[Taxacom] Pre-submission peer-review and online import of specimen records from BOLD

[Stephen Thorpe]

Lyubo said: 

>This feature might be especially useful for taxonomists working in small research communities formed around taxa of
>interest. In such communities it is almost a norm that all know each other and the so called "blind" and "independent" >review is usually neither of the two, but only slows down formal publication of species descriptions, nomenclatural >acts, checklists, etc.

My following comment is in no way a criticism of Lyubo in particular, but rather a general criticism of a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of peer review. There is absolutely no reason why peer review should be limited to any "small research community" in taxonomy. Any taxonomist should be able to review any manuscript by any other taxonomist. Peer review never, or hardly ever, looks at the fine taxonomic details of the case. It only reviews how clearly set out and therefore easy to understand a manuscript is. Ironically, if peer review is limited to small communities, even this basic review of clarity is often not done. Since the reviewer often knows the author (as a colleague), they often just seem to just assume that the manuscript will be fine, even when it isn't! I have a slight suspicion (though little more than a speculation) that this is actually what Lyubo wants to see happen, as it will speed things up, and he can still honestly
 claim that peer review has taken place! However, that is probably not a particularly unusual attitude for a publisher these days. They, like most other people these days, measure their success in terms of quantity rather than quality. I do not share this philosophy.

Stephen


--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 22/9/15, Lyubomir Penev <lyubo.penev at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: [Taxacom] Pre-submission peer-review and online import of specimen	records from BOLD
 To: "Taxa com" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 Received: Tuesday, 22 September, 2015, 2:28 AM
 
 Dear Taxacommers,
 
 
 
 I would like to point your attention to some new features
 and tools that might
 be of prime interest to taxonomists. Feedback would be most
 appreciated.
 
 
 1) Pre-submission peer-review: The authors preparing their
 manuscripts for
 the Biodiversity Data Journal <http://bdj.pensoft.net>  can now invite
 reviewers to look through the manuscript still during the
 authoring process
 in the ARPHA Writing Tool <http://pwt.pensoft.net/> (the former Pensoft
 Writing Tool, or PWT). After submission, in case the subject
 editor
 respects the pre-submission reviews (s/he can also invite
 additional
 reviews, if needed) and accepts the manuscript, the latter
 can be published
 within just a couple of days. This feature might be
 especially useful for
 taxonomists working in small research communities formed
 around taxa of
 interest. In such communities it is almost a norm that all
 know each other
 and the so called "blind" and "independent" review is
 usually neither of
 the two, but only slows down formal publication of species
 descriptions,
 nomenclatural acts, checklists, etc.
 
 
 This feature can be used on author's choice, otherwise the
 manuscript will
 go for the usual post-submission review.
 
 
 2) Online import of specimen records in​to manuscripts
 from the
 Barcode-of-Life data platform (BOLD <http://www.boldsystems.org/>). For
 this the author needs to place either a BIN number or
 individual record
 identifier(s) in the respective field and press a button.
 The records will
 appear in the manuscript in seconds and the author can work
 on these
 further, e.g. assign type status (in case the BIN clearly
 corresponds to a
  new species), name the species, add other necessary
 information
 (description, diagnosis, etymology, etc.) and proceed with
 peer-review and
 publication. In case the number of voucher specimen
 belonging to a BIN is
 too high, one can import individual records as well. In the
 near future the
 feature will also be available for importing specimen
 records from GBIF and
 iDigBio.
 
 
 The purpose of the tools is to streamline publication of new
 species
 descriptions, re-descriptions of poorly-known barcoded
 species, other
 taxonomic/nomenclatural novelties, and link publications to
 records  already
 available from large data platforms. Ideally, this kind of
 published data
 is expected to be of high quality, because taxonomists are
 used to include
 in publications only those specimens they or their
 co-authors have studied
 personally, but also because the data records will be
 formally
 peer-reviewed in an online collaborative environment. The
 workflow is
 expected to help also for the integration of the Linnean and
 DNA-based
 taxonomies.
 
 
 Cheers,
 
 Lyubomir
 
 
 -- 
 Dr. Lyubomir Penev
 Managing Director
 Pensoft Publishers
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 1111 Sofia, Bulgaria
 Fax +359-2-8704282
 ww.pensoft.net <http://www.pensoft.net/journals>
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 http://www.pensoft.net/services-for-journals
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 http://www.pensoft.net/books-published-by-Pensoft
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