3 ms·

I put about 5% of my effort into peer review. The journals have never sent me a dime. I peer review because it is what I do: I am a scientist. My university ta

I put about 5% of my effort into peer review. The journals have never sent me a dime. I peer review because it is what I do: I am a scientist. My university takes it into account while conducting merit reviews, but whatever extra I earn through merit pay raises, is paid for by my University and NIMH grants. The journals are complaining that my donated labour won't be as valuable to them anymore, even as it becomes more valuable to the scientific community.

eyeundersand 3y ago
This is what baffled me. The claim that access restrictions are justified because they enable peer reviews is absurd given that peer review is entirely a non-profit exercise.
- red_admiral 3y ago
  Indeed. It looks to me more like some for-profit journals and other "gatekeepers" are worried that people could run academia just as well without them.
  - systems_glitch 3y ago
    mgmt sees their positions threatened.
lfmunoz4 3y ago
when you review a paper, where does your "review" go? Is your review some sort of written document? Why doesn't arXiv have a place for reviews? I.e, if I trust a reviewer and says paper is good I'm likely to go read it.
- SubiculumCode 3y ago
  When I write a review, I write several paragraphs to pages pointing out strengths and weaknesses, asking for clarification, new approaches, etc. I then send that to the editor who packages all the reviews together in the form of a letter to the authors. The authors in turn respond to that letter point by point in their own letter. Its more like email than a publication. In terms of whether reviews should be public, there are pros and cons to anonymous review. The cons are easy to see. When I read a paper I don't know whether the reviewers asked a question and gotten a response about a concern I have about the paper. Often clarifying results in response to a reviewer's inquiry can be shared in the letter but never make it into the paper. I always ask for a brief sentence describing those additional checks to be put into the paper briefly or in supplemental, but that is me. The pros of anonymous unpublished reviews are slightly more nuanced. Sometimes stupid but innocent mistakes happen, and these can be embarrassing. Part of the value of review is having the chance to have fresh eyes on it, but doing so in public view can push people to get grounded in their position as a matter of reputation. Another issue is that criticizing a paper from a well known research is a bit harder when it will be published, and especially when it isn't anonymous.
- pdonis 3y ago
  It does: other papers written in response. I think the real question is, can arxiv show me other papers that were written in response to this one?
- derbOac 3y ago
  That's a good question. Some of these academic preprint/archive sites are experimenting with "a place for reviews". There's a couple of issues (I hesitate to say "problem" but it could be seen that way): 1. How do you choose who does reviews? 2. Why should the archive service host those reviews? Currently, in general, an editor asks reviewers to review, they review, and it's part of the editorial process leading to publication. This is a sort of "gatekeeping" model, for better or worse. If you let reviews into an archive service, how do you do that? If you let everyone do it, that's fine, but then do you need arXiv etc to host those reviews? Should arXiv etc host those reviews? If you do have reviewers selected, how do you do that? I'm not saying there aren't answers to these questions, but it does get a little complicated. Pay-to-publish has its own huge problems imho for example. In general, academics don't know what to do to mark value in the absence of a "stamp of approval" from an "endorsed expert". I think that's what's underlying all of this.

eyeundersand 3y ago

This is what baffled me. The claim that access restrictions are justified because they enable peer reviews is absurd given that peer review is entirely a non-profit exercise.

red_admiral 3y ago
Indeed. It looks to me more like some for-profit journals and other "gatekeepers" are worried that people could run academia just as well without them.
- systems_glitch 3y ago
  mgmt sees their positions threatened.

lfmunoz4 3y ago

when you review a paper, where does your "review" go? Is your review some sort of written document? Why doesn't arXiv have a place for reviews? I.e, if I trust a reviewer and says paper is good I'm likely to go read it.

SubiculumCode 3y ago
When I write a review, I write several paragraphs to pages pointing out strengths and weaknesses, asking for clarification, new approaches, etc. I then send that to the editor who packages all the reviews together in the form of a letter to the authors. The authors in turn respond to that letter point by point in their own letter. Its more like email than a publication. In terms of whether reviews should be public, there are pros and cons to anonymous review. The cons are easy to see. When I read a paper I don't know whether the reviewers asked a question and gotten a response about a concern I have about the paper. Often clarifying results in response to a reviewer's inquiry can be shared in the letter but never make it into the paper. I always ask for a brief sentence describing those additional checks to be put into the paper briefly or in supplemental, but that is me. The pros of anonymous unpublished reviews are slightly more nuanced. Sometimes stupid but innocent mistakes happen, and these can be embarrassing. Part of the value of review is having the chance to have fresh eyes on it, but doing so in public view can push people to get grounded in their position as a matter of reputation. Another issue is that criticizing a paper from a well known research is a bit harder when it will be published, and especially when it isn't anonymous.
pdonis 3y ago
It does: other papers written in response. I think the real question is, can arxiv show me other papers that were written in response to this one?
derbOac 3y ago
That's a good question. Some of these academic preprint/archive sites are experimenting with "a place for reviews". There's a couple of issues (I hesitate to say "problem" but it could be seen that way): 1. How do you choose who does reviews? 2. Why should the archive service host those reviews? Currently, in general, an editor asks reviewers to review, they review, and it's part of the editorial process leading to publication. This is a sort of "gatekeeping" model, for better or worse. If you let reviews into an archive service, how do you do that? If you let everyone do it, that's fine, but then do you need arXiv etc to host those reviews? Should arXiv etc host those reviews? If you do have reviewers selected, how do you do that? I'm not saying there aren't answers to these questions, but it does get a little complicated. Pay-to-publish has its own huge problems imho for example. In general, academics don't know what to do to mark value in the absence of a "stamp of approval" from an "endorsed expert". I think that's what's underlying all of this.