TownieDeac
words are futile devices
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2011
- Messages
- 76,189
- Reaction score
- 16,923
Good post, BigTree. I'm definitely not saying we need to eliminate peer review. Not at all. I do think we need to streamline it in a few ways.
First, the editorial staffs need to be an effective line of defense. Over the last year, I've gotten a few papers that had very obvious methodological flaws that would be immediately picked up by anybody with reasonable knowledge in the field. Hire a few people to just be that line of defense and they can provide initial suggestions before the editor has to go begging people to review it. I like reviewing to be honest. But if a journal I don't usually review for sends me very suspect work, I may not be willing to review for them again.
Second, your enthusiasm for reviewing gets to what I'd like to see. Instead of editors trying to hunt down experts, journals should just put submissions online and let potential reviewers select what they want to review. There would be some level of screening of course and editors can decide if they want to accept reviews with potential conflicts of interest. Of course, I've reviewed papers written by people I know and vice versa, so I don't think it's that big a deal except in some cases.
I submitted an article for a special edition of an prominent education journal back in October. We were expecting a decision by February at the latest. Mid-Feb, I got an email from the editors saying they'd have reviews in in early March. Heard nothing in March. Heard nothing by the national conference in April. I emailed the editors again and one responded that they've had a tough time getting reviewers for the main issue and the special issue. My system avoids that issue.
I'll leave it at that. I would be in favor of far more radical changes than that, however. Townie, I assume you're in the biz. I'd like to discuss some ideas with you further. PM me if you're interested.
Not to toot the horn of my spot, but our slowest journal, in terms of turnaround time, is 6 weeks, and that journal publishes twice a month, well over 500 pages per issue. And they have to assign reviewers on the traditional system.
I think you run into problems at huge commercial journals, especially high impact/high profile journals that get just insane numbers of submissions, and try to run a lean staff to maximize profits. We're lucky in the sense that we're nonprofit and disseminating good science fast is in the mission.
Feel free to PM!