Re: Peer Review and Open Access

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:29:54 +0000

    Peer Review: A Critical Inquiry
    Series: Issues in Academic Ethics
    By David Shatz
        Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
        0-7425-1435-8 November 28, 2004 264pp
http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=074251434X

Peer review is the process by which submissions to journals and
presses are evaluated with regard to suitability for publication.
Armed with the results of numerous empirical studies, critics have
leveled a variety of harsh charges against peer review such as:
reviewers and editors are biased toward authors from prestigious
institutions, peer review is biased toward established ideas, and it
does a poor job of detecting errors and fraud.

While an immense literature has sprouted on peer review in the
sciences and social sciences, Peer Review is the first book-length,
wide-ranging study of peer review that utilizes methods and resources
of contemporary philosophy. Its six chapters cover the following
topics: the tension between peer review and the liberal notion that
truth emerges when ideas proliferate in the marketplace of ideas;
arguments for and against blind review of submissions; the alleged
conservatism of peer review; the anomalous nature of book reviewing;
the status of non-peer-reviewed publications, such as invited articles
or Internet publications, in tenure and promotion cases; and the
future of peer review in the age of the Internet. The author has also
included several key readings about peer review.

About The Author
David Shatz is professor of philosophy at Yeshiva University. He has
published articles and reviews in the fields of epistemology, free
will, philosophy of religion, medical ethics, medieval Jewish
philosophy, and contemporary Jewish philosophy.

          o Introduction
          o Peer Review and the Marketplace of Ideas
          o Bias and Anonymity in the Peer Review Process
          o Is Peer Review Inherently Conservative? Should It Be?
          o Peerless Review: The Strange Case of Book Reviews
          o What Should Count?
          o Where Do We Go From Here? Peer Review in the Age of the
            Internet
    * Supplementary Essays
          o Ethics and Manuscript Reviewing
            Richard T. De George and Fred Woodward
          o Why Be My Colleague's Keeper? Moral Justifications for
            Peer Review
            Joe Cain
          o Peer Review Practices of Psychological Journals: The Fate
            of Published Articles, Submitted Again
            Douglas P. Peters and Stephen J. Ceci
            [Behavioral & Brain Sciences. 1982 Jun Vol 5(2) 187-255]
            http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/bbstoc/vol05.htm
          o No Bias, No Merit: The Case Against Blind Submission
            Stanley Fish
          o Fish on Blind Submission
            Jeffrey Skoblow
          o Reply to Skoblow
            Stanley Fish
          o Revelation: a Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies
            Alan Sokal
          o The Invisible Hand of Peer Review
            Steven J. Harnad
Received on Mon Nov 29 2004 - 21:29:54 GMT

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