Re: Blog vs. Peer Review Final Report: Lessons Learned

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btinternet.com>]

Some of those on this list may be interested in the research 
conference we are organising in London at UCL next month (June 
25th and 26th). This the third Bloomsbury conference on 
E-Publishing and E-Publications and the theme is BEYOND BOOKS AND 
JOURNALS. It has some relevance to Pippa's posting below. We are 
concerned with examining the odd fact that the traditional form 
of formal scholarly communications (monographs and in particular 
and mainly journal articles) are still much the same in spite of 
significant changes in scholarly work flows. The site is 
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/e-publishing/. Among the 
confirmed speakers are Carol Tenopir, Derek Law, Jerry Cowhig, 
Michael Mabe, David Nicholas, Toby Green, Michael Jubb, Mark 
Patterson and Liz Lyon. There is still room for new registrants.

Anthony

----- Original Message -----
From: "Pippa Smart" <pippa.smart@googlemail.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 12:54 AM
Subject: Re: Blog vs. Peer Review Final Report: Lessons Learned


> Whilst I agree that the blog-review experiment does not
> constitute a reason to change the traditional model it was an
> interesting experiment to compare the different types of
> comments. Blog reviews are being used in science publishing
> already (see "Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics" and "journal of
> interactive media in education") - but as a complement to
> traditional review rather than as a substitute. However I don't
> know if they have been "scientifically" tested to guage their
> usefulness and quality. Does anyone know of any trials of this?
>
> In the experiment by Noah Wardrip-Fruin there were a couple of
> findings of particular interest (IMHO): the first was that
> reviewers need to see "the whole" rather than "the parts" since
> the blog reviews only saw the parts and therefore were unable to
> make the type of perceptive comment that the trad. reviewers did
> (e.g. that the tone of the introduction did not sit well with the
> tone of the rest of the book).
>
> However, perhaps because of seeing smaller parts, the blog
> reviewers made more detailed comments about the text and content.
>
> I don't think at the moment that this is a substitute, but it is
> perhaps a valuable add-on to traditional reviewing (in the right
> community)
>
> Pippa Smart
> Research Communication and Publishing Consultant
> PSP Consulting - www.pspconsulting.org
> Skype: pippasmart
> pippa.smart@gmail.com
>