Open Research Data and Open Peer Review: Perceptions of a Medical and Health Sciences Community in Greece
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The overall purpose of the paper – to investigate the knowledge and the acceptance of Open Research Data (ORD) and Open Peer Review (OPR) in a specific community – is an interesting and important issue and strategies based on the outcome of the survey support the scientific community as well as the society in general.
The publication is professionally written and contributes to two evolving parts of Open Science: ORD and OPR.
Nevertheless, I have a few broader and some more detailed comments.
Visualization: My first major point of criticism involves the visual presentation of the survey results. The figures are in fact tables. I would highly recommend using visualizations instead.
Open Science and the community: My second major point of criticism focuses on the narrative part of the case study. The integration of the investigated topics ORD and OPR into the larger field of Open Science as well as the description of the specific community is fuzzy. For example, it is mentioned that OPR involves different options regarding openness but there are only vaguely described and not clearly named. The framing of the medical and health community as a major driver of OPR is mainly mentioned as a side note in the discussion.
Method: My third major point relates to the method used. It needs some clarification on how the 179 valid responses were obtained and especially why it was done this way.
Questionnaire: My fourth major point is the potentially incomplete questionnaire in Appendix A.
I will give detailed information to these points and to more in the following specific and line-by-line comments.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Reviewer 1
First of all, we would like to express our appreciation to the reviewer 1 for the valuable comments and observations provided. Our answers for reviewer 1 follow:
The overall purpose of the paper – to investigate the knowledge and the acceptance of Open Research Data (ORD) and Open Peer Review (OPR) in a specific community – is an interesting and important issue and strategies based on the outcome of the survey support the scientific community as well as the society in general.
The publication is professionally written and contributes to two evolving parts of Open Science: ORD and OPR.
Nevertheless, I have a few broader and some more detailed comments.
Visualization: My first major point of criticism involves the visual presentation of the survey results. The figures are in fact tables. I would highly recommend using visualizations instead.
Response: New table format has been adopted that enables a more comprehensive appearance of the results (Tables 3a to 8b). Also, the most important results were visualized (Figure 1 and 2).
Open Science and the community:
My second major point of criticism focuses on the narrative part of the case study. The integration of the investigated topics ORD and OPR into the larger field of Open Science as well as the description of the specific community is fuzzy. For example, it is mentioned that OPR involves different options regarding openness but there are only vaguely described and not clearly named. The framing of the medical and health community as a major driver of OPR is mainly mentioned as a side note in the discussion.
Response: See for more details in the Specific comments section (line by line comments)
Method: My third major point relates to the method used. It needs some clarification on how the 179 valid responses were obtained and especially why it was done this way.
Questionnaire: My fourth major point is the potentially incomplete questionnaire in Appendix A.
Response: The part of the questionnaire with the personal information of the participants was added in Appendix A
I will give detailed information to these points and to more in the following specific and line-by-line comments.
Specific comments
Overall comments: The terms Open Research Data and Open Peer Review sometimes seem randomly abbreviated as ORD and OPR or not. This should be streamlined throughout the entire publication.
Response: The abbreviations of the terms Open Research Data and Open Peer Review have been replaced by the full terms with their abbreviations provided, where it is considered necessary.
Visualization Figures 1 to 6 are in fact tables. I highly recommend investing some time in visualizing the data instead, e.g., as box plots or bar charts. Alternatively, the figures should be converted to LaTeX/Word tables, but a visualization would benefit the publication much more.
Response: New table format has been adopted that enables a more comprehensive appearance of the results (Tables 3a to 8b). Also, the most important results were visualized (Figure 1 and 2).
Open Science and the community
A framing of the medical and health community as a major driver of OPR including open preprints, which are a prerequisite for OPR if OPR involves open participation and/or post-publication peer review, is missing in the introduction and the literature review. A reference highlighting this aspect, i.e. [59], is first mentioned in the discussion section. I recommend moving this information to the introduction to describe the situation in this specific community upfront. There might be similar studies regarding ORD in the medical and health sciences community. The different options for OPR, since this is only an umbrella term, should be named clearly and be defined. This could also give some background information why only specific aspects of OPR were tailored in the survey.
