Re: Token copensation, was: In the news (Georgia State)

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

Phil,

As a rule, reviewers, when they get compensated at all, receive 
far less to review a book or article for quality than a lawyer 
receives for reviewing the same work for liability.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Davis" <pmd8@cornell.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; <enrico@medialab.sissa.it>
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 4:47 PM
Subject: Token copensation, was: In the news (Georgia State)

> I'd be interested in what 'a token fee' means?  Given that 
> reviewers claim they spend hours on each article they review, 
> can a 'token fee' be considered ample remuneration of 
> reviewers' time and expertise?  In studies of social 
> psychology, one often gets better results from volunteers when 
> they are not compensated than when they are compensated badly. 
> Many medical journals publish annual lists of the reviewers as 
> a public acknowledgment of their contribution, which appears to 
> be an act of compensation (payment as prestige).
>
> I'd be very interested to know whether token compensation 
> results in better reviews in JHEP.  Is anyone aware of similar 
> reviewer compensation experiments?
>
> Philip M. Davis
> PhD Student
> Department of Communication
> 336 Kennedy Hall
> Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
> email: pmd8@cornell.edu
> phone: 607 255-4735
> https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/~pmd8/resume
>
> Ann Okerson wrote:
> > Paul and all:  With respect to (not) compensating peer reviewers, I
> > was surprised that Enrico Balli's (SISSA) message of 3/27 apparently
> > went by without comment. I'm reproducing it here and wondering what
> > reaction readers have to SISSA's plan.  Ann Okerson
> >
> > ******
> >
> > From: Enrico M. Balli <enrico@medialab.sissa.it>
> > Date: Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 8:36 PM
> > Subject: R: Rewarding reviewers
> > To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> >
> > The real value of scientific journals today is the peer-review
> > processing. Indeed, the development of the electronic archives has
> > diminished the importance of the scientific journals as conveyors of
> > information, as they are no longer the main sources of scientific
> > information. Keeping in mind these facts, SISSA started several years
> > ago JHEP, the Journal of High Energy Physics, which is now among the
> > journals with the highest impact factor in his field. We believe that
> > the main reason for this success of our journal is the high quality of
> > the peer-review process.
> >
> > Given that peer review is the most valuable asset of journals, in the
> > spirit that scientific work should be remunerated, we have decided to
> > allocate funds for this purpose and to pay a token fee for every
> > referee report beginning in 2008. We strongly feel that this new
> > practice in the policy of scientific journals is the right step on the
> > way to further improve the quality of our peer review process.
> >
> > Enrico M. Balli
> > Sissa Medialab
> > Via L. Stock 2/2, 34135 Trieste
> > T. +39-040-3787620
> > F. +39-040-3787615