Is Peer Review Peerless

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Is Peer Review Peerless?

• Tony Eklof
• James Joyce Library
• University College Dublin
• LIR Annual Seminar 2009

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Peer Review

• What it is
• The peer review process
• Why peer review
• Criticisms
• Peer review in the sciences
• Peer review in the humanities
• Conclusions

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The Frescoes of Domenico Ghirlandaio A Study in
High Renaissance and Early Mannerist Florence
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Journal peer review process
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Double Blind Review

• Both authors referees anonymous
• Survey shows it is preferred
• Support highest in humanities and amongst female
  authors (reduces bias)
• Causes some problems with reviewers ie comparing
  with earlier works
• At odds with the open sharing of information and
  transparency?

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Open Review

• Some researchers now post pre-publication
  versions on web to invite feedback before formal
  submission
• Increasingly readers comments and criticisms,
  particularly for open access journals, add a
  positive element to the process

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Why Peer Review?

• Quality control for scholarly information
• Weeds out fraud
• Lessens workload of Editor
• Promotes originality and academic rigour
• Mechanism for improvement of manuscripts
• Adds a human judgement element to the academic
  process

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Social Text Duke University Press
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Criticisms

• Slows up the research process
• Time consuming for reviewers
• For some manuscripts or proposals it may be
  difficult to find experts qualified to review
• Bias of reviewer
• Arbitrary, secret and subjective!
• Researchers can be frustrated by process,
  valuable time spent on lateral research

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Natures Peer Review Trial

• Open Peer Review
• 1 June-30 September 2006
• Authors of new papers submitted invited to have
  papers hosted on internet for public comment
• Papers simultaneously subjected to standard peer
  review

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Natures Open Review

• 71 out of 1,369 authors agreed to display papers
  for open comment (5)
• Healthy online traffic, but did not convert into
  significant amount of useful comment
• Some authors reluctant for fear of ideas being
  scooped
• Nature to continue to explore open review but not
  to implement system

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Peer Review in Humanities

• Applying bibliometric indicators in Arts can be
  problematical
• Very broad range of subjects
• Some esoteric and specialised
• Interdisciplinary nature
• Performing arts difficult to peer review

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Conclusion

• Peer review is a flawed, much criticised system
  of insuring academic rigour in published journal
  articles
• There is no better alternative system on offer
• System improved by open and or double blind
  review, and by training for peer reviewers

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