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A SpotOn Day to Celebrate Peer Review #SpotOn16

10th November 2016
 | Katy Alexander

Last Saturday, on a cold a crisp morning, SpotOn 2016 asked – what might peer review look like in 2030? With this theme in mind, scientists, policymakers, technologists and publishers came together to take part in a day packed full of fun, thoughtful and diverse sessions and workshops.  SpotOn London brings together all three SpotOn strands – policy, outreach and tools – in a single day event. Our hashtags were buzzing from the moment #SpotOnPoetry kicked off! Thanks to zeeba.tv we were able to live stream this year’s event.

https://twitter.com/SpotOnLondon/status/794833208634441728

Our guests were not sent to #SpotOnPoetry empty handed – they were each given a goody bag with ballots to cast their votes in each session and biology themed stuffed toys – fun and learning!

https://twitter.com/SpotOnLondon/status/794868525320073216

Dan Simpson and Sam Illingworth started SpotOn with a bang! Their confidence on stage and their repertoire of the works of scientific poets entertained and educated. Sam and Dan asked whether science could be a poetic way of describing the universe or is it cold and uncaring? The latter was proved to be false!

After #SpotOnPoetry came #SpotOnHistory, spearheaded by Dr Noah Moxham, a historian from St Andrews University who gave a fascinating talk about the history of peer review. It was astonishing to learn that the concept of peer review took a long time to catch on and was even dismissed by scientists such as Einstein.

During the panel debate to discuss ethical issues around peer review, it was clear that researchers were frustrated with the culture of publish or perish; equally as obvious was the desire for publishers to have a transparent and efficient review process.

We were lucky enough to have two rooms at our disposal at the Wellcome Collection for this year’s SpotOn and we certainly made good use of them! #SpotOnCreative was held in the Burroughs room and we had a wonderful set of speakers giving quick presentations about new forms of technologies that are speeding up and revolutionising the peer review process. Below, you can find the full debate filmed by audience members!

By the end of the morning, our hashtag had attracted so much attention we started to trend. Considering we were up against bonfire night – that was pretty impressive!

Many people who attended and presented at SpotOn16 were technology professionals, therefore it was only fitting to have one of our speakers, Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, join us online via a webcam.

Ivan provided some staggering statistics that evoked a strong response from the audience.

After Ivan finished a detailed live Q&A with our audience, we took a lunch break and got prepared for another panel discussion focused on preprints to celebrate the 25th anniversary of arXiv – the first preprint server for scientific papers worldwide. Our panelists answered complex questions about the legacy of arXiv and also about transparency in the movement of data from its origin to eventual publication.

In today’s world, artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer the stuff of science fiction writers, it is very much a significant part of developing technology. Robotics usually come to mind when we think of AI, but can it be used for peer review? Perhaps, more importantly – should it? The room couldn’t quite agree.

https://twitter.com/G_ruber/status/794912319339954180

To finish off a wonderful day, we had a session called #SpotOnTraining where we attempted to discuss solutions to help train and even rate peer reviewers and also debated the need for an incentive for people to review in the first place. There was certainly some friction when we asked if you can actually train someone to peer review papers well – many thought expertise in a subject trumps all.

https://twitter.com/sharmanedit/status/794937271535435776

Throughout the day we had a talented scribe working away in the auditorium corner creating an illustrated summary of the SpotOn’s most valuable lessons! What an outstanding job he did!

Just before the thanks to all involved were given, Jenna Shapiro’s SpotOn poetry competition’s winning poem was read aloud by Sam Illington, and she won a £50 Amazon gift voucher – well done Jenna!

https://twitter.com/SpotOnLondon/status/795562276283629568

Organising an event of this size can’t be done alone – BioMed Central played a pivotal role in running SpotOn16.