No abstract

BioMed Central is a Science, Technology and Medical publisher of online, open access journals. We have always endeavoured to ensure that our journals adhere to the norms of the research communities we serve (Knapp et al., 2011; Krell 2012; Sands & Moylan 2012). We were therefore somewhat bewildered by the tone of the piece from Dubois et al. (2013) criticising online-only journals, specifically our interpretation of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (the Code) on criteria for publication for nomenclatural purposes (ICZN 1999) prior to the 2012 Amendment to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 2012a,b,c). We responded to this in our recent blog (Harold et al., 2013).

No abstract

Managing the peer review process is one of the major attractions and benefits of the current publisher-driven publishing environment. Would it be possible to maintain peer review in different system—perhaps one where peer review happens at the institutional level, or in an online-review environment? How? What is really needed from peer review, what are the reform options (and what do we already know about the options that have been tried)?