A History of USGS Scientific Peer Review and Approval, 1879–2019

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a bureau of the Department of the Interior, has used some form of peer review and approval since it was created in 1879. Bureau approval — once called Director's approval — has been described in USGS documents since 1900, and peer review has been written into policy since 1959.

Peer review of USGS manuscripts is meant to ensure accurate data, scientifically valid interpretations, and consideration of alternative interpretations. It is considered deliberative, because ideas and opinions pass back and forth among the people involved. Bureau approval confirms that a product is scientifically excellent, that every necessary review has been done, and that it meets USGS quality standards with the Bureau's full backing. Other federal agencies often call their equivalent clearance to publish.

Milestones in USGS peer review and approval.

Before 2006

The early years

The first peer review took the form of focused technical discussion among an author's scientific peers, or debate at national conferences over the approach and conclusions in a scientist's manuscript. Director's approval was a separate but integral part of the process.

• July 1, 1900: the reorganised Geologic Branch divided scientific and administrative control into seven divisions, each covering a subject area across the whole Survey. The historian Mary Rabbitt (1980) records that each division chief reviewed manuscripts, and none would be published without the chief's favourable recommendation.
• 1909: the USGS began a series of manuals for authors, Suggestions to Authors (STA). The first edition required every paper to reach the Director through the chief of the branch where it originated, whose recommendation counted as approval of its technical and scientific content; any part touching another branch's work — water resources and geology, say — went first to that branch's chief.

Approval by discipline

All approvals became Director's approval, but the process differed among the Survey's four major disciplines — Geology, Water, Geography and Biology. (Their administrative names changed over the years — Branch, Division, Discipline, Mission Area — so the Water Resources Division became the Water Discipline and is now the Water Mission Area.)

Final Bureau approval was not delegated to Regional Chief Scientists until the Fundamental Science Practices took effect Survey-wide in 2006.

Geologists scramble downhill to document driftwood stranded by the tsunami of the magnitude 8.6 Andreanof Islands earthquake of 1957. USGS photograph by Robert Witter.

Peer review becomes policy

The USGS defines peer review — also called technical peer review, refereeing or scientific peer review — as scrutiny of work or ideas by qualified colleagues. Whatever the reorganisations, its purpose has stayed the same: in the words of the fifth edition of STA (1958), to ensure the validity of the science and the clarity of its presentation. Editions two through seven stressed review by technical and scientific staff, and the fifth edition first separated informal review from formal review:

"Such informal review often pays large dividends, and it requires comparatively little effort on the part of either author or reviewer."

Formal peer review began in the Water Resources Division on June 4, 1959, with Chief Hydrologist Luna Leopold's Water Resources Division Policy Statement No. 1:

• a supervisor arranges review by one or more qualified professionals, usually inside the Survey, sometimes outside, with the author free to suggest reviewers;
• reviewers' comments must be considered in the final draft;
• a brief, "matter of fact and dispassionate" summary of each reviewer's comments and the changes made travels with the manuscript to every administrative level;
• an author who rejects significant suggestions must explain why.

Manuscripts sent to outside journals also went through the journal's own review.

From Leopold's statement until 2006, peer review requirements stayed mostly the same across the Survey — except in the Biological Resources Division, which had no formal requirements when it joined in 1996. Review was left to science center directors (journals required their own), and few records were kept; formal requirements were drafted in 1996, but there is no record they were ever finalised.

USGS scientists explaining water monitoring in the Big Bend National Park region, Texas, September 2010. USGS photograph by Daniel Pearson.

After 2006: Fundamental Science Practices

The Fundamental Science Practices (FSP), first put in place on July 24, 2006, ended discipline-by-discipline review and approval. They govern how studies are carried out and how their results are developed, reviewed, approved and released, for every product going to the public or other federal agencies; they also cover the release of USGS-funded data and software and set quality-control standards for USGS laboratories. The rules are in USGS Survey Manual chapters SM502.3 and SM502.4.

• At least two peer reviews.
• Authors and supervisors may not review each other's work.
• At least one reviewer must come from outside the originating office.
• Qualified reviewers have the right education and expertise, no stake in the outcome, and no direct connection to the work.
• "Director's approval" became "Bureau approval", to make clear it is given on behalf of the Bureau.
• Bureau Approving Officials validate a product's scientific excellence, make sure all reviews and reconciliations are done and it fits USGS and departmental policy, and give final approval for release.

The process has stayed essentially the same since 2006.

Why it matters

Consistent practice — in how USGS science is done and how it is published — has built, and continues to build, trust in USGS products among its stakeholders and the public, and underpins the Survey's reputation for reliable, impartial Earth science.

Sources

• Kirk, K.G., Reid, C.L., and Cooper, S.C., 2020, History of U.S. Geological Survey scientific peer review and approval, 1879–2019: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2020–3050. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/fs20203050
• Its sources include Mary Rabbitt's 1980 history of the USGS; Suggestions to Authors (1st edition, 1909; 5th, 1958; 7th, 1991); the Fundamental Science Practices web pages and an in-depth USGS summary of their rationale and policies; and records gathered by Ronald E. Kirby, retired USGS Bureau Approving Official.
• The fact sheet calls the 1957 earthquake the "Andreanof Island" earthquake; it is usually named for the Andreanof Islands.
• The web version runs the fact sheet's columns together; this page follows the PDF. The PDF's page of example publication covers, which includes a copyrighted photograph, is not reproduced.
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.