However, you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. One of the benefits of the peer-review system is that many (if not most) articles that go through this process are improved thanks to thoughtful comments and suggestions from reviewers. While the current system may not be perfect, and your mileage will vary from journal to journal and editor to editor, we should recognize its strengths and think of alternate ways that can maintain those. Jose Zagal James Whyte wrote:
The issue of peer review could be eliminated by peer rating (all readers)
James
John Postill <jpostill@usa.net> wrote: ------ Original Message ------ Received: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 09:54:32 AM BST From: "John Postill" To: "Maximilian C. Forte" ,
Subject: [Medianthro] Trouble with journals
Max Forte wrote:
I am also a very passionate proponent of open access publishing, and in that
vein I am the
editor of a specialized, peer reviewed journal titled, KACIKE: The Journal
of Caribbean
Amerindian History and Anthropology (at www.kacike.org), which has
encountered absolutely
*none* of the problems that opponents of open access journals normally
list.
I'm glad Max has brought up the subject of journals as I've been discussing this issue with colleagues recently and it seems to me (and others) that something's seriously wrong with how the system works. I've experienced firsthand and heard stories of journal submissions where one is kept waiting anything between 12 and 24 months before hearing any substantial news, and that's after having chased this up with the journal a number of times. At the same time, authors are not allowed to submit the same piece to another journal, so often at the end of a very long wait a rejection comes and they're back to square one having wasted precious months.
It's clear that people are busy and that peer reviews take time, but should we really have to wait 12-15 months, or even longer, for a response? Perhaps journals should commit themselves to a reasonable waiting period (say, max 4 months) and publish figures of the time it takes them on average to get back to prospective contributors? Or perhaps contributors themselves should publish or circulate these figures in the public domain?
Any thoughts on this?
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