Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

A Modest Proposal For Improving Peer Review

Abstract.

A proposal is made for the design of a specific type of post-publication peer review.

Background

In 2006, the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine published a widely cited paper (960 citations) by Richard Smith entitled ?Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals?. In it he noted the following problems with the peer-review system.

? There is no clear definition of ?peer-review?, nor any standardization of protocols.

He described this lack of a definition as follows:

?What is clear is that the forms of peer review are protean. Probably the systems of every journal and every grant giving body are different in at least some detail; and some systems are very different. There may even be some journals using the following classic system.

The editor looks at the title of…