Akbar Nikkhah1*, Masoud Alimirzaei2
1Chief Highly Distinguished Professor and Scientist, National Elites Foundation, Iran
2Behroozi Dairy Co., Tehran, Iran
*Correspondence author: Akbar Nikkhah, Chief Highly Distinguished Professor and Scientist, National Elites Foundation, Iran; Email: [email protected]
Published Date: 16-10-2023
Copyright© 2023 by Nikkhah A, et al. All rights reserved. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Editorial
The objective of this article was to discuss the potential bias in arbitration of unknown researchers’ scientific work in reputable journals. Publishing an article in a quality international journal is a dream that global graduate students would have. Some institutions would oblige graduate students to publish at least one article in an impactful journal before they can graduate. However, students’ efforts might lead to failure and make them disappointed. The lack of inadequacy of experience in writing scientific papers despite conducting quality research may be a sound reason for failure in timely publication. In addition, however, a major bias in arbitrating unknown authors’ science may be another reason for rejection. The second reason or challenge requires profound contemplation to be overcome. The global science is integrated and thus should be adjudicated in a fair and unbiased global scale regardless of authors’ names and institutions. To conclude, the novel content of a scientific work and not the authors’ or institutions’ reputation, must be of original importance in accepting scientific articles. Education will play pivotal roles in minimizing bias in global science arbitration.
Keywords: Article; Arbitration; Referee; Science; Industry
In this article, we aimed to discuss the possible bias that may occur against new researchers in arbitrating their scientific articles for publication in quality journals. It is known that establishing an integrated international education system is a necessity for modern human life to realize an advancing improvement [1]. The global economy can be empowered by an integrated education system across the world [2]. Such integrated education systems include many aspects of science education such as learning and practicing novel scientific concepts, techniques, research methods and ultimately publishing scientific manuscripts. It is important to note that performing thesis by graduate students, mainly by doctoral mentees, is considered as a major body of research worldwide. These research experiments are assumed to work as engines that drive and advance new science. To accomplish this goal timely, the outcome of scientific research should be shared with others optimally so that it can flourish. However, in some cases, rising young and unknown authors may fail to publish their valuable findings in quality journals because of various reasons. The lack of experience in preparing optimal scientific manuscripts is one of the most common reasons. However, such a poverty can be improved by repeatedly revising articles and gaining experience over time.
We contemplate that offering positive viewpoints for articles with a potential for publication would encourage young researchers to continue their scientific direction more enthusiastically, energetically and thus, productively. Hence, quality works and valuable findings should not be ignored simply because of lack of experience in writing. Coupled with this reason, bias in arbitration of scientific articles against unknown authors or their institutions appears to be a major global challenge. It seems that articles written by unknown and beginning researchers may be scrutinized too seriously. As a result, it is more likely to find errors and deficiencies towards rejection of relatively new researchers’ manuscripts. This potential bias may be particularly seen in arbitration of new science authored by researchers from developing countries. To overcome this challenge, for instance, some unknown authors try to gain cooperation from reputable authors (even from other countries) and include big names in the authors’ list to ease publication.
The principle is that the true and unbiased judgment of any science must be mainly made based on the novel content and not the cover (e.g., authors list or institution) of its research [3]. The content of any scientific article or the nature of its findings would be more impactful than the name of authors per se towards successful publication. Blind arbitration of articles could necessarily help new researches to ensure that their articles are judged with minimal or no bias against their names or institutions. Last but not least, education and effective edification should and will continue to play irreplaceable roles in enhancing academic and industrial science arbitration towards minimizing potential bias.
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
References
- Nikkhah A. Science education of the new millennium: Mentorship arts for creative live. Creative Edu. 2011;2:341-5.
- Nikkhah A, Alimirzaei M. Strategic human resource management in commercial dairy calf raising: Mentoring and making professional managers and labors. OAJBS. 2022;4:1961-3.
- Nikkhah A. Jude by the content not the over: A pragmatic publication philosophy. Trends in Scholarly Publishing. 2022;1(1):25.
