American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology, American Physiological Society, Rockville, Maryland.
Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska.
Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2020 May 1;318(5):H1051-H1058. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00071.2020. Epub 2020 Mar 20.
The present study was undertaken to address the concern that author compliance with American Physiological Society (APS) journal instructions to authors for data presentation in manuscript figures is inadequate. Common instances of noncompliance are omitted molecular weight markers for immunoblots and bar graphs lacking individual data points. The () editorial team designed a program to assess figure data presentation in submitted manuscripts. The intended outcome was to improve author compliance with APS data presentation guidelines and to improve overall rigor and reproducibility in articles published in . The team invited 37 peer reviewers to participate in a figure reviewer project (FRp). Over a period of five months, 32 first-revision manuscripts were enrolled in the FRp. Each manuscript was reviewed by the original peer reviewers and an additional figure reviewer (FR). Post-peer review, corresponding authors and FRs were surveyed for insight into their experiences. Of the 32 corresponding authors invited, 20 (63%) responded to the survey. In response to the survey, 100% of respondents stated that peer review was performed in a timely fashion despite the additional FR. When asked whether the FR experience had any effect on how one would present data in manuscript figures in future submissions, 65% of authors and 83% of FRs said yes. In addition, 63% of authors responding agreed that the overall quality of their figures was improved after revising based on FR comments. This exercise resulted in improved compliance with APS data presentation guidelines and changed attitudes among both authors and reviewers as to the need for consistent and clear data presentation in manuscript figures. The goal of the figure reviewer program was to improve author compliance with existing APS data presentation instructions for manuscript figures. The result was an improvement in compliance with these guidelines. Time from submission to final decision did not significantly increase for papers with the additional figure reviewer, and both figure reviewers and corresponding authors reported positive feedback in post-program surveys.
本研究旨在解决作者对美国生理学会 (APS) 期刊对稿件中数据表示的指令遵守情况不足的问题。常见的不合规情况包括免疫印迹中缺失分子量标记物和条形图中缺失个别数据点。编辑部设计了一个程序来评估提交稿件中的图表数据表示情况。其目的是提高作者对 APS 数据呈现指南的遵守程度，并提高发表在《生理学杂志》上的文章的整体严谨性和可重复性。该团队邀请了 37 名同行评审员参与图表评审员项目 (FRp)。在五个月的时间里，有 32 篇第一稿被纳入 FRp。每篇稿件都由原始同行评审员和额外的图表评审员 (FR) 进行了评审。在同行评审之后，对应作者和 FR 接受了调查，以了解他们的经验。在被邀请的 32 名对应作者中，有 20 名 (63%)对调查做出了回应。在回应调查时，100%的受访者表示，尽管增加了 FR，但同行评审的速度还是很快的。当被问及 FR 经验是否会对未来提交稿件中图表数据的呈现方式产生任何影响时，65%的作者和 83%的 FR 表示会有影响。此外，63%的回复作者同意，根据 FR 的意见修改后，他们的图表整体质量有所提高。这项工作提高了对 APS 稿件图表数据呈现指南的遵守程度，并改变了作者和评审员对稿件图表中数据呈现一致性和清晰性的态度。FR 项目的目标是提高作者对稿件中数据表示的 APS 现有指南的遵守程度。其结果是提高了对这些指南的遵守程度。增加 FR 后的稿件从提交到最终决定的时间并没有显著增加，并且 FR 和对应作者在项目后调查中都报告了积极的反馈。
