Resource of the Week #95: Draft Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers

Hello again. This week’s resource is from COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics). It is still a draft, and anyone can submit comments on it. COPE will consider the comments when preparing the final version.

The draft resource is titled “COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers”. Among other things, it says that peer reviewers should

• “respect the confidentiality of peer review . . . ”
• “not use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own . . . advantage . . . ”
• “only agree to review manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise required . . . and which they can assess within a reasonable time-frame”
• “declare all potential conflicting interests . . . ”
• “not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, by the nationality, religion, political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations”
• “be objective and constructive in their reviews . . . ”

The full set of  draft guidelines is about 3 pages long. I encourage you to look at it. If you have feedback, please provide it to COPE. The deadline is February 18.

Until the next post—

Barbara