PubPeer is a website that allows users to discuss and review scientific research after publication, i.e. post-publication peer review, established in 2012.
The site has served as a
whistleblowing
Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...
platform, in that it highlighted shortcomings in several high-profile papers, in some cases leading to retractions and to accusations of scientific fraud,
as noted by Retraction Watch. Contrary to most platforms, it allows anonymous post-publication commenting, a controversial feature which is the main factor for its success. Consequently, accusations of libel have been levelled at some of PubPeer's users; correspondingly the website has since 2016 told commentators to use only facts that can be publicly verified.
Questions have been raised about the copyright ownership of PubPeer's often-anonymous contents.
In 2021 a study found that "more than two-thirds of comments n PubPeerare posted to report some type of misconduct, mainly about
image manipulation
Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are Digital photography, digital photographs, traditional Photographic processing, photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known ...
".
Health sciences
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to health sciences:
Health sciences – those sciences that focus on health, or health care, as core parts of their subject matter. Health sciences relate to multiple a ...
and
life sciences
This list of life sciences comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings. This science is one of the two major branches of natural science, ...
Social science
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...
and
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
disciplines in turn had fewer comments, but the highest percentage comments about critical reviews about theory and highlight
methodological
In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
flaws. The research concluded that "while biochemists access the site to report misconduct... social scientists and humanists use it to discuss conclusions and detect methodological errors". The study also reported that 85.6% of comment are anonymous and that "only 31.5% of publications received more than three comments, and the response rate of authors is very low (7.5%)."
In 2023 a study found that "only 21.5% of the articles lagged on PubPeerthat deserve an editorial notice (i.e., honest errors, methodological flaws, publishing fraud, manipulation) were corrected by the elevantjournal".
In November 2024, PubPeer and its co-Founder, Brandon Stell, received the Institutional Award for research integrity from the Einstein Foundation (Germany).
See also
*
Open peer review
Open peer review is the various possible modifications of the traditional scholarly peer review process. The three most common modifications to which the term is applied are:
# Open identities: Authors and reviewers are aware of each other's iden ...
*
Journal club
A journal club is a group of individuals who meet regularly to critically evaluate recent articles in the academic literature, such as the scientific literature, medical literature, or philosophy literature. Journal clubs are usually organized aro ...
*
JournalReview.org
JournalReview.org was an online interdisciplinary journal club.Publons