Referees25(1).indd 81Polar Research 25(1), 81–84 Polar Research’s referees It is once again time to thank all the scientists— not only those whose names are printed on the following pages—who have kindly served as ref- erees for Polar Research during the last couple of years. There is a widespread sentiment that review- ing manuscripts is an almost thankless task. Yet reviewers agree to it anyway. Why? This was one of the questions addressed in a focus group study commissioned by the publishers Elsevier (Mul- ligan 2004). The study confi rmed that review- ers are motivated by a number of factors. Chief among them is the perception that it is one’s aca- demic duty to review others’ papers since one’s own work is similarly reviewed (and, thereby, often improved). Additional incentives for refe- rees include a wish to remain up-to-date in their fi elds and the hope that reading new work will stimulate fresh ideas for their own research. The study indicates that the reputation of the journal strongly infl uences a reviewer’s decision to agree to examine a manuscript, and it helps if the ref- eree personally knows the individual requesting the review. The Elsevier study also revealed that referees believe that reviewing is growing more burden- some. Referees are being swamped with requests to review manuscripts and the turnaround times demanded by editors—themselves pressured by authors who want fast decisions and rapid pub- lication—are becoming shorter. Some fi elds are more impacted by this than others. Scientists in “high consensus” fi elds—in which scholars agree about what constitutes good research and fruit- ful theory—are likelier to compete for priority in announcing their fi ndings and to worry about being scooped by rivals (Hargens 1990). Com- petition for priority is more pronounced in the physical sciences than in the biological scienc- es (Hargens 1990 and sources cited therein), yet expectations for speedier turnaround and publica- tion pervade scientifi c publishing. These expec- tations have surely been infl uenced by the possi- bilities of computer technology, which allows for lightning-fast communication and quicker prep- aration of documents and graphics. (As with so many other aspects of modern life, the better the technology, the more we humans must scram- ble to keep pace.) The internet revolution seems to have aggravated the situation for reviewers in one further respect. Referees in the Elsevier focus group felt that online review, which is in use at many journals (but not yet Polar Research), ben- efi ts authors and editors but places an extra load on the shoulders of reviewers. They have to print out manuscripts themselves and must confi ne their comments to restrictive online formats. (See Gladwell [2002] for a look at how and why many people—“knowledge workers”, in particular— continue to rely on paper in spite of the prediction that it would be made largely obsolete by today’s information technology.) Editors who participat- ed in the Elsevier study felt that attracting and keeping good referees is getting harder. Rushed, overburdened and sometimes feeling unappreciated, referees can at least take heart in the fact that editors are deeply concerned with their plight as well as with the larger issues relat- ing to peer review. In September 2005, for exam- ple, 470 participants representing 38 nations gathered in Chicago for three days for the Fifth International Congress on Peer Review and Bio- medical Publishing. Presentations at the confer- ence covered topics such as confl icts of interest, blind peer review and comparisons of the quali- ty of reviews by editor- as opposed to author-sug- gested referees. Though a majority of the talks and posters were specifi c to biomedical publish- ing, many contained messages of broader rele- vance. (For the complete program see www.ama- assn.org/public/peer/program.html.) Peer review is a common topic of discussion in European Sci- ence Editing, the (peer reviewed) journal of the European Association of Science Editors. What is the purpose of peer review? As Mul- ligan (2004) points out, there is no single set of objectives which is universally in use. The con- sensus in the focus group in the Elsevier study was that “peer review should prevent an author making egregious claims on minimal results... it should ensure that a consistent and appropri- ate methodology is used, and that recent reputa- ble work...is correctly referenced and acknowl- edged” (Mulligan 2004: 4). These basic criteria form the backbone of Polar Research’s reviewer’s guidelines and, presumably, those of other scien- tifi c journals. On these grounds, referees evalu- ate manuscripts; those failing to satisfy the most important criteria are rejected by editors. Accord- ing to Meadows (2005: 114), the rejection rate of the “average” natural science journal does not exceed a third of submissions. Interestingly, in 82 Polar Research’s referees the social sciences—where there is low consen- sus about what constitutes valuable research— journals reject two-thirds or more of their sub- missions, and they require more revisions from authors (Meadows 2005; see also Hargens 1990). In contrast to many journals, Polar Research is multidisciplinary; its scope is largely defi ned by geography and it therefore competes for submis- sions with journals covering particular scientif- ic fi elds. Biology, geology and oceanography are all well representd in Polar Research: combined, these three disciplines represent about three-quar- ters of the articles in the journal (Fig. 1a). In terms of geographical coverage, the Nordic Arctic, par- ticularly Svalbard and the Barents Sea, continues to dominate the pages of Polar Research (Fig. 1b). Only about 6 % of the journal’s articles concern the Antarctic. This is an imbalance that the jour- nal’s contributors, referees and readers can help to rectify by spreading the word that the scope of Polar Research encompasses both poles. Helle V. Goldman Norwegian Polar Institute, Polar Environmental Cen- tre, NO-9296 Tromsø, Norway, goldman@ npolar.no. Other/multidisciplinary Climatology/atmos. Hydrology Glaciology Oceanography Geology Biology Other/multiple Greenland/Iceland North American Arctic Russian Arctic/seas Continental Nordic Arctic/ Nordic seas/Svalbard Antarctica Fig. 1. (a) A rough breakdown of the scientifi c fi elds rep- resented in Polar Research articles; (b) the geographic areas that the journal’s articles concern. The data are drawn from the last fi ve years. References Gladwell, M. 2002: The social life of paper: looking for method in the mess. The New Yorker 25 March, 92–96. Hargens, L. L. 1990: Variation in journal peer review sys- tems: possible causes and consequences. