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

[Gene Sprouse <sprouse@ridge.aps.org>]

Rather than pay referees, which would increase costs that would 
increase the price of the journals, the American Physical Society 
has recently chosen to give recognition each year to a very small 
fraction of our 42,000 active referees.  Recognition of a small 
number who have done an exceptional job is an important way that 
institutions can promote an activity.  Almost all Universities 
have teaching awards or service awards to bring attention to 
those individuals that have done an outstanding job.  The 
announcement of the awards each year gives an opportunity to 
bring attention to the activity and speak about its value to the 
community.  By initiating the program, APS expresses its 
appreciation to all referees.

The APS award program recognizes 130 "Outstanding Referees" each 
year.  We have records going back 20 years with information for 
each referee, and we've started the program this year by 
recognizing a larger group of 534 referees.  Each awardee 
receives a lapel pin and a certificate.  The referees were chosen 
for the quality, quantity, and timeliness of their reports 
without regard to membership in the APS, country of origin, or 
field of research.  They come from 34 different countries with 
large contingents from the US, Germany, UK, Canada, and France. 
The names of this year's honorees are listed at: 
http://publish.aps.org/OutstandingReferees

It would be nice if there were an immediate effect of this 
program, but we take the very long term view that by highlighting 
and recognizing individuals who have done an outstanding service 
to the community we will encourage younger scientists to emulate 
our "Outstanding Referees."

Gene D. Sprouse
Editor in Chief, American Physical Society


On Apr 21, 2008, at 7:47 PM, Phil Davis wrote:

> 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
> Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
> email: pmd8@cornell.edu
> https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/~pmd8/resume