Response: See for more details in the Specific comments section (line by line comments)
Method
It is described that the survey received 215 responses out of 415 total population. It remains unclear whether 415 people were approached and 215 of them responded or there were more people approached but 415 started and only 215 of them finished the survey.
This needs to be clarified. If only 415 people were approached, how were they selected? No matter how many people were approached, the distribution of the survey, e.g., via mailing lists, needs to be described to see whether the populations of 415, 215 and finally 179 are representative for the entire community.
It is also mentioned that only 179 of 215 had a publication history in Google Scholar and the other 36 were therefore dismissed. This needs some clarification. Was this method planned like this in advance?
Response: The questionnaire was sent electronically through the Lime Survey platform to 415 health professionals, affiliated with the General Hospital of Athens “Hippokration”. They were selected from the contact list of the hospital library. To save time and to avoid survey fatigue with excessive amount of requested information, it was decided to check for publication activity based on Google Scholar, only the participants that provided full responses. 179 out of 215 of the participants that provided full responses appeared as authors in scientific publications based on the information provided by Google Scholar.
The text of the paper was updated accordingly.
Were there any doubts that the people answering the survey are not actually part of the tailored community? Did the survey include a question regarding the professional state (participant category) of the participants or was this information (participants’ categories) extracted from Google Scholar?
Response: See previous response as well as the part with the personal information in the questionnaire Appendix.
The text of the paper was updated accordingly.
What was done due to what reasons? If I understood correctly, the comparison to Google Scholar was done after the survey was closed. This implies that the survey was not anonymous. Is this correct and if yes, how might this have influenced the results?
Response: The survey was conducted with specific invitations via email. Participants knew that the survey was not anonymous as they took part in a series of educational meetings and consultations with the library staff. They all gave their consent. Due to the nature of the survey topics (low or none exposure of personal or other sensitive information), we believed that the fact that responses were not anonymous did not have any impact on the results.
Questionnaire
This leads to the fact that the questionnaire in Appendix A appears to be incomplete. It is mentioned that apart from the professional category, other demographic characteristics were the years of professional experience and gender. Where does this information come from? If this was part of the questionnaire, the questionnaire should be given in full in Appendix A. If this was not part of the questionnaire, it should be described how this information was retrieved. I will give more detailed information in the line-by-line comments.
Response: The part of the questionnaire with the personal information of the participants was added in Appendix A
Line-by-line comments:
Line 23: Remove “the” in front of “remarkable”.
Response: The article “the” in front of “remarkable” has been removed as suggested.
Lines 23-27: I would recommend to also name replicability and reproducibility as driving forces of Open Science.
Response: The noun productivity was replaced by replicability and reproducibility in the text.
Line 28: State the year of the Berlin declaration, since the years of the following events (lines 30-31) are also stated.
Response: The year 2003 was added after the full name of the Berlin declaration.
Line 36: Remove “the” in front of “Open Access”.
Response: The article “the” in front of “Open Access” was removed.
Lines 35-38: Why are Open Access, Open Research Data and Open Peer review the main components of Open Science? You could also name Open Source, Open Preprints, Open Methodology, PreRegistration, and more.
Response: Other components of Open Science have been included with the necessary changes in the context of the paragraph.
Line 38: Reference [6] points not to the definition of Open Science but a list of resources. I would suggest using https://www.fosteropenscience.eu/foster-taxonomy/open-science-definition instead.
Response: We replaced the url in reference [6] with the suggested one.
Line 35-38: The previous paragraph focused on Open Access initiatives. The shift to Open Science comes a little bit surprising. Maybe include some Open Science initiatives in the previous paragraph.
Response: Open Science initiatives are included in the previous paragraph, as suggested.
Line 39: Remove “The” at the beginning.
Response: The article “the” at the beginning of the paragraph has been removed.
Line 42-44: Replicability and reproducibility should be integrated in the context of ORD.
Response: Replicability and reproducibility were integrated in the context of ORD.
Line 59: Remove “the” in front of “Open Peer Review”.
Response: The article “the” in front of “Open Peer Review” has been removed.
Line 60: I am unsure about the usage of “schema” in this sentence. Using “set” might be better.
Response: The exact sentence with the word “schema” in it, was mentioned in the reference [15]
Lines 64-65: A short sentence explaining the difference between transparency and openness would be beneficial.
