In addition to those who "do not have time built in to their position for
conducting outside reviews" there are those of us without any positions
whostill feel an obligation to continue reviewing - specifically those of us
who are retired. Most of my fellow retirees remain active in the field
although we do not publish as much (after all we have no funding for
research) and I have no objection to our being paid for any professional
services rendered.
As for being biassed by the source of payment, that seems unlikely. If an
institution pays me to review the work of one of their employees I do not
see how being less than honest serves them well.
In general I think that more attention needs to be paid to enabling
scientists wthout adequate funding to play an active role - not just
retirees, but the unemployed and those from poor institutions. I think that
the Canadian Society for Theoretical Biology was one of the first to offer
cheap or even free memberships to third-world countries (I was Treasurer at
the time, and we were really an international society despite the name), but
this has become fairly common. However when I request reduced registration
fees at conferences the request is usually greeted with surprise, even
though it is granted abut half the time.
Many societies offer travel grants to students, and while I agree that
helping young people start out on their careers is a great idea, I do wish
that there were some support available for others without funding to attend
conferences and integrate with the scientific community (a few groups do
offer travel grants to scientists from developing countries, which is an
excellent policy).
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Hudgens" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 7:46 PM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] likely phishing attempt targeting academics
The second question is whether it is appropriate to pay reviewers.
We typically think of reviews as a volunteer activity, and many ecologists
do not have time built in to their position for conducting outside
reviews.
Using payment as a way to encourage timely, thoughtful and well written
reviews does have some appeal, especially as a way to encourage outside
peer
reviews of technical reports and similar publications that have great
influence over the management of our natural resources. On the other
hand,
especially if the author, the author's institution or clients are paying
for
a review, there is always at least the appearance that the review process
depends on something other than the quality of the work being reviewed.
