PubPeer is a website that allows users to discuss and review scientific research after publication, i.e. post-publication peer review, established in 2012.
| URL | pubpeer |
|---|---|
| Launched | 2012 |
The site has served as a whistleblowing platform, in that it highlighted shortcomings in several high-profile papers, in some cases leading to retractions and to accusations of scientific fraud,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] as noted by Retraction Watch.[8] Contrary to most platforms, it allows anonymous post-publication commenting, a controversial feature which is the main factor for its success.[9][10] Consequently, accusations of libel have been levelled at some of PubPeer's users;[11][12] correspondingly the website has since 2016 told commentators to use only facts that can be publicly verified.[13]
Questions have been raised about the copyright ownership of PubPeers often anonymous contents.[14]
In 2021 a study found that "more than two-thirds of comments [on PubPeer] are posted to report some type of misconduct, mainly about image manipulation". Health sciences and life sciences were shown to have most comments, and most comments reporting publishing fraud and data manipulation. Social science and humanities disciplines in turn had fewer comments, but the highest percentage comments about critical reviews about theory and highlight methodological flaws. The research concluded that "while biochemists access the site to report misconduct... social scientists and humanists use it to discuss conclusions and detect methodological errors". The study also reported that 85.6% of comment are anonymous and that "only 31.5% of publications received more than three comments, and the response rate of authors is very low (7.5%)."[15]
In 2023 a study found that "only 21.5% of the articles [flagged on PubPeer] that deserve an editorial notice (i.e., honest errors, methodological flaws, publishing fraud, manipulation) were corrected by the [relevant] journal".[16]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Researcher admits mistakes in stem cell study". Phys.org. 23 May 2013.
- ^ Sven Stockrahm; Lydia Klöckner; Dagny Lüdemann (2013-05-23). "Zellbiologe gibt Fehler in Klonstudie zu". Zeit.
- ^ Cyranoski, David; Check Hayden, Erika (2013-05-23). "Stem-cell cloner acknowledges errors in groundbreaking paper". Nature. doi:10.1038/nature.2013.13060. ISSN 1476-4687.
- ^ Otake, Tomoko (2014-04-20). "'STAPgate' shows Japan must get back to basics in science". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
- ^ Singh Chawla, Dalmeet (2024-04-29). "How reliable is this research? Tool flags papers discussed on PubPeer". Nature. 629 (8011): 271–272. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-01247-6.
- ^ Ordway, Denise-Marie (2023-08-01). "5 tips for using PubPeer to report on research and the scientific community". The Journalist's Resource. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
- ^ Barbour, Boris; Stell, Brandon M. (2020-01-28), Biagioli, Mario; Lippman, Alexandra (eds.), "PubPeer: Scientific Assessment Without Metrics", Gaming the Metrics, The MIT Press, pp. 149–156, doi:10.7551/mitpress/11087.003.0015, ISBN 978-0-262-35656-5, retrieved 2024-08-31
- ^ "Leading diabetes researcher corrects paper as more than a dozen studies are questioned on PubPeer". Retraction Watch. 12 January 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
- ^ Torny, Didier (February 2018). Pubpeer: vigilante science, journal club or alarm raiser? The controversies over anonymity in post-publication peer review. International Conference on Peer Review.
- ^ Teixeira da Silva, Jaime A. (2018-01-01). "The opacity of the PubPeer Foundation: what PubPeer's "About" page tells us". Online Information Review. 42 (2): 282–287. doi:10.1108/OIR-06-2017-0191. ISSN 1468-4527.
- ^ Paul Jump (13 November 2014). "Can post-publication peer review endure?". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ "PubPeer's first legal threat" (blog). 24 August 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ "PubPeer - How to comment on PubPeer". pubpeer. Archived from the original on 15 November 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
- ^ Silva, Jaime A. Teixeira da (2018-07-01). "The Issue of Comment Ownership and Copyright at PubPeer". 教育資料與圖書館學. 55 (2): 227–237. doi:10.6120/JoEMLS.201807_55(2).e001.BC.BE.
- ^ Ortega, José Luis (May 2022). "Classification and analysis of PubPeer comments: How a web journal club is used". Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 73 (5): 655–670. doi:10.1002/asi.24568. ISSN 2330-1635.
- ^ Ortega, José-Luis; Delgado-Quirós, Lorena (2023-01-23). "How do journals deal with problematic articles. Editorial response of journals to articles commented in PubPeer". Profesional de la información. 32 (1). doi:10.3145/epi.2023.ene.18. hdl:10261/362437. ISSN 1699-2407.
Further reading
edit- Couzin-Frankel, Jennifer (31 August 2015). "PubPeer's secret is out: Founder of controversial website reveals himself". Science AAAS. Retrieved 3 January 2021.
External links
edit- PubPeer Selections on Retraction Watch