At 10:24 AM 7/10/98 -0700, Robin Hanson wrote:
>The July 3 '98 Science on p.7 mentions a proposal by several
>university provosts to "separate a paper's peer review from its
>publication, so that once `certified' the work could be published
>in a spearate step - even on one's own web server. ... The proposal
>cals for learned societies to form review panels that would certify
>a paper as publishable ... such certifications and old-fashioned
>publications would carry the same imprimatur in tenure decisions"
>See: http://www.econ.rochester.edu/Faculty/Phelps_paper.html
>
The real key is determining what constitutes "peers." This is hardly a new
problem. It is hardly news to learn that some "academic" journals seem to
serve little reason other than to permit a group of friends to publish each
others work in order to ensure they have been "published." The criteria
used to determine whether a journal "counts" can get awfully ideological.
To the degree that peer review is taken seriously, this might help reduce
the power of a tiny collection of gatekeepers.
George L. O'Brien
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Received on Sat Jul 11 00:20:09 1998
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