Re: The value of peer review as it relates to the NIH Policy

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

It is very refreshing to have these kinds of questions raised by 
a librarian!

But, to play the devil's advocate, let's focus on just what a 
publisher actually does in the journal peer-review process. With 
some very rare exceptions where a publisher's staff may have some 
direct involvement in the peer review itself, my understanding is 
that the publisher's role in peer review is limited to: 1) 
selecting and paying (when payment is involved) a journal's main 
editor; 2) perhaps approving the appointment of members of an 
editorial advisory board for the journal; 3) providing a software 
system (and training the journal editor in the use thereof) to 
facilitate the processing and tracking of submitted manuscripts.

There can be significant costs involved in supporting this 
peer-review system. Hence, to that extent, the NIH is getting a 
"free ride" in peer review at publishers' expense. And it does 
seem unfair that this cost is not compensated at all by the 
federal government, which in theory could set up its own system 
for carrying out this vital function.

However, the actual peer review itself is conducted, not (with 
very rare exceptions) by anyone on the publisher's staff, but by 
the (paid or unpaid) journal editor, the (probably unpaid) 
editorial advisory board members, and the thousands of (unpaid) 
scholars who are asked to prepare reports.

I have always objected, therefore, to the use of the word 
"managing" as not being entirely accurate in describing the 
publisher's role in the peer-review process for journals. The 
word "supporting" would be much more precise.

This stands in stark contrast to the peer review of books, where 
the publisher's staff is integrally involved in the actual 
selection and vetting of the works at every stage of the process. 
And it is even more complicated, as I have described in a 
previous post, for university presses where faculty editorial 
boards also play an important role (and need to be "managed" by 
the press's staff) in addition to external reviewers and 
publishing staff. Here one truly is "managing" the entire process 
from within the publishing company; indeed, in part the staff is 
"conducting" the peer review in a crucial way.

In assessing any government appropriation of publisher's value 
added, I would argue, one must be precise about just what is 
being appropriated and what its true value is. For books, 
government appropriation of "value added" by publishers would go 
well beyond what it is for journals.

I am of course here focusing solely on peer review, not the other 
dimensions of value added by publishers, such as copyediting, 
design, marketing, etc.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press


>Every time I write something about open access I tell myself that
>is absolutely the last time I'm going to say anything publicly on
>the topic. I go off and busy myself with running my library and
>hanging out with my granddaughter and playing music with the
>Bearded Pigs.  Then something comes up that gets me thinking
>about the issues again and I can't resist.  This time, it was a
>talk by David Shulenburger, Vice President for Academic Affairs
>at the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU),
>and former provost at the University of Kansas.
>
>So I made a few comments here:
>
>http://tscott.typepad.com/tsp/2009/06/quantifying-the-value-of-peer-review.html
>
>Scott
>
>T. Scott Plutchak
>Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences
>University of Alabama at Birmingham
>tscott@uab.edu
>http://tscott.typepad.com
>http://beardedpigs.net