Peer review in the internet age: 5 alternatives

Gerry McKiernan Presents 5 alternative models for the classical peer review system:

1. Open Peer Review (let authors know the identity of reviewers)
2. Commentary-Based review (two-stage procedure where the first review phase is open)
3. Community Based review (all submisions accepted with minimal review in a standard tier and only a few with full peer review in the upper tier)
4. Usage-based review (a metric that uses access statistics as an indicator of significance)
5. Citation-based (Citebase & Web Citation Index)

The article ends with the following lines;

As observed by Harnad, “the Net …[not only] offers the possibility of implementing peer review more efficiently and equitably …,” but more significantly, provides a “real revolutionary dimension” with such features as “open peer commentary on published and ongoing work.” In addition, the Net provides “room … for unrefereed discussion too, [notably] in high-level discussion forums ….” Such enhancements to conventional peer review need not, however, be limited to features that some may view as simple extensions of the traditional model. In addition to ‘ideal’ conversations, metrics such as access statistics, as well as citing and linking, can also offer impartial indicators of valid and significant scholarship in all its forms, at any and all stages.

Open Access, downloads (‘hits’) & citation impact: a bibliography

The Open Citation Project (Opcit) maintains a bibliography on the effects of downloads on citation impacts. The general assumption is that papers which are distributed in open archives before final publishing as articles in journals, have a positive effect on the amount of citations (Times Cited) for the final article when published in a journal. This bibliography is very useful because it puts together the most relevant and new papers and reports on the topic. I have put a a spy on that site to make sure I stay in touch with this bibiography.