We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy New Year. Although 2022 is well underway, there is still time to take a moment to reflect on 2021. The pandemic continues to be an ever evolving situation, so as we look back at our most read papers of December 2021, articles […]
Category: Open peer review
Automatic ORCID updates for reviewers
BMJ Product Manager Aradhana Mistry explains how we’ve made it easier to link peer-review activity to a reviewer’s ORCID profile. Trust and transparency are the pillars of peer review and here at BMJ we are now pleased to be able to further this by ensuring the reviewers across our portfolio of journals are instantly […]
Why we embrace open peer review at BMJ Open
Transparency has been at the heart of BMJ Open for its entire ten year history and a key component has been to operate a fully open peer-review system. We believe that this approach is the most equitable way of making the peer-review process a fair and collaborative endeavour. Concerns about single-blind review, which has […]
Top 10 Most Read in February: Associations between SES and adverse birth outcomes in Canada, the use of hormones among transgender women in Nepal and the effects of introducing PrEP programmes in Sweden
In February, we saw five new papers enter BMJ Open’s list of top 10 most read articles. New entries include a protocol for a systematic review and meta analysis that aims to examine the effects of physical activity interventions on the BMI of children and adolescents in Latin america, and a study into the use […]
Top ten most read in September: Old age decline in grip strength, LGBTQ perspectives in child welfare, and opioid use in back pain
The list of the top ten most read articles in September sees many previous entries keeping their places, including a cohort study into the association between developmental factors and old age decline in grip strength. However, September has also welcomed two new entries into the top ten. New in at number six is a study […]
Guest blog: Improving peer review using peer-reviewed studies #PeerRevWk16
This week is the second ever “peer review week”. The theme for this year is “Recognition for Review”. Peer review week aims to highlight the importance of peer review, which is a crucial part of the research process. We asked Dr Adrian Barnett, from the Queensland University of Technology, and a member of our editorial board, to survey […]
The importance of reviewers – 2015
The peer review process is central to scholarly research, a critical part of the publishing process and a method of quality control for the scientific community. While peer review can seem like a daunting, never-ending task at times, without it journals would not survive and continue to publish the important, accurate findings they do today. […]
Peer Review Week: An analysis of peer review style and quality
This week celebrates the first ever Peer Review Week; a collaborative concept from ORCID, Wiley, Sense About Science and ScienceOpen, to highlight and celebrate the invaluable role peer review plays in scientific and medical publishing. Here at BMJ Open we are, of course, advocates of open peer review and as such are pleased to be publishing […]
Thank you to our reviewers – 2014
After a very busy year at BMJ Open, in which over 1100 papers were published, we would like to say a big thank you to all of our reviewers who contributed in 2014. All that we achieved last year would not have been possible without the help of the many referees who gave thorough and […]
Comparing the results from two surveys of BMJ Open authors
BMJ Open authors were among those surveyed by Professor David J Solomon of Michigan State University for a study recently published in the journal PeerJ. Needless to say we read this with great interest (we were unaware of the survey until the results were published). The survey reported a generally positive response to BMJ Open […]