More Regarding Merit of Peer Review

Last week the New York Times had a major article devoted to web alternatives to peer review. Actually it does not describe an alternative to peer review but rather an alternative way of doing peer review via the web. The concept is not new, but by getting major coverage by the NYT, perhaps web-mediated review is starting to get some real traction.

Way back in 2004, Gerry McKiernan, Science and Technology Librarian at Iowa State University, posted a great paper suggesting internet-based peer review alternatives: "Peer Review in the Internet Age: Five Easy Pieces."

Last point for this post, here is an interesting editorial paper: "Is Peer Review Censorship?"  written by Arturo Casadevall and Ferric C. Fang that appeared in the American Society for Microbiology. As a point of emphasis to echo comments we have made previously in this blog, I note their comment that:

The current system persists despite abundant evidence of imperfections in the peer review process. Most scientists would agree that peer review improves manuscripts and prevents some errors in publication. However, although there is widespread consensus among scientists that peer review is a good thing, there are remarkably little data that the system works as intended.

Once again, why is a community so driven by evidence, so willing to cast a closed eye to the paucity of support for the practice of peer review?


Originally published on our Knowledge Management blog