Ecolog:
I was initially inclined to agree with Shevtsov, then I got to
thinkin'--complete anonymity for reviewers provides a shroud that encourages
rudeness and back-stabbing, while the spotlight need not discourage
frankness from the very best in the field. It's high-time that mere
political correctness and other China-doll mentalities got tossed into the
dustbin, or at most reserved for the infantile. Honesty can't be mean;
misrepresentation always is. One learns from the former, and must learn to
ignore the latter. A good review should stand as strongly as a
reputation-maker as a good paper, and upon publication the author's name
also will be on the block for honest criticism by the entire field and
world. Subsequent communications (which in these broadband days all should
be published) should ferret out any sleight-of-hand.
As to Ph.D's, the more the better. Academia has been a restrictive guild for
far too long. In the Age of the Internet, despite (and in part because of)
the flood of misinformation out there, the opportunity exists for truly
advancing the quality of education in and out of academia and for raising
the standards for such appellations, discouraging their purchase and
automatic dispensing by institutions of both dubious and earned distinction.
Certificates alone are losing their powers of intimidation, and the sooner
those displaying them will have to perform accordingly, the better. The BS
component in the Ph.D. has produced inflation and devaluation, and the more
quickly it can be expelled, the sooner the actual merit of the work will
displace publicity as the standard by which real excellence (not to mention
elegance) is measured.
Independent thinkers and honest toilers are even more in need today, as the
world seems to continue to delude itself that science and other intellectual
work is nothing more than yet another buzz-phrase with which to "market" the
insubstantial--to put it politely.
No, Jane, while I understand your point and agree that if one of the two
must be bargained away to the devil, we will at least be stuck with only a
half a bowl of pottage--certainly a significant improvement over the present
mess. But after all, we all put our names on these posts, and must live with
them as long as the archives last, so why shouldn't those of reviewers be
revealed? Those of the authors will be upon publication, but if a too-eager
author is discouraged by a good reviewer from making a fool of him/herself,
that would be the noblest possible use of and for the peer review process,
would it not? I suspect that such a policy and process would quickly improve
the quality of submissions. Time was, citations were more important than
publications lists, no?
Looking forward to The Reformation in any form, I remain,
Yr. Ob't. Sv't.,
WT
PS: Has anyone asked the reviewers (anonymously, of course) just why they do
and don't do reviews? Both the anecdotes and their analysis might be
revealing.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jane Shevtsov" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] fixing peer review - elegant new proposal and
petition - ideas
I am strongly in favor of #2 rather than #1. Full disclosure will tend
to make reviewers nicer, but this is not always a good thing. I
believe that complete anonymity is the way to go.
Jane Shevtsov
On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Aaron T. Dossey <[email protected]>
wrote:
These are some good ideas - we DEFINITELY need more INDEPENDENT research
jobs in science - this is a HUGE problem. I would start there before
deciding to reduce the number of PhD's earned. The problems science solves
will not go away, in general, so we will always need more independent
thinkers employed to solve them.
A couple of ideas for peer review:
1) make the reviewers names available: ie: not anonymous.
2) make the author(s) names anonymous. Too many papers get published and
grants get funded because of WHO is on the author/PI line rather than the
content of those documents.
Aaron T. Dossey, Ph.D.
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
(Candan Soykan) wrote:
I believe that the problem is much broader than individuals "cheating"
the
peer review system. Rather, why has the number of manuscripts increased
so
dramatically? Many bemoan the increasing quantity and decreasing quality
of
papers these days, and yet few are willing to discuss the root cause -
competition for jobs/grants. So long as there are too many individuals
vying for too few jobs/research dollars, the incentive will be to publish
often, even if the quality of the work is low (i.e., satisfy the search
committees and reviewers who value quantity over quality).
There are several ways to address this issue (and I doubt that my list is
exhaustive):
1) Increase the number of jobs/grants for ecologists;
2) Decrease the number of ecologist we train so as not to exceed the
number
of jobs/grants that are available;
or
3) Change the way we evaluate candidates to better reflect the quality of
the work they have done, rather then just reward output per se.
In my opinion, option #1 is largely out of the hands of researchers;
moreover, if the amount of funding did increase, there is always the risk
that the number of ecologist we train would as well, leading to no net
gain.
I have seen certain individuals refrain from taking students, fulfilling
the second option above, but getting a whole community of ecologists to
do
it seems problematic (who would decide how many students each researcher
can
train?). The third option seems the most realistic, but will require a
shift in the way we evaluate research productivity. Moreover, it brings
with it risks as well - counting pubs is, at the very least, objective,
whereas who is to evaluate the quality of the work done by an applicant?
I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on this issue ...
Candan Soykan
[email protected]
--
-------------
Jane Shevtsov
Ecology Ph.D. candidate, University of Georgia
co-founder, <www.worldbeyondborders.org>
Check out my blog, <http://perceivingwholes.blogspot.com>Perceiving Wholes
"The whole person must have both the humility to nurture the
Earth and the pride to go to Mars." --Wyn Wachhorst, The Dream
of Spaceflight
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