Ecolog:
It's interesting to see the flurry of reviews of this idea. Maybe there
should be a grant granted to study the peer review system itself? Or the
publication phenomenon itself?
It seems to me that any well-seasoned intellectual discipline like ecology
(well, maybe it's not PERFECT, but as long as it's improving rather than
degenerating or declining, it's good enough for me) should be able to find a
way to get the word out and get feedback that does not depend upon a
patched-up, broken edifice from the past.
What's really involved here? There's a phenomenon out there somewhere that
we don't fully understand--and, perhaps more importantly, that we believe we
understand but don't. No wonder, it's elusive, ever-changing, and been in
business far longer than we have been trying to figure it out.
When it comes to publication, space is (or was) quite limited. Editors
needed help separating the sheep from the goats, and where else would they
turn but to people other than the author who knew enough about the subject
to expose those who were less than competent and possessed of enough
intellectual grace to become excited about new ideas or research that
advanced our understanding. In those days everybody in the field pretty much
knew everybody else, and there was a kind of critical camaraderie mixed with
pride and envy, pyramid-climbing and serious shoot-outs. But mostly, the
good stuff ended up on clay paper and the mediocre stuff consigned to the
dust bin--along, perhaps, with an occasional piece that was too far out of
the mainstream to be understood.
Then the "grant" system reared its ugly head, enrichening the masters of
convolution rather than complexity, and steering the direction of research
off the basic stuff in the direction of fads. (I think this assertion could
be the subject of research by some social scientist; I believe that a
sampling of research proposals and grants for a few indicator terms would
quickly confirm or refute the idea. We could all toss a few bucks into a
grant-hat to lure proposals, which would need to be reviewed by a qualified
group of people with no stake in the outcome.)
My own bias (which changes a little all the time) is that researchers and
thinkers should start at places like Ecolog, then move to a blog, then on to
a more widely-read publication where "peers" could write reviews--and yes,
have their reviews reviewed. Both the sheep and the goats would have to run
the same gauntlet, and those casting stones would run the risk of them
boomeranging. Lousy reviews would not be cited or even read. Good ones would
be cited, as would the papers, for better or for worse.
Of course this sort of thing is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!
WT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeremy Fox" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 7:01 AM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] fixing peer review - elegant new proposal and petition
The peer review system is breaking down and will soon be in crisis:
increasing numbers of submitted manuscripts mean that demand for reviews
is
outstripping supply. This is a classic "tragedy of the commons," in which
individuals have every incentive to exploit the "reviewer commons" by
submitting manuscripts, but little or no incentive to contribute reviews.
The result is a system increasingly dominated by "cheats" (individuals who
submit papers without doing proportionate reviewing), with increasingly
random and potentially biased results as more and more manuscripts are
rejected without external review.
In the latest issue of the ESA Bulletin (July 2010, v. 91, p. 325), Owen
Petchey and I propose a classic solution to this classic tragedy:
privatizing the commons. Specifically, we propose that instead of being
free
to exploit the reviewer commons at will, authors should have to "pay" for
their submissions using a novel "currency" called PubCreds, earned by
performing reviews. We discuss how this simple, powerful idea could be
implemented in practice, and describe its advantages over previously
proposed solutions.
The article is available at
<http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/0012-9623-91.3.325>.
Owen and I are very serious about wanting to see this idea, or a suitable
alternative, implemented. We have set up a petition at
<http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fix-peer-review/>. Please sign if you
support this idea, at least enough to want to see it further discussed.
The
petition site also has a link to the article, and a blog where we'll be
updating on progress of the idea and responding to comments.
PubCreds are already set to be discussed by the ESA Publications
Committee,
and by numerous other ecology journals. If you're as frustrated as Owen
and
I by the recent deterioration of the peer review process, now's the time
to
speak up and take action. Please sign the petition, and pass it on to your
colleagues and students.
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