This is an archive of open peer reviews written by Darling lab members.

Hosted at journal sites

Review for An evaluation of alternative methods for constructing phylogenies from whole genome sequence data: a case study with Salmonella

Review for MetaBAT, an efficient tool for accurately reconstructing single genomes from complex microbial communities

Hosted locally

  • An open peer review of NxRepair

    I was recently asked to carry out a peer review for a manuscript discussing a topic which I have previously worked & published on. The manuscript describes an algorithm to detect misassembled genome sequences, and the manuscript draft is available as a preprint on PeerJ: NxRepair: Error correction in de novo sequence assembly using Nextera mate pairs. I have to applaud the authors of the work for aggressively pursuing the path open science, not only by publishing their code and putting a preprint online, but also by choosing to work with a venue that facilitates open peer review. I’m already a fan.

  • An open peer review of BWA-MEM

    In the last two weeks I’ve noticed a lot of discussion on twitter about the failings of the private and anonymous peer review system as administered by traditional scientific journals. I am a fan of open peer review because I think the transparency has some major advantages over anonymous and private peer review (which I like to call the black hole of science): 1. readers can read the reviews and understand what aspects of the paper were reviewed and where weaknesses might be, 2. having the reviewer’s name attached creates an incentive for careful, honest work and opens the possibility that good review work can be given due credit, and 3. it makes explicit the social network of review so that it can be compared to, e.g. the social network of collaboration.