Online publication may reduce delays and ease the publication of sound science, according to a report in Times Higher Education quoting Ronal Laskey, VP of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Professor Emeritus at Cambridge University. It is expected to stem the "dramatic" rise in the amount of time authors are obliged to spend defending their papers from criticism by referees, Prof. Laskey informed the first hearing of the UK's Commons Science and Technology Committee's inquiry into peer review. The engine of peer review had not seized but was misfiring, he was quoted as saying.
There has been a dramatic rise in referees' demands over the past decade. The facility offered by e-publishing for supplementary material to be added is said to part of the reason for the rise in referees' demands. According to Prof. Laskey, the use of publications for "proxy" purposes, such as promotion decisions, meant that scientists were under severe pressure to publish in journals with high impact factors. The high rejection rate of such journals resulted in excessive effort going into trying to satisfy editors and referees, rather than pursuing the highest priority science.
He also expressed concern that at least some of the requests for extra experiments were motivated by unscrupulous reviewers attempting to slow down a rival's research. While some journals were beginning to introduce limits on supplementary materials, he doubted that this would be a complete answer. Emergence of journals such as PLoS ONE, an online journal that is stated to review papers solely for their soundness rather than their impact, could also help, he said.
On the select committee's inquiry, he said that the peer review system deserved attention. But he added that fear of a legislative response explained the 'cautious' treatment of the committee's questions by the witnesses at the first hearing, all of whom represented learned societies.
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