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  • From: Gavin Baker <gavin AT gavinbaker.com>
  • To: commons-research AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Commons-research] Reviews
  • Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:00:04 -0500

There might be relevant parallels in either the features employed by PLoS ONE or by this new Hindawi journal:

http://www.plosone.org/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/02/new-oa-hindawi-journal-takes-new.html

Giorgos Cheliotis wrote:
My concern, as already stated, is that (a) there are good reasons why reviews are communicated only to the authors, and (b) allowing "the public" to vote on favorite abstracts may sound more "democratic", and would be an interesting experiment as some have suggested, but could turn our review process into a reality tv show, where the public can vote on their favorites and then researchers will be vying for popularity rather than focusing on producing solid work.
Then why not do it as an experiment? Well, once we officially allow everyone to vote on their favorites, it will be difficult to ignore these votes and say "oh, it was just an experiment, your vote doesn't really count".
I would therefore favor a solution where we post all accepted abstracts online and then allow for people to comment on those (instead of vote), to start a conversation with the authors or with other people interested in the same topic. I think this will be much more fruitful as a first approach towards engaging the public. Then, depending on the success of the workshop and the level of engagement of the broader community, we can discuss during the summit whether we should change the format or try something more "risky" next year.
Giorgos

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*From:* commons-research-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:commons-research-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] *On Behalf Of
*Anas TAWILEH
*Sent:* Tuesday, February 26, 2008 6:46 AM
*To:* commons-research AT lists.ibiblio.org
*Subject:* Re: [Commons-research] Reviews

Thanks Melanie,


Yes, you are right, I was suggesting a hybrid model where we have
two processes running in parallel, with some intersection in what is
made public.


Cheers,

Anas


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*From:* commons-research-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:commons-research-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] *On Behalf Of
*melanie dulong de rosnay
*Sent:* 24 February 2008 19:19
*To:* commons-research AT lists.ibiblio.org
*Subject:* Re: [Commons-research] Reviews


Dear all,


Le 24 févr. 08 à 13:35, Anas TAWILEH a écrit :



Dear all,


I would vote for the extended abstracts, as this usually leaves some
room for the development of the research, and would invite more
researchers to submit their work.

I agree


As for the discussion around the open vs. closed review process, I
would like to see an open review, but not sure what is a possible
mechanism that would facilitate this without the drawbacks mentioned
by Giorgos.

Could we, for example, have an open voting process, where the
number of votes given to each paper is made available online,
while reviews and critics are sent to each author individually?

Anas, do you mean having both process in parallel:

- a closed review by the programme committee,

- and an open voting process on icommons website, which may
designate the 1, 2 or 3 favorite abstracts by the public community?


It could be interesting to compare both results.


Best,

Melanie


What do you think?

Anas


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*From:* commons-research-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:commons-research-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] *On Behalf Of
*Giorgos Cheliotis
*Sent:* 24 February 2008 16:58
*To:* commons-research AT lists.ibiblio.org
<mailto:commons-research AT lists.ibiblio.org>
*Subject:* [Commons-research] Reviews


Hi to all again,


some of us (mostly Philipp and myself) have been discussing how to
best organize the reviews for the academic program of the workshop
being planned for the iSummit.


Fist of all, what I have proposed on the draft CFP is to ask for the
submission of only extended abstracts, not full papers. Naturally
it's better to have full papers than just abstracts, but requesting
for abstracts only would help focus the workshop on the presentation
and critique of work in progress and would leave the presenters more
room with respect to how they wish to present their work.


If we stick with the above plan, then it follows that reviews will
not be as thorough as they would be when reviewing full papers.
Reviews would have to be based on whether the topic and method of
investigation are original and relevant, and whether the work looks
promising sand is likely to instigate fruitful discussions at the
summit. These are to some extent subjective criteria (let's not
forget that all academic reviews are relatively subjective), but I
feel that this is not a bad thing. We will need to use some judgment
in order to ensure a good mix of presentations.


Is everyone on this list fine with the above, or do you feel that we
should request for full papers (even if these are "working" papers)?


Also, the review process I have suggested would be closed, like all
academic reviews that I am aware of. The purpose of keeping reviews
closed is to allow reviewers total freedom to express their views,
without the risk of damaging the author's public reputation in case
these reviews are negative. In the case of reviewing abstracts,
reviews will likely be quite short anyhow and they will be
communicated to each respective author individually, but they could
still range from very positive to very negative.


Philipp has been suggesting an open review process. This can be
understood in two ways:


(a) The general public can vote for favorite abstracts. This is
reminiscent of reality tv shows and might be an interesting
experiment, but I understand that this is not what Philipp has in
mind).


(b) The reviews are made by the program committee, but are published
online along with the abstracts. This might be doable, but I wonder
what would be the benefit of such an approach. I see the potential
danger of either reviewers holding back on their comments because
they would not want to embarrass anyone, or of authors being
publicly humiliated by the publication of potentially very negative
reviews.


I would now join Philipp in inviting others to join in and
participate in the discussion.


Giorgos


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--
Gavin Baker
http://www.gavinbaker.com/
gavin AT gavinbaker.com

Where the ripple was
the fisherman casts his line;
another ripple
Garry Gay




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