The UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced its support for the recently recommended improvements to the way scientific papers are checked before they are published, calling for the peer review process to be more transparent.
The recommendations came out of a House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report that also urged that researchers make their scientific data publicly available, and that reviewers have formal training.
According to Executive Secretary of JISC, Dr. Malcolm Read, though most researchers agree with the principles of peer review, many feel there is room to improve how it is implemented. Recently there have been suggestions about alternatives like open peer review. JISC has funded universities to look into open access academic journals which are compiled from other openly available material.
JISC is already acting on a number of the recommendations - including funding the Dryad project mentioned in the report. Dryad-UK provides a repository for the data underpinning research articles, encouraging greater research openness. The BMJ Open journal and titles from BioMedCentral and PLoS have become partners, integrating their submission process with Dryad and strongly encouraging authors to deposit research data.
The government report describes access to data as 'fundamental' for researchers to reproduce, verify and build on each others' results. JISC supports this spirit of openness through its work with the UK Research Councils.
To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.
