[jox] Identity of reviewers
- From: Mathieu ONeil <mathieu.oneil anu.edu.au>
- Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:41:03 +0200
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Hi all
While we are mulling the latest additions to the licence debate (BTW an interest in using CC rather than some other more intense licence is that it is good to spread and legitimise an already-known alternative to (c) rather than splintering) I humbly require input on another issue: do we identify reviewers upon publication?
I had an exchange about the review process with one of the reviewers for the Andersson / Swedish file-sharing paper a few months back and I said I'd raise it on-list in due course. I'm not proposing to revisit the whole submission / openness issue _right now_ - though its a debate we need to have, of course.
Below is some stuff about posting reviews for other reviewers to see during the process. Since we were trying to go fast that did not happen. There is other stuff about the review process which we can come back to _after the launch_.
The _immediate_ concern is: my correspondent raised the issue of whether there is any benefit in publishing reviews which normally would have been intended to fix an earlier iteration.
So do we publish reviews? Do we identify reviewers? Or do we just indicate who reviewed, without publishing the review? Or stay anon?
cheers,
Mathieu
[mathieu:]
Re yourr point about posting to the site, that would
be the plan but there are unresolved issues regarding
the anonymity of the process as well as who gets to see
the reviews - should it be only the author at first for example?
[correspondent:]
I think if the reviewer knows the author, then it's only fair
when author
also knows the reviewer. So in this sense, I don't see a
anonymity issue.
Also, it's interesting for one reviewer to see what the other
has written.
Generally, I would make this available only to the author, and,
perhaps,
the board of editors and/or the scientific committee. Since the
reviews
point out problems with the text that will hopefully be
addressed before
publishing, there is little interest to make the reviewer
comments
available to the public along side the final version of the text.
It's also easier administrationally, so you don't have to handle
the
reviews, rather the author could be informed that they are now
available
online.
[mathieu:]
A problem with this is that the author may ultimately choose not to
publish their texts - in that case releasing the review early on may
compromise that right.
[correspondent:]
As I said, I would not release the reviews publicly. Just post them on the
website, along with the submitted text, in the same private mode. So, only
the author and the reviewer get access to it. The author can still choose
not to publish it.
[mathieu:]
Another issue is that de-anonymising reviewers may affect frank
and fearless reviewing.
[correspondent:]
I see, but still, find it a bit strange to have one-way anonymity. But
that's a fair point to discuss. No urgency.
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