Re: Taking Our Academic Medicine

[Richard Feinman <RFeinman@downstate.edu>]

Of course, money may not be the best reinforcer to get good editors. 
Interest in the science might be better.  There is the idea that 
overpaying editors selects for people who are not interested in science 
but rather their own opinions, who become arrogant and abusive, incapable 
of seeing alternative points of view and generally have a bad effect on 
the journal.  Complaints about traditional journals include the 
adversarial nature of reviews, the tendency of the financial corporate 
structure to repress innovation and accept only papers that stick with the 
consensus.  It is also known in psychology that you don't need a banana to 
train a monkey, you can use token reinforcers (equivalent to money).

  = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Richard D. Feinman, Professor of Biochemistry
Co-editor-in-chief, Nutrition & Metabolism
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Brooklyn, NY

(718) 871-1374
FAX: (718) 270-3316

"Peter Banks" <pbanks@diabetes.org>
Sent by: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
11/29/05 06:06 PM
Re: Taking Our Academic Medicine

The real "myth" is the timesome one you put forth here--that peer review 
is conducted by unpaid volunteers.

For a journal of any size and stature, it isn't. Yes, reviewers are 
unpaid. But the university based editors and associate editors who invite, 
manage and reconcile the conflicting views of those invited reviewers are 
paid, and well. For a journal like Diabetes, costs at the university 
(including rent, salary support, supplies, etc) are $250,000 per year, 
minimum.

Peter Banks
Acting Vice President for Publications/Publisher
American Diabetes Association
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org

>>> mefunk@med.cornell.edu 11/28/05 6:09 PM >>>

Besides smearing the peer reviewers for Open Access journals, this comment 
also perpetuates the myth that traditional publishers employ a more 
expensive peer review process.

Peer review, a most important aspect of the publishing process, is mostly 
done by invited volunteers. Very few scientific journals have paid, 
in-house reviewers. It is these unpaid volunteers, chosen for their 
expertise, who assure the quality and authority of academic journals, 
whether Open Access or not. I fail to see how "unpaid" is more expensive 
for traditional journals than it is for Open Access journals. Copy 
editing, used by some journals and not others, is not peer review.

I'm not sure the "trained monkey" reviewers for BMC, PLoS, and other Open 
Access journals appreciate your comment.

Mark Funk
Head, Collection Development
Weill Cornell Medical Library
New York, NY 10021
mefunk@med.cornell.edu

___

At 12:01 AM -0500 11/20/05, Peter Banks wrote:
>However, what authors want from journals is the rigor of peer review and 
>the stamp of authority it conveys. And that--despite the OA assertion 
>that peer review can be done cheaply, perhaps by trained monkeys in a 
>low-rent trailer in South Dakota--is where the cost, and the value, 
>enters publishing. "Value" is not low price, as you will find if you buy 
>your wife's Christmas gift at WalMart rather than Tiffany. For a journal, 
>it is the cost to deliver quality, authority, and distribution.

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