Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 401.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: Patrick Durusau <pdurusau@emory.edu> (40)
Subject: Re: 14.0394 self-archiving & online publishing
[2] From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com> (33)
Subject: Re: 14.0394 self-archiving & online publishing
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 07:28:09 +0100
From: Patrick Durusau <pdurusau@emory.edu>
Subject: Re: 14.0394 self-archiving & online publishing
Greetings,
Joel Goldfield commented on the perceived lack of "peer review" in Steven
Harnad's comments as follows:
>
> One problem, although much is good in this freeing of research from
> dissemination barriers, is that there will be more research available,
> and much will not have been peer reviewed. We researchers will have
> more grain to separate from the chaff. Even for good research, it
> remains to be seen how many peers are going to be available to provide
> the desired vetting. Will free peer reviewing be a growth industry?
It would be more accurate to say that materials held in preprint servers or
other electronic corpora will not be subjected to "limited peer review," which
is the current norm in the humanities. No current vetting system can afford an
unlimited number of reviewers, either economically or organizationally, so the
much touted "limited peer review" of the current system is surprising in the
fact that it works at all, rather than it works well. New methods or topics,
unfamiliar to the limited number of reviewers, fare less well than submissions
that follow the hoary adages of the reviewer's generation of scholars.
Contrast the current system of "limited peer review" with the system of peer
review that is inherent in the comments by Steven Harnad. Under Harnad's
system, papers and concepts can be subjected to peer review by all interested
colleagues and not some limited subset. Greater responsibility for making
critical judgments will be placed on the readers but what scholar blindly
accepts findings outside (or inside) their field of expertise because an
article survived the current system of "limited peer review?" Scholars can
publically "review" the work of others, something that is not present in the
present system. With such reviews, scholars can see the reasons why a
particular work was seen as useful, useless, etc., rather than simply being
unaware of it altogether.
We would do well to remember that Willard has on occassion started discussion
topics on the Humanist list that address the need to teach critical thinking to
students. If students need to think critically about sources, shouldn't
scholars think critically about the work of other scholars? As opposed to
abdicating that responsibility to the current norm of "limited peer review?"
Patrick
--
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
pdurusau@emory.edu
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 07:33:21 +0100
From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: 14.0394 self-archiving & online publishing
Willard McCarty is as usual very insightful. Mathematics and physics and
engineering are especially competitive areas. I think that Creative
Geniuses at some point lose their fear of being scooped, like Willard and
(if I may humbly say to) me. It is actually somewhat amusing in mathematics
and physics. Here are these people, some of them nice, some of them Old
Fogies who are veterans in the Rat Race of Do Unto Others Before They Do
Unto You, suddenly faced with somebody throwing free gold coins from a
passing carriage on the internet. What do you do about that? Probably
nothing - after all, Royalty found out long ago that the Disloyal Opposition
could really do nothing but have fits when they did that. However, some
competitive physical scientists try grandiose ways to downsize their
internet Royalist opponents. I have had poison pen emails from Mathematics
Professors (including "Goodbye" in the subject heading), "students" who
suddenly pop up on internet lists from nowhere to side with Old Fogies, long
tirades on how bad unpeer-reviewed papers are for the whole profession (tell
it to Beethoven is my usual response, and I mean it in several ways), and
Grand Old Men of the profession writing to editors demanding my ouster. The
Disloyal Opposition discredits themselves by all of this. They can argue
that free knowledge dilutes the quality knowledge that black box peer
reviewing provides (ignoring the fact that what goes into a black box is
operated on by unknown persons in unknown ways - and I've been too long
around in Academia to believe otherwise). Well, so does free air. Thank
God for free air. In fact, the Disloyal Opposition would subject our free
air to peer review. The London times would become the London Foggy Peer
Review, the Daily Telegraph would become th Daily Peer, and I would be
deprived of Free Speech - which, with Free Air, is worth fighting for, even
in the fog.
Osher
----- Original Message -----
From: "Humanist Discussion Group
<willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>)" <willard@lists.village.virginia.edu>
To: "Humanist Discussion Group" <humanist@lists.Princeton.EDU>
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2000 11:06 PM
Subject: 14.0394 self-archiving & online publishing
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