Supplementary written evidence submitted
by The Royal Society (PR 69a)
You indicated that it would also be helpful if we
could offer a view on:
1. CASCADING
PEER REVIEW
Cascading peer review certainly has advantages in
saving time and resources and avoiding multiple rounds of peer
review on the same article. However, authors invariably have firm
views on the journal they want to publish in. If they are rejected
from their first choice they generally prefer to select the next
choices themselves, rather than simply having their article passed
automatically to another of that publisher's journals. We would
prefer a "soft" cascading approach whereby the publisher
offers an alternative journals to the author. Provided the journals
are sufficiently similar in terms of scope, peer review systems,
standards, etc. it could then be possible to expedite an efficient
transfer and acceptance of the article.
2. CORRECTIONS/RETRACTIONS
Corrections and retractions are published when published
articles are later found to be inaccurate, misleading or fraudulent.
As the article of record is online, it is easy to publish a correction
or retraction alongside the original article in a highly visible
and timely manner. Corrections and retractions are not behind
any pay wall and are therefore free to access. We are part of
a pilot of a new initiative, CrossMark, which will make the existence
of corrections, retractions etc. far more transparent and trackable,
even in archived PDF versions of documents which are no longer
online.
10 May 2011
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