Dear Jacques and All,

Klaus is right. The simple answer is quality control. There is a
massive literature on the history, reasons for, and objections to peer
review. The system is not perfect, but it works as well as anything
might do for those of us who do not accept revealed truth as the basis
of science. I cannot believe that the person who asked this question
has done any serious looking at authoritative sources. The place to
begin is a visit to the science librarian -- your colleague should ask
for the literature on peer-reviewed publishing, and the literatures of
philosophy of science and knowledge production that touch on these
issues. There will be several thousand peer-reviewed journal articles
to choose among, along with several hundred books. The literature on
academic careers, research careers, and doctoral education will also
provide useful sources.

There is a confusion in the second statement."I also seek a source
that states that website url citations are inferior to academic
joournal article citations for scholarly research." This question
conflates and confuses three separate issues, the nature of scholarly
or scientific content, journal publication, and delivery method. A
website can deliver any content from travel ads and pornography to
fully peer-reviewed scientific content. In this, the web is much like
print on paper. The fact that something is cited to a web site is
irrelevant. What counts is the nature of the publication available on
the site. There is also a common confusion between fully peer-reviewed
scientific and scholarly journals made available through open access
publishing and fully peer-reviewed journals only accessible through
paid subscription sites. Because the Wikipedia article on "Academic
Spring" does not distinguish between free archives without peer review
and fully reviewed open access publishing, it is not especially
helpful to people who do not already understand these issues.

Simply put, fully peer-reviewed journals delivered in open access
format on the web are exactly as reliable and respected as fully
peer-reviewed journals delivered on paper. An example of this in our
field is the International Journal of Design. This is the only design
journal to be indexed in all three major scientific indices, SCI,
SSCI, and AHCI. It is available free. In contrast, such leading
paper-based journals as Design Studies from Elsevier or Design Issues
from MIT Press are ALSO available on the web, but only to subscribers
or to scholars at universities with a subscription.

The problematic issue arises with all the strange and cranky web sites
or projects that offer information on any number of topics. One
purpose of peer review is to demonstrate the value of offerings on
responsible sites. An increasing number of major open access ventures
are working to make such offerings accessible. The Public Library of
Science (PLOS) or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy are good
examples of this approach.

Your colleague should be a bit careful about citing information posted
on Billy Bob's Design Research Clam Shack or the G'Day Mate Happy
Vegemite Research Methods Lexicon.

Seriously, if your colleague wants authoritative information, he or
she has to visit a librarian to go through the issues and questions --
there is so much available on these issues that we can either stop
with the short answer or I'd have to write pages.

Warm wishes,

Ken

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of
Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61
3 9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design


Jacques Giard passed this query on:

A colleague of mine at Arizona State University asked me a question
that has stumped me. Perhaps someone on the list has an answer. His
question is:

"I am looking for an authoritaive source that states (and hopefully
gives rationale for) that the use of academic (peer-reviewed) journal
articles is preferred for scholarly research. I also seek a source
that states that website url citations are inferior to academic
joournal article citations for scholarly research."

Can anyone help?

Klaus Krippendorff wrote:

the answer is quite simple: quality control.