[jox] Review process (was: Re: Topic style and/or issue style)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:30:13 +0200
Hi Mathieu, StefanMz, all!
5 days ago Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
First, what would be gained by an open review process (which Michel
seems to be pushing for but you declare to not work so well with
texts) in relation to a traditional peer review model? This is a
genuine question. The good thing about a traditional review process
is that it is a focused exercise: the reviewers know they have to
produce a review by a certain date; otherwise they get hassled by
somebody. In an open review process I can't imagine the editor /
maintainer / whoever having any grounds to "pressure" anyone to
"improve" or "critique" a contribution. And, if no-one is
interested, it just won't happen... and things could drag on
forever. I'm all for experimenting with new forms but I also want to
make the project as good as possible. So there needs to be a
rationale. I'm also thinking of how to present the project to
possible other scientific committee members: how to define any other
process of dealing with submissions other than peer review? Perhaps
the fact that we will be discussing (as much as possible) reviews
and any other issue on this list is in and of itself quite an
innovation and a step towards peer production of research?
4 days ago Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
The question that remains is the evaluation process for the research
section: traditional blind peer review; or collective discussion on
the list; or some combination of both? This needs to be sorted out
before approaching potential additional scientific committee members
- or at least we need a working proposition. Maybe two blind reviews
which are then circulated to the list? Though then you could have
authors seeing what people are saying about them - it might not be a
problem, could in fact encourage people to be super-competent... but
it will certainly strike some researchers as a pretty radical
innovation, and not all would be prepared to do it. I'm open to it,
but also would appreciate some feedback from list members. It would
be great to have an opinion from someone who has experience with
academic publishing...?
Well, I have very little idea about academic publishing beyond what I
learned from OpenAccess but I think we should look at this for
interesting ideas.
My take for a rationale is:
* Every article is reviewed
That is not also only the articles for the academic secion but also
the activist section. Some review criteria might be different
though.
Of course a review process includes deadlines.
Reviewers for an article are determined somehow. Should they be
fixed?
* The author may use the results of the review for improvements
That way we can improve interesting stuff enough to include it.
If an author doesn't want to improve then the article looses.
* When quality constraints are met the article is included
What probably is difficult is a blind review process [1]_ because for
this we need some secrecy somewhere and especially for articles which
are already on the web somewhere it is pointless anyway.
.. [1] I.e. reviewers don't know who the author of an article is.
What are the goals for a blind review process? Is it possible to reach
these goals by an open process?
Grüße
Stefan
______________________________
http://www.oekonux.org/journal