Classification and analysis of PubPeer comments: How a web journal club is used.

PROFESSIONAL peer review; PUBLISHING; TEACHING methods; AUTHORS; JOURNAL writing; COMMUNICATION in learning & scholarship; RESEARCH methodology; FRAUD in science; ELECTRONIC publishing; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; THEMATIC analysis; SOFTWARE analytics; WORLD Wide Web; AUTHORSHIP

This study explores the use of PubPeer by the scholarly community, to understand the issues discussed in an online journal club, the disciplines most commented on, and the characteristics of the most prolific users. A sample of 39,985 posts about 24,779 publications were extracted from PubPeer in 2019 and 2020. These comments were divided into seven categories according to their degree of seriousness (Positive review, Critical review, Lack of information, Honest errors, Methodological flaws, Publishing fraud, and Manipulation). The results show that more than two‐thirds of comments are posted to report some type of misconduct, mainly about image manipulation. These comments generate most discussion and take longer to be posted. By discipline, Health Sciences and Life Sciences are the most discussed research areas. The results also reveal "super commenters," users who access the platform to systematically review publications. The study ends by discussing how various disciplines use the site for different purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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