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 263, 1348–1352. Meadows, J. 2005: Differences between the sciences in their handling of the research literature. Eur. Sci. Ed. 31, 113– 116. Mulligan, A. 2004: Is peer review in crisis? Perspect. Publ. 2, 1–6. (a) (b) 83Polar Research 25(1), 81–84 Becky Alexander, University of Washington, USA Ole B. Andersen, Danish National Space Center, Denmark Peter G. Appleby, University of Liverpool, UK Steven A. Arcone, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, USA Holger Auel, University of Bremen, Germany Wilfried Bauer, RWTH Aachen University, Germany Martin Beniston, University of Fribourg, Switzerland Matthew Bennett, Bournemouth University, UK Knut Bjørlykke, University of Oslo, Norway Johan Blindheim, Institute of Marine Research, Norway Dierk P. G. Blomeier, Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Charles Darwin University, Australia Keith Brander, International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, Denmark Howard I. Browman, Institute of Marine Research, Norway Iain B Campbell, Land and Soil Consultancy Services, New Zealand Alex J. Cannon, Meteorological Service of Canada, Canada Hanne H. Christiansen, The University Centre in Svalbard, Norway Andrew Davidson, Australian Antarctic Division, Australia Daniel Delille, National Center of Scientifi c Research, France Julian Dowdeswell, Scott Polar Research Institute, UK Dennis G. Dye, Frontier Research Center for Global Change, Japan Henning Dypvik, University of Oslo, Norway Bernd Etzelmüller, University of Oslo, Norway Julian B. Fischer, US Fish and Wildlife Service, USA I. V. Florinsky, Institute of Mathematical Problems of Biology, Russia Giles M. Foody, University of Southampton, UK Steven L. Forman, University of Illinois, USA Jean-Marc Fromentin, French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, France Robert Gilbert, Queen’s University, Canada Philip A. Gillibrand, Scottish Association for Marine Science, UK John Gjelberg, Hydro Research Centre, Norway William Gould, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Puerto Rico Viktor Gouretski, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Germany T. G. Allan Green, Waikato University, New Zealand Sveinn Are Hanssen, University of Tromsø, Norway E. Walter Helbling, Photobiological Station at Playa Union, Argentina Gerhard J. Herndl, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, The Netherlands J. Mark Hipfner, Canadian Wildlife Service, Canada G. J. Greg Hofmeyr, University of Pretoria, South Africa Ólafur Ingólfsson, University of Iceland, Iceland Elisabeth Isaksson, Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway George D. Jackson, University of Tasmania, Australia L. Allan James, University of South Carolina, USA Hester Jiskoot, University of Lethbridge, Canada Ludger Kappen, University of Kiel, Germany Michael Karcher, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany Ron Kwok, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA Mary-Anne Lea, University of Tasmania, Australia Victoria Lytle, WCRP Climate and Cryosphere International Project Offi ce, Norway Harald Loeng, Institute of Marine Reseach, Norway J. I. López-Moreno, Pyrenean Institute of Ecology CSIC, Spain Connie Lovejoy, Laval University, Canada Rosa Margesin, Leopold Franzens University, Austria Thomas Martin, University of Kiel, Germany Robert V. Miller, Oklahoma State University, USA Anders Mosbech, National Environmental Research Institute, Denmark Ellen Mosley-Thompson, The Ohio State University, USA Ransom A. Myers, Dalhousie University, Canada Adrian Neal, University of Wolverhampton, UK Patrick J. Neale, Smithsonian Institution, USA Marco Nigro, University of Pisa, Italy Carsten Riis Olesen, National Environmental Research Institute, Denmark Brad Page, South Australian Research and 84 Polar Research’s referees Development Institute, Australia Ana Pintado, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain Francesco Regoli, Polytechnic University of Marches-Ancona, Italy Gregory J. Robertson, Canadian Wildlife Service, Canada Martin J. Siegert, University of Bristol, UK Elizabeth Sinclair, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA Walter H. F. Smith, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA Hans-Ulrich Steeger, University of Muenster, Germany Ron Steel, The University of Texas at Austin, USA Daniel Steinhage, Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany Douglas Stow, San Diego State University, USA Nicholas Tyler, University of Tromsø, Norway Roberto Udisti, University of Florence, Italy Arnoldo Valle-Levinson, University of Florida, USA John van den Hoff, Australian Antarctic Division, Australia Alan P. M. Vaughan, British Antarctic Survey, UK Virginia E. Villafañe, Photobiological Station at Playa Union, Argentina Peter Wadhams, University of Cambridge, UK David Walsh, Naval Research Laboratory, USA Jenny G. Webster-Brown, University of Auckland, New Zealand Meredith Williams, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Peter Winsor, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA David Worsley, Rogaland Research Institute, Norway Daqing Yang, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA Kathy L. Young, York University, Canada Richard E. 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