On 4/25/07, James Whyte <whyte.james@yahoo.com> wrote:
What you suggest is a possibility. Consider this, articles would perculate up based on a combined rating. Less scholarly articles would move downward.
This was largely the model that Plastic and Kuro5hin were built on. There are certainly possibilities there. Clearly, two years to publication and distribution limited to campuses that can afford the licenses is a problem. However, sometimes friction is good. An established editor who can locate experts provides a much more informed and limited set of feedback than self-appointed arbiters. Having written for Wikipedia and in other peer-editing contexts, I know that it does not always improve clarity. I would far prefer to have the feedback of three experts than of thirty non-experts. That said, I would most prefer to have both. I think there are some interesting examples of pre-acceptance review, and post-acceptance revisions. Blogging allows for the publication of early drafts, as do other formalized venues for manuscript review. I think Douglas Rushkoff's novel, which allowed for footnoting by interested readers before publication, was a good stab in this direction. On the post-pub side, Lessig's Code 2.0 provides a neat example, as does (for those of you who have not already seen it) Kathleen Fitzpatrick's paper on Scholarly Publishing in the Age of the Internet, which aside from being a good read also provides the opportunity for post-publication comment: http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/scholarlypublishing/ (Similar approaches have shown up in lots of other web publications of scholarly work.) So, the current publication structures need to be improved, and open access publishing and pre- and post- archiving solutions should be sought out. There is nothing magical about the peer review system, and it's certainly worth finding out how other approaches work. Encouraging folks to engage in such experiments may, however, be almost as difficult as getting them to participate in medical trials--unless you are dying, there is a strong encouragement to stay with what works (if only imperfectly). - Alex -- // // This email is // [X] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais // Social Architect // http://alex.halavais.net //