The Problems With Peer-Review

David B. Resnik (East Carolina University, Brody School of Medicine), Christina Gutierrez-Ford (University of Miami, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine) & Shyamal Peddada (National Institute of Health) have published Perceptions of Ethical Problems with Scientific Journal Peer Review: An Exploratory Study, 14 Science & Engineering Ethics (Sept. 2008).  The article reports the results of an anonymous survey of researchers at a government research institution concerning their perceptions about ethical problems with journal peer review:

• 62%:  Incompetence
• 51%:  Bias
• 23%:  Being required to include unnecessary references to the peer reviewers’ publications
• 18%:  Personal attacks in reviewer comments
• 10%:  Reviewers delayed publication so they could publish a paper on the same topic
•   7%:  Breach of confidentiality
•   5%:  Using ideas, data, or methods without permission

For more, see Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed.