to pay for having it performed. Example of such service provider was Rubriq (2013-2017), that for each work assigned peer reviewers who were financially compensated for their efforts. For most scholarly publications ,

4158-408: The significance (good or bad) of an idea may never be widely appreciated among its contemporaries. Peer review is generally considered necessary to academic quality and is used in most major scholarly journals. However, peer review does not prevent publication of invalid research, and as experimentally controlled studies of this process are difficult to arrange, direct evidence that peer review improves

4224-458: The steady increase in the number of scientists has created a peer review crisis . The system currently in place is not responding to modern needs and will inevitably perish, unless radical reforms are made promptly. The academic system should revolutionize and establish strict peer review activity criteria essential for promotion and tenure, based on established universal metrics. That is, reward reviewers academically as it rewards researchers, which

4290-408: The would-be recruiter's advantage, most potential referees are authors themselves, or at least readers, who know that the publication system requires that experts donate their time. Serving as a referee can even be a condition of a grant, or professional association membership. In general, because of the explosion of the electronic information and the disproportionate increase in journal number versus

4356-417: Was small and it was conducted on only one journal. At least one study has found that reviewer disagreement is not common, but this study is also small and on only one journal. Traditionally, reviewers would often remain anonymous to the authors, but this standard varies both with time and with academic field. In some academic fields, most journals offer the reviewer the option of remaining anonymous or not, or

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