Kovscek

During a recent teleconference attended by the Executive Editors of the various SPE journals and SPE journals staff, we discussed the value of peer-reviewed publications vs. papers published as meetings proceedings. More precisely, we talked about how to raise the profile of peer review among the SPE membership. If you are reading the Executive Summary of the SPE Journal, there is a good chance that you already attach some value to the process of peer review, peer comments, and revision (and more revision) that ultimately results in a positive or negative decision to publish a paper.

There are accounts of scientific peer review dating to 1665, but stringent external peer review of scientific papers appears to have risen during the mid-20th century. Previously, journal editors had greater latitude to select papers for publication. Notably, Albert Einstein published five papers in 1905 in the journal Annalen der Physik with topics ranging from special relativity to the photoelectric effect that resulted in a Nobel Prize. Einstein's work was not reviewed by anyone except for the journal’s editor and its coeditor, who clearly had an eye for quality scientific work. By the mid 1940s, however, journals such as Science and the Journal of the American Medical Association routinely used peer review as a method to vet manuscripts before publication.

Thus, given the relatively long history of engineering and scientific publication, comprehensive peer review is comparatively a recent practice, but has gained great significance as a means of establishing standards of quality. The intent of peer review is not fully agreed upon by practitioners. In my opinion, the object of peer review is to ensure that published work is novel, a substantial addition to the literature, and on a topic that is of current interest to readers. Peer review is helpful to identify and improve shortcomings in research methods, results, and writing, given the fresh perspective of reviewers. Peer review, however much we wish it to be so, is not a guarantee that the work and interpretations are absolutely correct. Review even continues after publication as others read, potentially reproduce, and comment on the work. In fact, post-publication assessments may provide some of the most valuable and critical reviews.

For those of us in academia, our interest in peer review seems clear in that the quality and number of peer-reviewed publications is used as a measure to evaluate career progress. Citations by other authors to our peer-reviewed work are equally as important. For individual authors in industry, the value of peer review, over and above a paper prepared for the proceedings of a meeting, is perhaps less clear. A main benefit may be the critical feedback provided by reviewers that is accompanied by reading with a fresh set of eyes and different biases. Such critical feedback and suggestions for refinement may ultimately improve the work. Peer review and acceptance may provide external validation of methodologies and results. Thus, addressing the criticisms of reviewers may produce better outcomes for the industry authors' specific projects.

For energy companies and industry as a whole, there is significant value to peer review and publication that has probably gone underrecognized. In this time of increased scrutiny of industry practices--hydraulic fracturing is an example--a peer-reviewed body of knowledge in the public domain provides a backstop of credibility. Many scientific and engineering assessments by governmental and other organizations put great weight on reviewed literature. Active peer review demonstrates that our profession self-regulates its knowledge base and has a methodology for making best practices known widely. Evolution of understanding of a problem and improved practices can be pointed to in the peer-reviewed literature. Publications, and results therein, that have not been peer reviewed are understandably regarded with some skepticism, because review helps to remove false interpretations and claims, conjecture, and undue commerciality.

For my own part, I counsel students conducting independent research or coursework to be skeptical of everything that they read. In this time of unprecedented access to information through the internet and comprehensive search engines, much information and opinion is available readily. Filtering search results to look for peer-reviewed manuscripts and reports aids in finding credible sources. Cross-referencing of such credible sources also helps one to find the debates and the larger scientific community’s opinion about an individual manuscript so that results and methodologies are not taken out of context.

For those interested in more analysis and commentary, Nature offers an online forum devoted to the conduct of peer review, the way that it is put into practice, and the debate over value added.