Re: PLOS article metrics

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

No, I haven't missed the continuing peer review; I wrote about it 
back in 2004 prior to the launch of PLOS One: 
http://j.mp/Kh4zJ.  I call this "post-publication peer review." 
PLOS is doing a great job with this, though this is an area where 
there is undoubtedly more to come.

The question that is raised here is whether with post-publication 
peer review, is pre-publication peer review necessary any longer? 
This would not have been possible in the print era, but now that 
annotations can be placed directly on Web pages, an article's 
commentary becomes as much a part of it as the research that 
underlies it.

With post-publication peer review alone, augmented by truly 
powerful computer systems for linking, annotations, etc., the 
cost of editorial review would drop much further.  Indeed, it 
should not cost more to upload an article to a service than it 
does to download a song on iTunes.

This is the real long-term threat PLOS faces: the possibility 
that the innovation it helped to spawn continues to develop until 
PLOS itself is marginalized by its high cost structure.  PLOS, 
having chipped away at the principal and practice of peer review, 
is on its way to learn that unmediated computer processes are 
mere bits, and bits are free.

Joe Esposito


On 9/28/09 3:12 PM, "George Porter" <george@library.caltech.edu> wrote:

> I agree with Joe Esposito that PLoS One is blazing a trail of 
> initial peer review-light.  However, he misses the continuing 
> peer review which takes place in their open commentary system.
>
> The PLoS One model strikes me as a streamlined version of the 
> dual publication, draft paper followed by open peer review and 
> open commentary, in turn followed by final, polished 
> publication model pioneered by the European Geosciences Union 
> with, among others, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 
> Discussions <www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/>/Atmospheric 
> Chemistry and Physics <http://www.atmos-chem-phys.org/>.  A 
> similar economics dual journal exists, Economics Discussion 
> Papers/Economics <http://www.economics-ejournal.org/>.
>
> The value of extended, pre-publication peer review may be a 
> question in light of these innovative models, but the value of 
> review by the authors peers does not appear to be in doubt.
>
> George S. Porter
> Sherman Fairchild Library
> California Institute of Technology