Overview: Nature’s peer review trial

On 1 June this year, Nature launched a trial of open peer review. The intention was to explore the interest of researchers in a particular model of open peer review, whether as authors or as reviewers. It was also intended to provide Nature’s editors and publishers with a test of the practicalities of a potential extension to the traditional procedures of peer review.
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Despite the significant interest in the trial, only a small proportion of authors opted to participate. There was a significant level of expressed interest in open peer review among those authors who opted to post their manuscripts openly and who responded after the event, in contrast to the views of the editors. A small majority of those authors who did participate received comments, but typically very few, despite significant web traffic. Most comments were not technically substantive. Feedback suggests that there is a marked reluctance among researchers to offer open comments.

Nature and its publishers will continue to explore participative uses of the web. But for now at least, we will not implement open peer review.

Source: Nature

See also: Peer review and fraud (editorial)

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