PNAS改革审稿模式 欲提高期刊水平

　　

生物通报道：PNAS（国家科学院院刊）计划在明年7月1日结束保饱受诟病的投稿模式：Track One，重新开始接受同行盲审的审稿方式。

 

据悉，Track One是一种只针对非院士投稿者的审稿方式，投稿人将文章交给一个PNAS的会员（美国科学院院士），由院士邀请相关领域专家进行审稿，最后决定是否采纳稿件。

 

正是这一掺杂个人感情因素的审稿方式受到批评，与传统的同行评审相比，这种方式更容易获得通过，无疑不利于期刊文章质量的提高。

 

据统计，2009年到目前为止PNAS共发表了3133篇文章，其中约有390篇是Track One来源的稿件。

 

此次，PNAS的变革是希望减低审稿猫腻的出现，也减轻了院士们的人情负担。Track One的稿源曾被指水平不高，并被人指出是，投给Nature或Science被筛下的文章。

 

这导致PNAS痛下决心废除这类，尽管，给PNAS会员的审稿的权限被剥夺，院士们在提交自己的论文时所享有的权限并没有被取消。

 

PNAS的主编Randy Schekman表示，编委会大部分成员都支持变革，80%以上的原始也投赞成票。只有少数人反对这一变革，他们的理由是，Track One为创新性和独特性的稿件提供了快捷的发表途径，这样做可能扼杀创新性。对此，主编称，有新的审稿方式可确保这类好文章不被埋没，由投稿者自己选定审稿人。

（生物通 小茜）

生物通推荐原文阅读

The Academy's Journal Becomes Less Friendly to the Academy Members

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences will discontinue a submission option for members that, at its best, repeatedly put prestigious scientists in awkward situations and, at its worst, critics alleged, allowed scientists to ease their way through the peer-review process.

 

The submission option, called Track One, allowed Academy members to “communicate” papers written by non-members and help usher their colleagues’ work through the editorial process. In contrast to traditional peer review, members had the autonomy to select the reviewing editors for the work, which increased the chance of a favorable reception. Some recent papers "communicated" to PNAS include work on the effect of testosterone on financial decisions by men and women; on the proper DNA "barcode" for identifying plants; and a cover story on the separation and divergence of different lineages of the coast horned lizard. Of the 3133 papers published by PNAS in 2009, around 390 came in via Track One submissions.

 

But as of 1 July next year, PNAS  will force all non-members to submit to the journal directly for blind peer review.

 

Non-members opted for this route before, but most scientists felt they had a better shot at publication with a member’s endorsement. This put many members in a tight spot, since they say they often were asked to push substandard work by friends. The changes will not affect the privilege of Academy members to submit their own work to PNAS via a different process.

 

Randy Schekman, a biologist and editor-in-chief of PNAS, told ScienceInsider that most editorial board members strongly favored the change. So did Academy members, over 80% of whom voted to eliminate Track One this summer. Schekman adds that a “determined minority” opposed the move because they felt the option offered a publication route for innovative and idiosyncratic papers. Schekman argues that another mechanism—the ability of authors, when they submit, to suggest who should review their paper as editors—ensures that such work will be judged fairly.