It has always struck me as something of a surprise that pre-publication review of structures in protein-land differs so significantly from small molecule-land. One of the activities of the CCDC is to supply pre-release CSD structures to referees, using a simple, automated system to establish that the requestors are referees. This avoids the need for any involvement of the depositor or journal and allows a centralised record to be kept as to who saw which structures and when (although, to my knowledge, we have never needed to refer to this). In 2012, requests have averaged at about 5 a day, but the real figure is probably much higher, as some journals provide this facility themselves. The sense I get from the small-molecule community is that they (we) have a great degree of well placed trust and see real value in pre-publication review of structures, not just papers - I'm sure this is true for the overwhelming majority of the macromolecular world too.
Colin -----Original Message----- From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of herman.schreu...@sanofi.com Sent: 19 April 2012 13:54 To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Off-topic: Supplying PDB file to reviewers This is off course a valid point. A desperate graduate student faking a structure risks his or hers career and reputation, while an anonymous referee, "borrowing" someone else's results gets away without any risk of being caught. Besides making the name of the reviewer public, I see other options: 1) submit the coordinates and structure factors to the pdb to get a priority date as has been suggested before. Many journals require anyways a pdb code before acceptance of the paper. One could even publish this priority date in the paper in the footnote where the pdb code is mentioned. 2) require from referees a conflict-of-interest-statement that they, or close colleagues are not working on the same or a very similar structure. If an author gets the impression that he may have been scooped by a less-ethical referee, he could ask the journal to verify that the referees of his rejected paper were not involved in the accelerated publication. If it turns out that a referee has made a false statement this would clearly constitute fraud and a reason for repercussions. Herman -----Original Message----- From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Jobichen Chacko Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:12 PM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Off-topic: Supplying PDB file to reviewers Dear All, Here comes the problem of blind reveiw, the authors are always at the receving end to share all there data, results and now the full cordinates to an unknown person, just trusting the journal editor. Why don't the journals think about making the name of the reviewer also public. Eventhough the persons advocated giving the cordinates, there were cases of holding the paper for reveiw for few months and finally rejecting it, while a very close article appeared as accelerated publn within few weeks of rejection of the original paper. Refer to the previous discussion on fake structure. Again it depends on how close you are towards the acceptance. Also hesitation to give away your cordiantes without any guarantee of publishing it in that journal cannot be considered as a big sin, especially if someone's graduation is depend on a single paper. Jobi On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 6:34 AM, Marc Kvansakul <m.kvansa...@latrobe.edu.au> wrote: > Dear CCP4BBlers, > > I was wondering how common it is that reviewers request to have a copy > of the PDB coordinate file for the review purpose. I have just been > asked to supply this by an editor after several weeks of review, after > one of the reviewers requested a copy. > > Not having ever been asked to do this before I feel just a tad > uncomfortable about handing this over... > > Your opinions would be greatly appreciated. > > Best wishes > > Marc > > Dr. Marc Kvansakul > Laboratory Head, NHMRC CDA Fellow > Dept. of Biochemistry| La Trobe University | Bundoora Rm 218, Phys Sci > Bld 4, Kingsbury Drive, Melbourne, 3086, Australia > T: 03 9479 2263 | F: 03 9479 2467 | E: m.kvansa...@latrobe.edu.au | > LEGAL NOTICE Unless expressly stated otherwise, information contained in this message is confidential. If this message is not intended for you, please inform postmas...@ccdc.cam.ac.uk and delete the message. The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre is a company Limited by Guarantee and a Registered Charity. Registered in England No. 2155347 Registered Charity No. 800579 Registered office 12 Union Road, Cambridge CB2 1EZ.
