Original title: A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review
Peer reviewA process in which researchers assess other researchers’ work. is when researchers assess other researchers’ work before it is accepted or published. The paper compares new approaches, including social Web platforms, with three needs: checking quality, encouraging participation, and building trust through certificationA formal signal that work or a researcher has met a standard. and reputation. It proposes a hybrid platform that could address some problems in current peer review. But the platform would need broad community participation, which may require changing researchers’ incentives.
Imagine a neighborhood trying a new way to decide which repair jobs are done well. People can rate the work, earn trust, and see who has a good record, but the system struggles if only a few neighbors take part. In this paper, the neighborhood’s ratings and trust stand for the features of a new review platform, and participation is what could let it work at scale.
Peer review helps decide which research earns trust, but it can be biased, unreliable, and miss fraudulent work. Researchers and readers could benefit from new systems, yet those systems need enough people to take part—and research environments may need to change their incentives.
The abstract describes a comparison of emerging models and proposes a hybrid platform, but it does not report a test showing that the platform works or outperforms existing systems. It says the platform could address issues only partially, and its success depends on broad participation and changes to research incentives.
Ask anything about this paper. Answers come from its abstract, and say so when the abstract doesn't cover your question.
A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review — Jonathan Tennant, Jonathan M. Dugan, Daniel Graziotin et al. — F1000Research — doi:10.12688/f1000research.12037.1
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.