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Confidentiality of Material Being Reviewed
Having been asked to review an article for a journal, you give a copy of it to one of your graduate students, asking her to read it and prepare a 1-page written critique. She later gives you a page of comments and also discusses the paper with you in detail during an hour-long meeting. After reading the article yourself, you use the graduate student's written and verbal comments as part of the basis for your review. You later learn that the graduate student kept a copy of the article in her files. Was any of this inappropriate? C4L says: Permission to do so should probably be obtained from the journal prior to sharing the document with the student. If the student provided substantial input, he or she might be also be listed as a reviewer, which would be advantageous to the student. K5R says: Most journals have policies against circulation of unpublished manuscripts. Therefore, making extra copies for graduate students is probably inappropriate, as is the graduate student keeping a copy. However, I think it is entirely appropriate for an advisor to allow a mature grad student, post-doc or another close colleague to simultaneously review a manuscript, discuss it, and to incorporate some of those comments into an editorial review. Such a procedure only enhances the accuracy, fairness and thoughtfulness of the review process.
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