WILL TECHNOLOGY TRAMPLE PEER REVIEW?

We have too much to read, reviewers do not review enough manuscripts, there are too many journals, and good journals do not publish enough papers.  The need of technology hand in hand with pressure to publish and increase in demographics in academia (e.g., ease of creating journals, internet sites, storage, data generation, sharing of data and analytical code) is changing peer review…

WILL TECHNOLOGY TRAMPLE PEER REVIEW IN ECOLOGY? ONGOING ISSUES AND POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

The classic view of peer review is our primary process to assess and judge whether research results should be published in a scholarly journal.  The ‘classic peer review’ has brought and still brings important benefits such as improving quality of papers.  However, change in publication behavior (e.g., pressure to publish, pressure to train students, differences among institutions and countries in judging productivity, etc) hand-in-hand with technological developments are transforming peer review into a system in which its role is no longer to judge whether the research is publishable or not but rather a system to judge where it will be published (a “where rather than if” process). 

The idea for this forum piece came about initially from a slight discontentment and concern regarding our current publication system.  Indeed, one of the first titles I had in mind was “Will technology end or improve peer review?”. However, discussions with colleagues and students (past 3 years) and my experience as an associate editor for a number of journals provided me with a more balanced point of view about the issues I (and them) felt important to cover.  The view I ended exploring is that technological developments (e.g., ease of creating journals, internet sites, storage, data generation, sharing of data and analytical code) will not eliminate peer review per se but will allow for a new set of parameters in which ethics and the optimal use of public funding will play a vital role in the evolution of the review process. 

In many instances, I certainly play the role of devil’s advocate in the sense of providing a provocative view either that I do not fully share or for which I have not yet foreseen all possible ramifications.  You may not agree with the solutions discussed here, but if you agree with some of the issues raised, I would like you to think about ways to reform our current system.  In this way, we can find more time to dedicate to one of the most important academic endeavors: reading and learning what has been researched and creating (and publishing) better research. 

Pedro R. Peres-Neto