An author submitted an invited paper to a journal and, after a double anonymous peer review, the decision on the paper was to request ‘major revision’. The author decided not to revise the paper, and therefore effectively withdrew the paper, based on disagreements with the reviewers. These disagreements were not discussed with the editor prior to withdrawing the paper. The editor replied to the author’s withdrawal letter: “I do wish you had/would make these responses to the reviewers through the [online] system. There have been many occasions where authors have done this and their work has been published”.
After withdrawing the article, the author posted it on their personal website and several other websites, along with commentary which named the journal and the editor personally and claimed that the paper was rejected by reviewers. (The reviewers’ recommendations are not provided to authors.) The author also wrote a blog post on the blog site of their university research institute which linked to the personal website. The university blog itself did not name the journal and editor. All websites identified made reference to the paper being ‘rejected’, not ‘major revision’. The author quoted from reviewer responses arguing that they were effectively biased against the subject matter.
The editor was alerted to the various posts by third parties and subsequently twice asked the author to remove references identifying the journal, arguing that the information about the journal decision was incorrect. The editor had no reason to believe that the reviewers were biased against the subject matter and private comments from reviewers to the editor indicated that this is not the case. The publisher also subsequently asked the author to correct the misinformation about the editorial decision. The author then made public in an update on their blog that they had requested that the publisher reveal the individual reviewer recommendations. At that point they also said that the editorial decision was for ‘major revisions’ while still maintaining the paper was effectively rejected due to the nature of the reviewer comments. The editor does not provide reviewer recommendations to authors because (a) reviewers often qualify recommendations made by way of ticking a box in private comments to the editor; and (b) often reviewers change their minds about recommendations on seeing author responses.
Questions for COPE Council
- How should editors and publishers respond to incorrect information about an editorial decision/processes being made public?
- In such cases, where incorrect information has been made public, how should editors and publishers respond to requests for information about individual reviewer recommendations?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.
It seems that there is little the journal can do other than request that the authors remove or modify their posts to social media, unless the authors have written something defamatory, in which case legal remedies may be available. The journal need not make individual reviewer recommendations public as the authors request.
Sometimes decisions journal editors make will upset authors. Editors must, to a large degree, accept that. A reviewer is an advisor to a journal; the journal’s interests are represented by the handling editor, acting under license from the Editor in Chief. Handling editors will, of course, take advice from the reviewers, but ultimately form their own judgement about the suitability of the manuscript, and what therefore needs to be done. The issue, therefore, is not how faithfully, or otherwise, the editors have relayed the reviewers' comments, but simply whether they have acted reasonably in their handling of the review process and the judgements they have arrived at. In short, procedural fairness.
The question then, is what to do now. If the criticism is not actionable, perhaps it’s a case of do nothing. The author chose to withdraw their paper and is free to argue their case openly but not with reference to the journal.
If the editor does wish to respond, they could contact the author and explain the journal's policies, assuming the journal has already been clear in its peer review processes and procedures via its website (eg, explaining the model used (double anonymous), role of reviewers/editors and who makes the final decision, what the outcomes could be (accept/revise/reject), appeals/complaints process, and confidentiality). The editor could point out to the author that submitting a paper requires that authors adhere to those policies. Let the authors know their uploaded information is incorrect and should be corrected (also explain what major revision means and that they could have asked the editor to reconsider seemingly unreasonable requests or to extend deadlines). Ask for any content that comes from the review reports to be taken down, explaining that permission is needed to reveal any of the peer review report contents, except the reviewer recommendation as the decision is made by the editor (as has been explained in this case). Escalating to involve the institution is a possible next step (to ask the author to correct the uploaded information and future institution-wide education).
Another suggestion is that the editor might consider responding as one would to a whistleblower (see COPE flowchart). Hence the next step would be: 'If there is an outcome to your investigation ... consider putting information about it on the same social media/site(s) where the concerns were originally raised. It may not be appropriate for Twitter but useful on other sites. Post a link to the resolution on the journal site'. Of note from elsewhere in the flowchart: 'It is appropriate to respond from a journal/publisher account rather than a personal Twitter account for legal and ethical reasons.' 'Respond politely; don’t get drawn into personal exchanges'. 'It is important to take the discussion away from the public domain; don’t engage in specific discussions on social media'. Also, the editor and publisher may want to establish escalation processes and procedures for the future.