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Academics' Peer Review Process Challenged by Open Review on the Web

by Matthew Zuras on August 25, 2010 at 08:30 AM

a shakespeare quarterly cover from 1988If you're a mega-dork like this Switched editor, whether a research junkie or just a pompous pedant, from time to time you absolutely love to load up on academic journals (including the Journal of Food Science, October and, obviously, The Lancet). Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that "some humanities scholars have begun to challenge the monopoly" that these journals represent, especially as the debate about the gold-standard of peer review has grown over the past couple of decades. By submitting unpublished articles to an open review process enabled by the Web, these academics hope to democratize the long, arduous and sometimes biased process of peer review.

The Shakespeare Quarterly will allegedly be the first open review humanities journal to allow comments and criticisms from the Web (although science-based arXiv has boasted an online setup for nearly 20 years). For the Quarterly's recent experiment, four preprints were posted on the site, and "a core group of experts" were asked to make comments on the essays via MediaCommons. After registering with their real names, other people were allowed to view and comment on the preprints, resulting in over 350 comments; the essays were then revised, and are set to be published in the journal next month.

This kind of process is, of course, a shock to traditional academia, which, since the mid-20th century, has relied on the peer review model, a process involving Ivory Tower elites that has sometimes suffered from favoritism and fraud. Of course, some academics -- who frequently rely on their articles to get tenure -- are wary of open review, due to the curt, nasty, misinformed and reactionary nature of most online commentary. Peer review began as a way for a group of experts to verify new information; its typical sluggishness kept out the kooks who would either mar credible research or publish their own quackery.

But don't expect to see a Facebook 'Like' button placed next to 'Lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis' anytime soon, because it seems (at least for now) that the commenters of open-review articles are largely self-selecting readers who are already interested in, and have informed views on, the subject at hand. Dan Cohen, director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, told the Times that having readers who come from other disciplines, and even outside academia, has only improved his work. "There is an ethical imperative to share information," he said. And we hope that, if open review becomes more standard, research junkies like us will only have faster access to better scholarship.

Tags: academia, academic journal, AcademicJournal, crowd sourcing, CrowdSourcing, open review, OpenReview, peer review, PeerReview, the shakespeare quarterly, TheShakespeareQuarterly, top

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