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  • From: Christopher Adams <christopher.lee.adams AT gmail.com>
  • To: commons-research AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Commons-research] open review model for upcoming workshop
  • Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:54:04 +0800

In the interests of keeping this venerable thread alive, I thought that I would add a couple of thoughts that I had discussed off-list with Giorgios awhile back.

In respects to the open comment policy of the last research workshop, I myself am certainly guilty of neglecting this state of the process. I did look through the accepted papers to see who would be attending (even going so far as to contact two of the authors), but I did not leave any comments online.

The failure to take advantage of this open process may have both human and technical causes. But considering the community of scholars we hope to interest in the next conference, might we not want to use this as an opportunity to evolve how an open research workshop can be conducted?

I can envision a web-presence that would bring attention to the conference, cultivate interest and frame it as an important academic event; further still, provide a forum for prospective attendees to float paper ideas; offer live-streaming and micro-blog participation for those unable to attend in person; become a launchpad for further research; etc.

I suppose that we are all waiting for exact dates and venue for the conference in August, but I'm hoping that others will step forward with new proposals, soon enough .

- - kind regards
- - christopher adams

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Alek Tarkowski <alek AT creativecommons.pl> wrote:
Dear all,

The issue on how to setup the peer review process requires probably more
time and thought than I have right now... But two things came to my mind
reading the discussion:

Regarding Giorgos's last post, I'm not surprised no one commented
afterwards the abstracts. I don't think it's an issue of their length -
it's rather that they are not as meaningful as full texts, in my opinion
you only get a "feeling" of what the research / paper is about. Of
course, experiments with online commenting prove that people don't
comment too much at all (look for example at things done with the
Commentpress system - a plugin for Wordpress - by the Institute for the
Future of the Book).

Secondly, I am not sure about the argument that you need secrecy to have
healthy relationships in the community. It's plausible to be critical
without being offensive. I'm sure all of you do informal commenting /
reviews for fellow researchers / friends - and in those reviews I'm sure
you're sometimes critical. And it works. If the comments are sound,
what's there to foul a relationship?

I am not hundred percent sure about this - secrecy of reviews is such an
entrenched rule in our communities... The main difficulty I have with
open reviewing is that people might review "too nicely" - but on the
other hand blind reviewing allows for some level of un-accountability on
the part of the reviewer...

Having said all this, personally I do not find this *the* most important
issue - open reviewing is for me a nice addition to a portfolio of
"experiments with openness", but even with traditional reviewing things
work well (as proven by last years workshop). Though I think there is
always a level of randomness (and thus unfairness) to every selection
process.

Philipp, it would be good to know, how the open review process works for
the editors and authors of the journal you mentioned.

Best,

Alek


--
dr Alek Tarkowski
koordynator / public lead
Creative Commons Polska / Poland
http://creativecommons.pl

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