I've seen, heard about and personally experienced a lot of BS under the current review system. Indeed, I just served as a reviewer for a paper that took on a theory developed by two members of the old boys network in the communication field. Despite the fact that it was a very good paper, and received thumbs up from two reviewers, it was rejected because it got thumbs down from the other two reviewers, both of whom were clearly the old boys whose theory was being skewered. But would your system change that? Under your system, these two old boys would simply have to sick all of their rabid former advisees on the poor author, drive his ratings into the ground, and then claim that the masses had spoken. There might be other reasons to promote your system, but avoiding the effects of the old boy network isn't one of them as far as I can tell. --Christian Nelson On Apr 25, 2007, at 12:54 PM, James Whyte wrote:
Keep in mind that this is pure speculation!
What you suggest is a possibility. Consider this, articles would perculate up based on a combined rating. Less scholarly articles would move downward.
In dealing with young scholars I have seen good ideas get totally rejected based on criteria other than the idea. Badly presented ideas can be generative for research. It could also provide learning opportunities that a rejection letter doesn't give.
Disc-drive space is very cheap.
Of course a system like this presents a level playing field and may challenge the meritocracy of tradition systems. i.e the old boy system may take offense.
James Christian Nelson <xianknelson@mac.com> wrote: Interesting idea, but where would editing fit into the process? Do raw manuscripts get rated, then edited, and then posted to the official journal?
On Apr 25, 2007, at 10:34 AM, James Whyte wrote:
The issue of peer review could be eliminated by peer rating (all readers)
James
John Postill 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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