The value of immediacy

Ethan Zuckerman:

It’s hard to figure out the value of academic publishing if you’re not an academic. When I write here, I tend to get critique – usually smart, well-informed critique – within hours. I often discover that I’m flat out wrong about something I’ve asserted, and I can update my opinions and impressions based on feedback from people better informed than I am. That seems like a much more efficient form of peer review – at least in the academic realm I inhabit – than waiting six to twelve months to find out whether an anonymous reviewer thinks my now-out of date paper is worth publishing.

3 thoughts on “The value of immediacy

  1. Antoninus Pius

    How do you know that the response to your blog is “smart, well-informed critique”? At least, in peer-reviewed journals, you know your correspondents’ credentials, and can make appropriate allowance.

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  2. Felix

    Which has got to be one of the weirdest comments I’ve read in ages. Beyond the obvious fact that blog comments are judged on their own content rather than on their authors’ credentials, there’s also the fact that most smart, well-informed blog commenters are utterly open about who they are, and that therefore it’s trivial to know their credentials, if you care about such things — as opposed to anonymous peer reviewers, who are, well, anonymous. Although, to be fair, I wouldn’t necessarily expect a long-deceased Roman emperor to understand such things.

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  3. Guy

    You shoud look at http://www.plosone.org/

    Part of the free access public library of science.

    It should give you the imediate debate to desire and it is peer ‘scanned’ from a technical perspective

    At a cost of $1500 to publish.

    I very intresting initiative from PLOS

    Reply

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