Full Circle Online Interaction Blog: Open Peer Review of Scientific Articles

We're all very conservative when it comes to our life's bread. I suspect that is why it is frequently the case that old industries must be swept aside by new.

Sections: Education

Full Circle Online Interaction Blog: Open Peer Review of Scientific Articles

I'm looking forward to what is learned in this trial for Nature. I'm also looking forward for what it stimulates in the scientific community about the possibilities of openness. To move away from the publish or perish model, or to reimagine it to support cross boundary collaboration where the public good can be served, is a huge change. It would rattle down to the tiny bones of every organization. It would change donor and funding streams. It would change higher education.

I like the attitude of collaboration here. I'm just not sure it's practicable. Being inside academia, a clear issue is measurement. So much depends on getting certain kinds of counts.

Well, you might say, just count differently. The problem with that is that "differently" implies "different". Can I justify rewards that I gave based on set of counts using another set of counts? Can I give lifetime employment based on the new counts? There will be a lot of hesitancy around that because once you open debate on the basis of reward, you effectively open debate on the nature and extent of the reward itself. People who have already gained the rewards do not want that.

And it's not because people are reward grubbing or selfish necessarily. In the vast majority of cases, you're talking about people's life's bread. All of us are very conservative when it comes to life's bread.

I suspect that what will ultimately have to happen is that a new system will have to come up to replace the old. Disruptive forces like wikipedia might help with that. Can current academia be replaced by a creative commons?

Bud posted this on June 13, 2006

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