The opacity of the PubPeer Foundation: what PubPeer’s “About” page tells us
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-06-2017-0191 |
| Published date | 09 April 2018 |
| Pages | 282-287 |
| Date | 09 April 2018 |
| Author | Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
The opacity of the PubPeer
Foundation: what PubPeer’s
“About”page tells us
Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva
Miki-cho, Japan
Abstract
Purpose –The purposeof this paper is to assessthe relative opacity of the“Abou t”pageat PubPeer,which is a
whistleblowerwebsite, primarilyof the academic literature.The site refers to itself as an online journalclub. It is
important to assess whether the PubPeer site, organization or leadership display opacity because PubPeer
attemptsto hold the authors who havepublished errors in their literatureto the high standardsof transparency.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper examined the statements of the “About”page at PubPeer to
assess the aspects of opacity. The “About”page is the face and image of an organization to the public.
Findings –In 2015, The PubPeer Foundation was created as a charitable organization to receive funding in
the USA, and at the end of 2016, the PubPeer Foundation received funding (US$ 412,000) from a philanthropic
organization, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. Several of these details were not indicated in the older
version of the “About”page at PubPeer. Other aspects of that page are opaque.
Research limitations/implications –To fully assess the opacity of PubPeer, continual monitoring is
needed. The examination of the “About”page gives a limited perspective.
Practical implications –Academics are under intense scrutiny by a vigilant anonymous and
pseudonymous community at PubPeer. Any opacity by PubPeer, as was documented here, reduces trust in its
objectives and operations. Reduced trust is at the heart of the replication crisis.
Originality/value –This paper represents the first published critical assessment of PubPeer. Science
watchdogs, which watch various science-related organizations, also need to be watched.
Keywords Brandon Stell, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Online journal club,
Opacity vs transparency
Paper type Viewpoint
The PubPeer “About”page: a lesson in opacity
The PubPeer Foundation –basedinCalifornia–owns PubPeer, an academic
whistleblowing website, science watchdog (Teixeira da Silva, 2016) and discussion online
journal club. The very little that is known about this website and its founders and owners
was revealed by Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, a Writer for Science (Couzin-Frankel, 2015a, b).
The “About”page of a company or organization, especially one of such high profile as
PubPeer, which has been able to attract US$412,000 in charitable donations from the Laura
and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF), for its operations between 2016 and 2019, reveals
surprisingly little, or leaves much information to be desired.
This short communication explores, in detail, the old PubPeer “About”page to glean
precisely how much information is missing, unclear or imprecise. A screenshot of the
PubPeer “About”page (Figure 1), taken under the fair-use agreement for post-publication
peer review (Teixeira da Silva, 2015), reveals several issues, underlined in red, and listed and
queried next:
(1) The term “nonprofit”–underlined in blue –is used three times on this page. Some
academicsmay differ on the opinion as to whetherUS$412,000 constitutesa charitable
donation,or profit, especially since preciselyhow this money will be used had not been
indicated anywhere on the PubPeer or LJAF websites. Only June 15, 2017,
when PubPeer launched PubPeer 2.0[1] (beta version), about seven months after
having received funding from the LJAF,did PubPeer state this fact clearly.This was
the public’s first broad experience in PubPeer opacity.
Online Information Review
Vol. 42 No. 2, 2018
pp. 282-287
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-06-2017-0191
Received 20 June 2017
Accepted 29 August 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
282
OIR
42,2
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