Open Access Journal, Biology Direct, to Publish Peer Reviews Along with Reviewed Article. (February 8, 2006)

     Editors of the open access online journal Biology Direct,launched this week by BioMed Central, "aims to provide authors and readers of research articles with a novel system of peer review. This will include making the author responsible for obtaining reviewers' reports, via the journal's Editorial Board; making the peer review process open rather than anonymous; and publishing the reviewers' reports along with the articles, thus increasing both the responsibility and the reward of the referees and eliminating sources of abuse in the refereeing process. See 'about Biology Direct' and the Biology Direct instructions for authors for further information."

Prospective authors will approach members of the journal's editorial board and if three agree to review the paper, it will be accepted. Reviewers' comments will be signed and published along with the final paper, and responses by the authors. Authors will be a liberty to withdraw the paper from publication at any time.

David Lipman, director of the US National Center for Biotechnology Information and one of the journal's three Editors in Chief, said, "I like the direct relationship the author can have with a reviewer, and the transparency of the end result. "We don't have that artificial, black-and-white situation where, because it got through peer review, it is all fine. It will be those interactions with the peer reviewers that make it interesting." 

Lipman believes readers will get a more nuanced picture of science and says that the new journal's policies are likely to evolve. "It is an experiment, but I think the overall approach can't help but succeed. If we are really successful, the better journals will take what they think works from it."

And several editors of major journals have already expressed keen interest in following the progress of Biology Direct over the coming months.

The journal will consider original research articles, hypotheses, and reviews from the full spectrum of biology. Subjects covered will include any aspect of molecular, cellular, organismal or population biology, as well as methods, theoretical and computational biology, comparative biology, and evolution.