Response: A short explanatory paragraph is added.
It is widely accepted that by adopting openness of data sets, code, materials, processes, and any other resources transparency is improved, as other researchers will be able to fully evaluate the basis for any findings, and to verify or reproduce the work.
Line 68: What does “good enough” research mean? This sounds like a not well defined but colloquial phrase.
Response: The exact phrase is mentioned in the reference [17]. Nevertheless, it was removed to avoid misunderstanding.
Line 70-71: It sounds as if post-publication peer review needs to be linked to mega journals which is not the case.
Response: The phrase “in general” after the word “journals” was added to clarify that the whole sentence is referring to all types of journals and its functions not only to mega journals.
Lines 88-90: This paragraph sounds as if there was nor previous research about ORD and OPR in the medical and health sciences community while this community can be perceived as one of the major drivers of OPR including open preprints, which are a prerequisite for OPR if OPR involves open participation or post-publication peer review. A reference highlighting this aspect, i.e. [59], is first mentioned in the discussion section. I recommend moving this information to this paragraph and describe the situation in this specific community upfront. There might be similar studies regarding ORD in the medical and health sciences community. This could also give some background and why only some options for opening peer review up were targeted in the survey.
Response: The piece of information included in discussion, has been removed in paragraph (lines 88-89) as suggested. The same information enriched, remained in discussion. A similar study regarding ORD in the medical and health sciences community is added, as suggested.
Line 99: There is a space missing at the beginning of the new sentence.
Response: The missing space has been corrected.
Line: 102: There is a close bracket missing after “[40]”.
Response: The missing close bracket before [40] was added.
Line 103: Line 99: There is a space missing at the beginning of the new sentence.
Response: Spaces in lines 103 & 99 have been corrected.
Line 119: Remove “also”.
Response: The word “also” has been removed.
Line 144-145: The last sentence does not fit into a literature review but should be part of the introduction.
Response: The last sentence has been moved to the introduction part.
Line 167-168: I do not get the causality in this sentence. Especially since OPR is not exactly defined and more of an umbrella term [14], it can be adopted in multiple settings. The sentence sounds as if OPR is only defined by open reviewer reports. What about open participation, open identities, open interaction, open preprints, etc.
Response: The sentence has been corrected, as suggested.
OPR cannot be applicable under all circumstances since there is no standard procedure for its main functions such as open reports, open identities, open participations etc.
Lines 181: I already commented on this part in the overall comments. It needs to be clarified whether only 415 received the survey and 215 of them took it or 415 started the survey and 215 also finished it. Additionally, the selection processes need to be clarified. How were the 415 selected, if only those received the survey? How was the survey distributed?
Lines 181-186: It needs to be stated whether the survey was anonymous or not and what implications a not anonymous survey might have. It also needs to be clarified whether the comparison to Google Scholar was already planned or if there came up doubts during the evaluation whether all participants were really an active part of the community. It should also e clarified why Google Scholar was used and whether all publication types in Google Scholar were counted or a selection was performed to rule out presentations, reports, etc. Table 1: How were the categories collected? Were they extracted from Google Scholar or part of the questionnaire?
Line 190-191: This sentence sounds as if the questionnaire was sent only to the 179 people remaining after the previously described selection process which involved Google Scholar. Is this correct?
Response: The questionnaire was sent electronically through the Lime Survey platform to 415 health professionals, affiliated with the General Hospital of Athens “Hippokration”. They were selected from the contact list of the hospital library. To save time and to avoid survey fatigue with excessive amount of requested information, it was decided to check for publication activity based on Google Scholar, only the participants that provided full responses. 179 out of 215 of the participants that provided full responses appeared as authors in scientific publications based on the information provided by Google Scholar.
The text of the paper was updated accordingly.
Lines 192-193: Where does information about years of professional experience and gender come from? If this information were requested within the questionnaire, why are these questions not included in Appendix A?
Response: The part of the questionnaire with the personal information of the participants was added in Appendix A
Line 208: It is “ORD” instead of “OPR”.
Response: OPR has been replaced by ORD.
Line 208: Remove “The” at the beginning.
Response: The article “The” has been removed
Figures 1-6: Visualizations would be much more accessible and would benefit the manuscript.
