[65] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Peer Review and the Net
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Apr 23 13:00:10 1992
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1992 11:31:25 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: "Lee Jaffe, McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz,
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Virginia Holtz writes:
However peer review is also important to many on the output end of the
information stream including scholars, professional practitioners, those
incidentally interested in a field, laypersons etc. Some, if not all of these,
depend on the authority of a publication, and peer reviewed sources often are
considered to have greater authority.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Some of us arguing against refereeing are doing so specifically because we
think that the above is less true than it is supposed to be. For one thing
refereeing may be lending an unrealistic air of authority to some
publications. A few high-profile fraud cases involving major refereed
journals showed that this process may not be providing us with all that
great a degree of reliability or quality.
As to Virginia's analogy to shooting the horse before the gas buggy is
proven, I would offer a different version. I would say that she is suggesting
leaving the car in the garage until we are sure that dobbins is quite dead.
Instead I think that both can coexist, that experiments in new validation
processes should go hand in hand with experiments with new media. I am not
looking to uproot the old system - not immediately anyway - but am arguing
specifically that electronic journals do not need to repeat the structures
and rules of their predecessors.
-- Lee Jaffe
