title: Perceptions of ethical problems with scientific journal peer review: an exploratory study.
abstract: This 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. Incompetent review was the most common ethical problem reported by the respondents, with 61.8% (SE = 3.3%) claiming to have experienced this at some point during peer review. Bias (50.5%, SE = 3.4%) was the next most common problem. About 22.7% (SE = 2.8%) of respondents said that a reviewer had required them to include unnecessary references to his/her publication(s), 17.7% (SE = 2.6%) said that comments from reviewers had included personal attacks, and 9.6% (SE = 2.0%) stated that reviewers had delayed publication to publish a paper on the same topic. Two of the most serious violations of peer review ethics, breach of confidentiality (6.8%, SE = 1.7%) and using ideas, data, or methods without permission (5%, SE = 1.5%) were perceived less often than the other problems. We recommend that other investigators follow up on our exploratory research with additional studies on the ethics of peer review.
authors.affiliation: NIEHS/NIH, Mail Drop NH 06, Box 12233, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA. resnikd@niehs.nih.gov
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Resnik
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gutierrez-Ford
authors.forename: Shyamal
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peddada
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003068:Coercion; D003219:Confidentiality / Q000941:ethics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017712:Peer Review, Research / Q000941:ethics*; D011361:Professional Competence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017594:Publication Bias; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires