WikiJournal User Group/Meetings/2018-12-17

WikiJournal User Group
Open access • Publication charge free • Public peer review • Wikipedia-integrated

Minutes originally drafted in Google doc and copied here after 48 hours

Attendees

Monday, 17 Dec 2018 @ 22:00 UTC

Agenda

1-min introductions
Summary of 2018 (report)
Current topics
- Double blind peer review (authorship declaration form)
- Code of conduct? (current, draft, discussion)
- Should these minutes be copied to the wiki if private info redacted? (example)
- Indexing goals? (examples) X
Ideas for 2019 X
- Outreach possibilities? X
- Procedure improvements? X
- Article invitations topics? X

Ran out of time before full agenda finished (marked ‘X’)

Notes

WikiJournal of Medicine and WikiJournal of Science are indexed automatically by Google Scholar
- WikiJMed articles have some citations (see here); WikiJSci not yet
The journals being indexed on DOAJ were discussed, though they do not appear to be findable that way.
- WikiJMed - doaj.org/toc/2002-4436 - Several details out of date, DOAJ email stated they would correct October 2018
- WikiJSci - applied June 2018, enquired Dec 2018, will re-inquire Jan 2019
- WikiJHum - not yet applied
Authorship declaration form link (form.wikijmed.org) was broken so have had to change to full link using template to synchronise
Reviewer anonymity still very useful as an option, since the journals can still struggle to secure peer reviewers.
- Peer reviewer anonymity requests used to be 35% 2015-2017 but have fallen to 15% in 2018 (Average over all WikiJournals - WikiJMed has highest anon reviewer requests)
- Consensus that anon reviewing should be kept as an option, since many useful reviewers would not contribute if not anon
Discussed advantages and disadvantages of "open" review throughout vs. "double-blind" review vs. offering both as an option to authors.
- Double-blind peer review = reviewers and authors unaware of each others’ identities until publication. Upon publication, author identities revealed, and reviewer identities revealed unless specific request for full anonymity. The anonymised draft and reviewer comments can be still be public during this process (example)
- For humanities, Scopus indexing is not that important, but double-blindness of review is often considered a prerequisite for legitimacy (for tenure and related)
- Would it be possible with the way article drafts in peer review work now?
  - Submitted off-wiki as docx (reduces transparency) example
  - Submitted on-wiki using pseudonymous account but with name only known to board members until publication example
- Prelim consensus that articles published double-blind should have this noted
- Consider making double-blind peer review the default, with authors opting out of that, if desired.
- Consensus agreement that we should continue to offer authors the choice of “open review” (author and peer reviewers are public for an individual article) or “double-blind peer review” (authors are anonymous to reviewers and vice versa until after publication) with the default being double-blind and an option for having it open from the beginning being adjusted on the form. A small subgroup was formed to explore how this should be accomplished.
- Author Declaration Form should make the distinction crystal clear. (See Action Items.)
Code of conduct was discussed extensively
- Split between ‘enforceable’ and ‘mission statement/participation guidelines’ for overall goals.
  - Some behaviours have hard boundaries (e.g. harassment) in ethics statement so need to be defined in negative terms “do not do X” (but we can’t list every possible negative action)
  - Some positive behaviours are to be aimed for and kept broad “aim to be/do X”
- Current version of draft has several areas that can be improved upon
  - Positive formulation probably better where possible (we can’t list every minor human flaw to avoid!)
  - Keep short
  - Examples of “participation guidelines” structure that we might wish to borrow from
    - Mozilla - Separate “Expected behaviour” and “Behaviour that will not be tolerated”
    - Open Con - Separate “Participation Guidelines” and “Anti-Harassment Policy”
  - May be best to start from scratch or make several complete alternative versions and vote between/merge best features
- More inter-journal dialogue (like this) may help
- The boards should make sure that conflict of interest editors do not dominate the drafting process - avoid the draft being written around one specific incident in mind.
- More discussion wanted at next meeting
Agreed to post these minutes publicly after 24 hours
- Time for all participants to review and add info
- Time for any private info to be marked as redacted
- Updated to 48 hours to give more time.

Action Items

An ad hoc committee (members listed below) will propose revision to Author Declaration Form to make distinction (choice) between “open review” and “double-blind” peer review crystal clear; and corresponding information on WikiJournal pages. (Working group: Jeffrey Keefer, Mark Worthen, Sarah Vital)
Code of conduct - Revision/overhaul and have working group to discuss privately. Does anyone have a COI where they should recuse themself? (Working group TBD next meeting)
Repeat this meeting - monthly to begin with then reduce frequency once main topics worked through. Poll to decide times in late January. (Thomas Shafee, Jan 14th)
Sharing the minutes
- This Google Doc will be emailed to the boards immediately (Thomas Shafee)
- Its contents will be posted to a public wiki page after 48 hours to give time for any additional notes to be added, and any private info redacted (Thomas Shafee)
- Meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Meeting/2018-12-17