How did you find out that these articles were "peer review" fraud? Peter Butler, editor-in-chief of Cell Biology and Biochemistry in springer, told the Beijing News reporter that the papers of 20 15 and 20 16 were rejected due to false "peer review" and other reasons, and the papers involved the journal Tumor Biology. Since then, the publishing house has screened relevant papers and screened out new false reviewers. This retraction is not a new violation, but the result of further manual verification of tumor biology after the retraction of 20 16.
What role does peer review play in the publication of academic papers?
Peter Butler explained that the exact publishing process of academic journals will vary from periodical to publisher. However, in the academic publishing industry, some publishing processes are almost unified. For example, after an author submits a manuscript to a journal, it will be sent to a peer reviewer for review. Reviewers are experts in related fields, and they will evaluate the scientific rigor of the paper from various aspects, such as methods used, results, discussions, etc. Then, the reviewer will provide a detailed review report, which is anonymous in most cases, and the author does not know who the reviewer is.
Peter Butler said that the peer review process is one of the cornerstones to ensure the quality, integrity and repeatability of scientific research. "In order to clear the bad scientific records, we withdrew these affected papers," he said. According to the feedback and suggestions of the reviewers, the editor will decide whether the papers can be accepted and published. For all credible academic journals, peer review is an indispensable part of the scientific review process before the manuscript is accepted. At the same time, it is also the practice of academic publishing industry to provide authors with choices and allow them to suggest peer reviewers.
How did this 107 article get involved in this scam? Peter Butler introduced that the reviewer's real name was used in the reviewer's suggestion, but his e-mail address was forged, which made the editor think that the article was sent to the real reviewer. "After our investigation and communication with real reviewers, they confirmed that they had not reviewed the paper."