[WEB4LIB] Online peer-review publishing and post-peer review publishing

[Dobbs, Aaron]

While I like the modification of the tenure process "...the goal with
post-peer review publishing would be to reach consensus on a stated problem
or issue and reward, not just the author(s), but also the reviewers who can
act as content contributors." idea, I feel that reaching consensus on a
given issue may perhaps not neccesarily be the goal of the research process.
Research seems more a wide ranging discussion of the issues at hand with all
theories debatable and open for honest consideration, even the untenable
pie-in-the-sky-not-a-chance-in-heck cranks can occasionally spark an idea.  

For the discussion board type approach (which seems to be what is described)
to work there would likely need to be a moderation system and a
meta-moderation system (and perhaps a meta-meta-moderation system) and would
also require a non-self-serving ethos among the participants.  And, of
course, who would moderate the meta- (and the meta-meta-) moderators? :)

-Aaron
:-)'

Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi
krimpatul.



-----Original Message-----
From: D.H. Mattison [mailto:dmattison at shaw.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 12:42 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Online peer-review publishing and post-peer review
publishing


It's not a problem with online peer-reviewed publications because they 
don't have the hardcopy timelag (typesetting/layout, printing, binding, 
mailing). You could also do post-peer review publishing with a wiki-type 
system where continuous, open feedback is the norm. Of course this doesn't 
quite mesh with aspects of the tenure system as I understand it (publish or 
perish), but given that there're movements afoot to restructure the entire 
scholarly publishing system, what's wrong with post-peer review publishing 
as a process or additional type of scholarly publishing? If you forget or 
modify the tenure system to accommodate such a process, the goal with 
post-peer review publishing would be to reach consensus on a stated problem 
or issue and reward, not just the author(s), but also the reviewers who can 
act as content contributors.

Well, ok, Rome wasn't built in a day ....

David Mattison
dmattison at shaw.ca