Dear All,

I think the problem we have here is a trade-off between rigorous
academic review and the length of time that is necessary to complete
the process. It is vital that the Journal meets the highest standards
of rigor - otherwise the impact of it will be seriously undermined. I
agree with Miguel, that having a large group of editorial board
members is key because then each will have fewer reviews to complete,
which should lead to a higher quality of review.

It appears that the idea of having "developmental" informal reviews
could act as a feeder process into the main Journal. This would be of
great use to those just starting out in academia as it would provide
feedback without the fear factor. It may also allow new ideas room to
breath. I is often the case that exciting concepts are rejected simply
because the researcher is inexperienced at putting the ideas across.
The current standard review process makes this even more difficult as
you only find out that you have described something when you get
rejected. Often feedback is rather poor and you can be left with the
feeling that if only you could talk to the reviewer the outcome would
be very different.

Is it possible that this feeder process could be accomplished using a
forum not dissimilar to Yahoo-Groups? Much of the work done by the
open-source community uses forums to discuss ideas, problems and
future work. Those with greater experience in the group guide others
with less. Could we adopt this process with perhaps an expression of
interest and an initial rough draft of a paper being posted on the
forum for others (the many) to comment on. I am sure that this would
encourage collaboration and result in a higher quality of publication.
It would also allow the community as a whole to guide future
generations of researchers.



Kind Regards,

Peter


--- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "masicilia"
<msicilia@u...> wrote:
> Dear Christian and dear all,
>
> I agree with you Christian in that something different to standard peer
> review should be done in a open research society. However, I think that
> the following points are important:
>
> 1) Peer review is old as modern techno-science, and possibly we could
> not get the journals indexed if we do not adhere to "some form" of peer
> review. Removal of peer-review would make the journal be rejected in
> some countries, e.g. in Spain. :-(
>
> 2) The view that many review the many is attracting, but what would be
> the concrete review process (the concrete steps and time frame)? The
> wikipedia is a good model (even though the information put there, at
> least in the spanish site for politics, is clearly biased) but for long-
> running reviews, not for publications that are supposed to be fixed
> after acceptance and require fast review for the attribution of
> priority in research results. So I think the model is not directly
> useful as is, but that it must be "tailored".
>
> I have some ideas about alternatives to standard process that are "more
> or less" compatible with the traditional view (so that the best of both
> worlds could be mantained):
>
> 1) Rotating and large editorial boards. Rotation can be established as
> a principle from the beginning, so that it becomes a standard of the
> journal, and it gives chances for more people to collaborate.
>
> 2) The peer-review process could be done in two fashions:
> - "Normal" peer review, but with fast, "guaranteed" turnaround.
> - "Developmental" review, in which the author submits a *draft* and it
> is reviewed informally by many. Then, from the informal review, it is
> decided o go on to submit a full-prepared manuscript. This is specially
> useful for "special issues" and also as a way for new ideas.
>
> 3) The time to review will be fixed for reviewers, and failure to meet
> the deadlines will eventually result in exclusion. That is, review
> requires a strong commitmment, and I feel that this is closer to open
> source, in which leaders are usually hard workers.
>
> I believe that the shift should be that of giving guarantees to authors
> that their submissions will be properly reviewed in a fixed, short
> time, which gives them the opportunity to sumbit quickly to other
> journal is the result is negative. I have many times suffered
> supposedly "fast" processes that end in waiting a year to obtain very
> weak reviews. This of course must be avoided by all means.
>
> All the best,
> Miguel Angel.
>
> --- In open-research-society@yahoogroups.com, "Christian Wagner"
> <christian@w...> wrote:
> > I have read with interest the various arguments on the editorial /
> > journal system and process.
> >
> > My argument, to reiterate, is to brake away from traditional views of
> > editorial boards and such.
> >
> > An open research society should, in my opinion, adopt more the
> > principles of opensource, including a peer review process where the
> > many review the many.
> >
> > Some of you may know the wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org), an online
> > encyclopedia which is entirely peer reviewed and revised, without an
> > editorial review board as an intermediary that slows down the
> > publication process. This model, and the model of slashdot.org or
> > kuro5hin.org (as mentioned earlier) would seem more appropriate to me,
> > to produce a paradigm shift.