A retrospective study investigating requests for self-citation during open peer review in a general medicine journal

Autor: Marissa Scandlyn, Erin Peebles, Blair R. Hesp
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Male
Epidemiology
General Practice
Publication Ethics
Social Sciences
Chi Square Tests
Mathematical and Statistical Techniques
0302 clinical medicine
Citation analysis
Medicine and Health Sciences
Psychology
030212 general & internal medicine
Research Integrity
Language
0303 health sciences
Multidisciplinary
Statistics
Research Assessment
Self citation
Research Design
Citation Analysis
Physical Sciences
Publication ethics
Medicine
Female
Journal Impact Factor
Research Article
medicine.medical_specialty
Science Policy
Science
Research and Analysis Methods
03 medical and health sciences
medicine
Humans
Statistical Methods
Statistical Hypothesis Testing
Retrospective Studies
030304 developmental biology
Publishing
Cognitive Psychology
Biology and Life Sciences
Retrospective cohort study
Authorship
Medical Risk Factors
Family medicine
Cognitive Science
Citation
Mathematics
Neuroscience
Zdroj: PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE, Vol 15, Iss 8, p e0237804 (2020)
DOI: 10.1101/2020.06.09.20126904
Popis: IntroductionPeer review is a volunteer process for improving the quality of publications by providing objective feedback to authors, but also presents an opportunity for reviewers to seek personal reward by requesting self-citations. Open peer review may reduce the prevalence of self-citation requests and encourage author rebuttal over accession. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of self-citation requests and their inclusion in manuscripts in a journal with open peer review.MethodsRequests for additional references to be included during peer review for articles published between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2018 in BMC Medicine were evaluated. Data extracted included total number of self-citations requested, self-citations that were included in the final published manuscript and manuscripts that included at least one self-citation, and compared with corresponding data on independent citations.ResultsIn total, 932 peer review reports from 373 manuscripts were analysed. At least one additional citation was requested in 25.9% (n=241) of reports. Self-citation requests were included in 44.4% of reports requesting additional citations (11.5% of all reports). Requests for self-citation were significantly more likely than independent citations to be incorporated in the published manuscript (65.1% vs 52.1%; chi-square p=0.003). At the manuscript level, when requested, self-citations were incorporated in 76.6% of manuscripts (n=72; 19.3% of all manuscripts) compared with 68.5% of manuscripts with independent citation requests (n=102; 27.3% of manuscripts). A significant interaction was observed between the presence of self-citation requests and the likelihood of any citation request being incorporated (100% incorporation in manuscripts with self-citation requests alone versus 62.7–72.2% with any independent citation request; Fisher’s exact test pConclusionsRequests for self-citations during the peer review process are common. The transparency of open peer review may have the unexpected effect of encouraging authors to incorporate self-citation requests by disclosing peer reviewer identity.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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