Response: New table format has been adopted that enables a more comprehensive appearance of the results (Tables 3a to 8b). Also, the most important results were visualized (Figure 1 and 2).
Line 239-240: This section might benefit from stating the different options of OPR again (see comment to lines 167-168).
Response: Different options of OPR have been added.
Line 255-256: This sounds surprising even though e.g. [59] already revealed the medical and health sciences community as highly active in OPR.
Response: The sentence has been changed as suggested.
It seems that medical and health sciences community are highly active in OPR and its potentials.
Line 263: Maybe “into” instead of “to”.
Response: The “to” has been replaced by the “into”.
Line 271: “in [27] study” could be “in an earlier study [27]”
Response: The “in study” phrase replaced by the “in earlier study” phrase, as suggested.
Line 280-283: The mentioned positive trend is not supported by the data of the survey. Was there any previous survey that evaluated the exact same community in a comparable way that could be used for a trend analysis? This mention of a positive trend should be removed unless there is a previous survey, the comparison is described in detail, and the result supports the given statement.
Response: The mention of a positive trend has been removed and the context of the sentence has been changed according to the data of the survey.
Lines 291-293: Could it also apply to different countries?
Response: The suggestion about the future implementation of the survey in different countries has been added.
Line 300: “initiative” should be “initiatives”
Response: The word “initiative” has been replaced by the word “initiatives”
Lines 334ff: The entire questionnaire should be provided.
Response: The part of the questionnaire with the personal information of the participants was added in Appendix A
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper investigates an important issue in looking at the perceptions of open research data and open peer review among health science professionals in Greece. However, the results of the study seem mostly preliminary and I think some additional data should be gathered prior to publishing these results.
In particular, the questionnaire's examination of attitudes towards Open Research Data needs some work, specifically Q4 and Q5. In these questions, participants are asked whether they would "share your research data for exploitation...". The term "exploitation" has negative connotations, and it's plausible that the use of this term had a significant impact on the way participants responded to the question. Participants may have expressed different attitudes towards the reuse of their data if the issue were raised using more neutral terminology.
Q6 also seems somewhat leading. It asks, "Do you consider more difficult to implemented FAIR principles in disciplines such as medical sciences (e.g. due to personal information contained to medical research data)?" The question leaves open "more difficult with respect to what?", so participants might interpret the contrast class in different ways. The way the question is posed also seems to suggest that it will, indeed, be more difficult to implement FAIR principles in these fields. Again, I think this question could be posed in a more neutral manner.
Furthermore, the discussion section of the paper is lacking in depth. It would have been interesting to see the issues raised above addressed in some way, or more suggestions for what additional data could be gathered to shed more light on researchers' attitudes. I think part of the problem here is that the study itself doesn't gather enough data, so there's not enough to discuss.
Lastly, the writing could be made more clear and concise. The paper contains some grammatical issues and has some clunky and repetitive portions, which detract from the clear expression of the findings and analysis.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
First of all, we would like to express our appreciation to the reviewer 2 for the valuable comments and observations provided. Our answers for reviewer 2 follow:
This paper investigates an important issue in looking at the perceptions of open research data and open peer review among health science professionals in Greece. However, the results of the study seem mostly preliminary and I think some additional data should be gathered prior to publishing these results.
In particular, the questionnaire's examination of attitudes towards Open Research Data needs some work, specifically Q4 and Q5. In these questions, participants are asked whether they would "share your research data for exploitation...". The term "exploitation" has negative connotations, and it's plausible that the use of this term had a significant impact on the way participants responded to the question. Participants may have expressed different attitudes towards the reuse of their data if the issue were raised using more neutral terminology.
Response: It has to be clarified that in the questionnaire a Greek word for “exploitation” has been used, which it can only be interpreted as “good use of”, so there are no concerns about the word we’ve chosen.
Q6 also seems somewhat leading. It asks, "Do you consider more difficult to implemented FAIR principles in disciplines such as medical sciences (e.g. due to personal information contained to medical research data)?" The question leaves open "more difficult with respect to what?", so participants might interpret the contrast class in different ways. The way the question is posed also seems to suggest that it will, indeed, be more difficult to implement FAIR principles in these fields. Again, I think this question could be posed in a more neutral manner.
