>>It took the British Medical Journal three congresses and a major invited journal
debate in a span of 10 years just to abolish the custom of blind peer review. It
took the journal five more years to become what it is today: transparent,
inclusive of all submissions, and free. The problem of information overload is
resolved by advance technology and information/communication design.but i must
admit i don't know how much it costs to run for example the British Medical
Journal. maybe you and others can tell us more. <<
The idea of free-for-all dissemination is widespread in the preprints movement, characterised by the venerable (for the internet)
Los Alamos Physics Archive and it's perfectly reasonable to have a quick way to share all research as it arises, especially in a
fast-moving field like physics.
However a pre-print is not the same as refereed publication and the buyer must beware and recognise that they are taking a very
heavy responsibility in deciding to act on such knowledge. Michael Polanyi said that all scientific knowledge was a matter of
passionate belief and your passion needs to be very well informed in such a situation.
Rosan's mention of the British Medical Journal reminds me that there is a great deal of public debate about refereeing and
publication in Britain right now. In a number of discussions about public understanding of science and science phobia it is often
said that the research community must do more to explain that peer review exists - it seems to be the part of the research process
that the public does not know about, fuelling concerns about accountablity of science.
If you go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3530551.stm you will find a story that has been headline news in the British
national press for weeks (years?) and, at its heart is the role of refereed scientific publications and the ethics of researchers,
reviewers and editors. 5 minutes on the BBC's flagship morning radio news programme today was given up to a detailed discussion
about the nuances of what was concluded in, and what was inferred from, a particular published paper and the role of the editor of
the Lancet and co-authors of the paper in ensuring its integrity.
We might say that design researchers are not usually involved in these life or death matters (that was my first reflection this
morning when I started to write this) but actually we are. I am doing work on the design of surgical instruments and one of my
colleagues is working on safety of drug delivery systems. I have had occasion to give a client a written warning that his choice
of colour for a product would, in my opinion, bring about an unacceptable risk of accidents (the colour had not changed but the
context had - moving the product into a more dangerous arena where it needed to be highly visible) and Victor Papanek introduced
"Design for the Real World" with an assertion that designers are responsible for death and injury on a grand scale.
So I can see a world in which peer review becomes more, rather than less significant, but now that the monopoly of the printing
press is broken, peer-reviewed publication will be balanced by an increasing amount of material that has not (yet) been reviewed
and we will all have to become much more subtle in how we use and interpret it. And a good thing too.
Best wishes from Sheffield
Chris Rust
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