Article Type
Review Article
Publication History
Received Date: 12-09-2023
Accepted Date: 26-09-2023
Published Date: 04-10-2023
Copyright© 2023 by Nikkhah A, et al. All rights reserved. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Nikkhah A, et al. Bias in
Science Arbitration: An Authorship
Viewpoint. J Clin Immunol
Microbiol. 2023;4(3):1-2.
| Action | Completed |
| Working surfaces |
|
1 | Is the working surface uncluttered and does it contain only items requested for your specific activity? |
|
2 | Did you wipe the working surface with 70% sterile ethanol before to start the activity? |
|
3 | Are incubator, refrigerators, freezers and other material routinely cleaned and sterilized? |
|
4 | Are waste bins available, clean and in the right position? |
|
Table 1: Working surfaces.
| Action | Completed |
| Personal hygiene: hands and forearms |
|
1 | Do you wash the hands at the correct time? |
|
2 | Are the hands and forearms washed for at least 30 seconds with soap and water? |
|
3 | Are the hands and forearms dried using either lint-free disposable towel or an electronic hand dryer? |
|
4 | Are you using the hands cleaner according manufacturer recommendation? |
|
Personal hygiene: head covering |
| |
5 | Are the correct protective equipment weared? |
|
6 | Are the hair totally covered by the cap? |
|
7 | Are the long hair tied in the back of the head? |
|
8 | Is the beard correctly covered by the facial hair cover? |
|
9 | Are all skin, including wrists and arms covered? |
|
Table 2: Personal hygiene: hands and forearms.
| Action | Completed |
1 | Are cosmetics, artificial nails, scarves, sweates, vest, jewelry, bandanas, coats, visible piercing removed? |
|
2 | Are the gloves correctly dressed according a protocol? |
|
3 | Are the sterile gloves the last item donned? |
|
4 | Are the gloves in contact with non-sterile surface or component during the activities? |
|
Table 3: Personal dressing.
| Action | Completed |
1 | Are all sterile products within the hood taking place at least 15 cm into the hood? |
|
2 | Is the air flow working for at least 20-30 minutes before use from when the hood is turned on? |
|
3 | Are paper, pens, calculator, labels protected under the laminar flow? |
|
4 | Are all the items inside the hood outside from the air grates to avoid the regular outward of air? |
|
Table 4: Workflow manipulation within aseptic workstation.
| Action | Completed |
1 | Are you working slowly and deliberately, mindful of aseptic techniques? |
|
2 | Are the non-shedding gown with slevees fit correctly around the wrist and the neck |
|
3 | Are you replacing shoes covers, hairs and facial hair covers, face mask, eye shields, gloves with new ones before re-entering the critical areas? |
|
4 | Are the disposable gowns properly discarded after appropriate time and re-used inappropriately? |
|
Table 5: Cleanroom handling and working activity.
| Action | Completed |
1 | Are the culture agar plates stored at the correct temperature indicated by the producer? | |
2 | Are the culture agar plates with the correct expiration date? | |
3 | Are the culture agar plates the correct media as indicated by the documentation? | |
4 | Are the culture agar plates identified before their use? | |
5 | Are the culture agar plates stored at the correct temperature and humidity? | |
6 | Are the culture agar plates correctly packed and inserted in the incubator? | |
7 | Are the culture agar plates correctly eliminated after their use? |
Table 6: Culture media details.
| Action | Completed |
1 | Is the date of microbial air sampler calibration, correct? |
|
2 | Is the air sampler cleaned and disinfected according the SOP? |
|
3 | Is the aspiration chamber cover of the sampler sterilised? |
|
4 | Is the volume of aspirated air of the sampler correctly programmed? |
|
5 | Is the culture plate correctly inserted in the aspiration chamber of the sampler? |
|
6 | Is the culture plate lid on a sterile surface during sampling time? |
|
7 | Is the culture plate correctly recovered from the aspiration chamber avoiding possible contamination? |
|
8 | Are the culture plates transferred to the laboratory at the correct temperature and time? |
|
Table 7: Microbial air monitoring.