Response: We consider the comment of the reviewer valid. Nevertheless, as the participants are related to medical research data, which contain highly sensitive personal information, they are already aware of the difficulties imposed during the implementation of any type of data management. The aim of the question was to capture their reaction to a data management model that promotes openness and reusability as FAIR principles do.
Furthermore, the discussion section of the paper is lacking in depth. It would have been interesting to see the issues raised above addressed in some way, or more suggestions for what additional data could be gathered to shed more light on researchers' attitudes. I think part of the problem here is that the study itself doesn't gather enough data, so there's not enough to discuss.
Response: It is one of our top priorities in the future to expand this survey to other disciplines in order to explore deeper the researchers’ attitude towards Open Science issues and manage to gather more data. Nevertheless, the present study provides very useful and valid information to the hospital library staff to approach sufficiently the medical and health professional's community and develop a successful strategic plan regarding the dissemination of Open Science principles.
Lastly, the writing could be made more clear and concise. The paper contains some grammatical issues and has some clunky and repetitive portions, which detract from the clear expression of the findings and analysis. Line by
Response: Many grammatical and expression corrections have already been made according to line-by-line comments of the other reviewers. Furthermore, the suggested changes in the text have also significantly improved the clarity and the accuracy of the publication text in general (see pdf with changes)
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This was an incredibly pleasurable read (if I may say so for an academic article)- Very solid article on topics that the paper will be a great addition. I found the entire article to be very strong overall- Very well organized, presented and articulated. Additionally, I found the graphics to be very well places and designed- Easy to read, and convey the necessary information.
My suggestions are all in all minor ones, since I think this article is outstanding as-is.
One article that may be of interest to include that we frequently use to support the sharing of research data is this one-Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate by Heather A. Piwowar, Roger S. Day, Douglas B. Fridsma
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000308
And a more recent one, similar theme- A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment by Garret Christensen , Allan Dafoe, Edward Miguel, Don A. Moore, Andrew K. Rose https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225883
Also, I know the focus is on publications and research data, though there are a few conferences that have moved to open peer review (the annual digital humanities conference is one that comes to mind that I believe is using open peer review- https://adho.org/conference ).
I also wonder if the authors might have any more suggestions or ideas around the remaining hurdles of sharing data for some researchers, particularly around privacy/HIPAA and commercialization?
There was also a fascinating presentation in 2019 around DMPs and open data (more on the topic of ensuring that data is shared after a project as a follow-through) that might be of interest to include- https://www.slideshare.net/skeralis/what-are-we-doing-with-our-data
Author Response
Reviewer 3
First of all, we would like to express our appreciation to the reviewer 3 for the valuable comments and observations provided. Our answers for reviewer 3 follow:
This was an incredibly pleasurable read (if I may say so for an academic article)- Very solid article on topics that the paper will be a great addition. I found the entire article to be very strong overall- Very well organized, presented and articulated. Additionally, I found the graphics to be very well places and designed- Easy to read, and convey the necessary information.
My suggestions are all in all minor ones, since I think this article is outstanding as-is.
One article that may be of interest to include that we frequently use to support the sharing of research data is this one-Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate by Heather A. Piwowar, Roger S. Day, Douglas B. Fridsma
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000308
Response: The above reference has been included with the necessary changes in the text.
And a more recent one, similar theme- A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment by Garret Christensen , Allan Dafoe, Edward Miguel, Don A. Moore, Andrew K. Rose https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225883
Response: It focuses more on journal policies so we decided not to include it.
Also, I know the focus is on publications and research data, though there are a few conferences that have moved to open peer review (the annual digital humanities conference is one that comes to mind that I believe is using open peer review- https://adho.org/conference).
I also wonder if the authors might have any more suggestions or ideas around the remaining hurdles of sharing data for some researchers, particularly around privacy/HIPAA and commercialization?
There was also a fascinating presentation in 2019 around DMPs and open data (more on the topic of ensuring that data is shared after a project as a follow-through) that might be of interest to include- https://www.slideshare.net/skeralis/what-are-we-doing-with-our-data
Response: The suggestions of the reviewer are valid. Nevertheless, a response from our side would require further investigation and consultation with experts on privacy, commercialization and DMPs issues which are out of the scope of the current survey.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the revision of your paper and the visualization of some of the results.
