We need a system that allows the inclusion of far more ways of being reviewed, and of conducting review, before, during, and after publication, however we may define that activity.

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

We need foxes who review multiple aspects of papers, but recruiting more hedgehogs to apply a single specialty focus can fill out our corpus of open peer review comments, assuming that they don’t all have the same specialty. This could happen in closed peer-review systems as well as open peer-review systems, but it seems like it could happen faster... 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

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

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.

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.

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.

Typical journal peer-reviewer notes are often expected to include several discrete Category 2 Reviews that build up into an overall Category 1 Review. A reviewer may discuss particular aspects of a paper (literature review, methodology, findings), but then offer a more holistic overall summary ( this paper represents an important new finding in the... See more