Open Peer Review Will Be A Thing

Can we enable a more deliberate process during literature reviews for researchers to leave some mark of assessment of papers that they read, if not in full, then at least of the facets that they considered for their own research? When I read a book on my Kindle, I have the option to highlight passages and make private notes. I also have the option ... See more

First, recognize that peer-review can be broken down into a number of discrete facets.

Second, enable and encourage a new style of review that focused on reviewing or assessing single facets.

Then third—or, perhaps tied for second—recognize and uncover areas where single facet reviewing is already occurring, or could easily take place, and display ... See more

Whether a paper has undergone peer-review evolves from a question with a binary yes/no answer into an invitation to understand what aspects of a paper have been reviewed, exactly.

It is deficient to think that open peer-review—with the novel twist of being made available for public consumption—must recreate the review style that takes place in traditional journals. There’s no reason that peer review must always require reviewers to assess every aspect of a paper

Once we recognize open peer-review is not structurally or inherently at war with closed peer-review, but is rather a complementary activity, we may also understand the two as existing on a spectrum of review-shaped activities. Closed peer-review is not one thing. And so neither should open peer-review recreate the imagined/conceptualized monolithic... See more

Considering the web’s tendency for moderation and review, it’s honestly a little weird we don’t already have established practices in place to more systematically enable, capture, and display open comment on research objects. Academic and scholarly content has been the outlier in many internet content dynamics (both for better and for worse) and th... See more

While breaking down peer-review to faceted assessment will strengthen ‘traditional’ peer-review, there’s no reason that ‘open’ peer-review can’t undertake this concept today.

There are readers who specialize in assessing particular facets of research papers. The best way to tap into their potential—and to improve scholarly communication at this moment—will be allowing specialists to openly comment on those single aspects of papers, rather than asking them to assess the entire work.

Open peer-review, like other aspects of web-transitioned scholarly communication, has been an outlier. Lots of experimentation may be necessary for open review and comment to become routine.