Author Response
Once more we would like to thank you for your useful comments and suggestions.
Reviewer 2 Report
I find this revision to be a significant improvement over the earlier draft that I reviewed. I think the authors do a nice job framing the significance of their study and its results, while demonstrating caution about the degree to which they may or may not generalize to the wider research community. In reading the first draft, I was concerned that the scope of the study was too limited. However, upon reading this revision I am convinced that it is reasonable to take this approach in the service of being detailed and methodical.
I do still think the grammar and style need some improvement before final publication. A few issues I noticed are described here:
Line 10: Should this be "appeared incentived'?
Line 12: "...their interest for a trustworthy evaluation system" sounds weird. I'd suggest "their support for a trustworthy evaluation system."
Line 12: "...researchers urge to receive proper training..." I'm not sure what "urge" means here.
Line 15: I think "scholar publishing" should be "scholarly publishing."
Line 55: Should "researcher's" be "researchers'"?
Line 236: "Part2" should be "Part 2"
Line 289: Need "it" before "is hard to..."
There are probably some other issues as well, but these are the ones I highlighted on my read through. I'd suggest a detailed style and grammar check before finalizing the paper.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
First of all, we would like to thank you for your useful comments and suggestions. The changes follow in more detail:
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
I find this revision to be a significant improvement over the earlier draft that I reviewed. I think the authors do a nice job framing the significance of their study and its results while demonstrating caution about the degree to which they may or may not generalize to the wider research community. In reading the first draft, I was concerned that the scope of the study was too limited. However, upon reading this revision I am convinced that it is reasonable to take this approach in the service of being detailed and methodical.
I do still think the grammar and style need some improvement before final publication. A few issues I noticed are described here:
Line 10: Should this be "appeared incentived'?
Response: the phrase “appeared incentive” has been replaced by “appeared incentived” as suggested.
Line 12: "...their interest for a trustworthy evaluation system" sounds weird. I'd suggest "their support for a trustworthy evaluation system."
Response: the word “interest” has been replaced by “support” as suggested.
Line 12: "...researchers urge to receive proper training..." I'm not sure what "urge" means here.
Response: the verb “urge” has been replaced by “need” to avoid misunderstandings.
Line 15: I think "scholar publishing" should be "scholarly publishing."
Response: the “scholar publishing” has been replaced by “scholarly publishing” as suggested.
Line 55: Should "researcher's" be "researchers'"?
Response: the word “researcher’s” has been replaced by “researchers”.
Line 236: "Part2" should be "Part 2"
Response: A space between “Part” and “2” has been added.
Line 289: Need "it" before "is hard to..."
Response: the word “it” has been added.
There are probably some other issues as well, but these are the ones I highlighted on my read through. I'd suggest a detailed style and grammar check before finalizing the paper.
Response: Minor corrections to the text have been done.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
First of all, I would like to congratulate the authors on their study. They have presented a correct approach to the topic and have chosen a good area of interest. This is an area, the medical one, which its members are supposed to publish academic articles and also read them.
The study and its methodology seem to me to be correct for a first approach although, as they themselves indicate, it is a very limited sample.
An important data in this study would be to know if the interviewed subjects publish scientific papers or not, participate in research groups or make use of information from scientific papers. I understand that if none of this occurs, the contributions and responses of the sample are not relevant to the study.
On the other hand, and in reference to the results presentation, I would invite the authors to facilitate the understanding of the data in their tables. Although response rates are important, it is just as important to know the question. Therefore, I would ask them to replace Q1, Q2... with the specific question or an understandable reduction of it. In this way, the reader will be able to improve his or her understanding of the subject.
Reviewer 2 Report
L1. "During the last [several?] years..."
L6. "...researchers' attitudes..."
L19. Two articles are missing from this sentence: "the European Commission", and "competitive at the global level"
L42. Delete 'initiative'
L45. "National Health Institutes" should read National Institutes of Health
L52. "eliminate negative behaviours..." Such as? Supply a few examples.
L57. "However, more acceleration would be possible had FAIR principles been more broadly implemented"
L60. "[Open Peer Review] often represents an umbrella term..." On the contrary, OPR doesn't represent an umbrella term, it is such a term.
L64. bringing
L75. "some suggest that peer review processes adopt the characteristics..."
L77. I don't see a reference to blockchain in the cited editorial. Did you mean to cite a different paper here?
L82. "...87% of authors in these..."
L92: potential
L99. Regarding "individual-related data": don't move on from this point so quickly. Investigators doing research on human subjects are responsible for protecting the integrity of personal identifiable information. Such a responsibility will always limit the extent to which some data can be shared. You might reorganize the literature review such that the discussion of these issues on lines 130-133 appears here instead.
L100. Yes, but why were they more willing than their colleagues in the health sciences? Presumably the competition pressures are similar, so what explains the greater openness of atmospheric scientists?
L128: extend
L129: aimed at
L135: Edinburgh
L140: peer-reviewed
L147: of authors, presumably?
L151: It's not clear to me what you mean by "mitigating and tackling"
L140: "a large number of studies ... demonstrate that they are..."
L176: ...in Greece
L202: I think you can delete this long introductory clause ("Specifically, as it is presented below in Figure 1/All responses") since you give the same information more succinctly in a parenthetical aside.
L206: ...difficult to implement...
L235: Do you mean to use "whereas" here? I don't see a comparison or contrast being drawn. Perhaps "in which" is a better construction since you're illustrating what an OPR process would result in ("the reviewer's identities would be revealed to authors and vice versa, and also be included in the final publication")
L240: Presumably they indicated that they are *willing* to review articles for an OPR journal, not that they would do so––a small but important distinction.
L242: positively
L252: Confusing as written. Perhaps you could just say that nursing staff are more skeptical of the PLoS process.
Figures: Please revise your figures to include the text of each question rather than the shorthand of Q1, Q2, and so forth. It's difficult to interpret your findings otherwise. Readers shouldn't have to flip between figure and appendix to decipher what Q1 means, and so forth.
L260: A full analysis and discussion of the results follows.
L264: I wish you had asked survey respondents to supply a rationale for their choices. I can infer, from past reading, the reasons your respondents oppose "the exploitation of their data by third parties," but I shouldn't have to make educated guesses. Better to have a concrete sense of respondent objections. Are they afraid of getting scooped? Of having their work misinterpreted or used in untoward ways? Do they have a principled objection to someone profiting from work that was done, at least in part, for humanitarian purposes? We're not given such information and so can draw only limited conclusions, which in turn limits the kinds of interventions we can make to change researcher attitudes or behaviors.
L271-273: Doesn't this question conflate two separate and distinct variables? Training, that is knowledge and awareness of data sharing procedures, is not the same thing as support, which could be construed as recognition or reward (or requirement, in the case of journals that mandate publication of underlying data). I think this constitutes a limitation of your study. We cannot say with much confidence what, precisely, prevents respondents from sharing their data.
L273: "limited awareness of the available repositories or data preparation standards" Again, this seems like a useful question to have included in your survey. Given a list of such repositories or standards, how many would respondents recognize? Furthermore, how did they learn about them, or to which sources do they turn for information on these subjects? These might be directions for future inquiries.
L282. "the majority of the respondents appear to consider peer review mainly as a process of validation..." As opposed to what? Is peer review not mainly a process of validation/evaluation/self-regulation?
L291. "the target group of the survey is limited to the Greek medical community..." To what extent, if any, does this identity influence your results? In other words, is there something about one's Greekness, or about clinical work in Greece, that would lead respondents to answer your questions differently than if they were physicians in some other part of Europe?
L301: "...they are opposed..."
L303-4: "...mostly related to the competition for career progression or/and the inside knowledge for inconsistencies at the research methodology..." True, these are the findings of Stieglitz and Fecher et al. Do you know for certain that they hold true for your respondents ? If so, how do you know this? I don't see that you asked such a question in your survey. Here, you seem to have transposed the attitudes of another population onto your own rather than asking your respondents to supply their reasons for opposing data sharing. We know only that many of them do oppose it, but not why. I see this same uncertainty in line 305, in your use of the hedging phrase "may also be".
L347: In the United States "exploitation" has strongly negative connotations that could affect the answers that people provide. Is that a concern here? In other words, would your respondents have answered this question differently had you not used this word?
L410. Broken link. Please check all the links in your references to make sure they are correct and working
Reviewer 3 Report
See the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
