From: "James J. O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2012 14:39:56 -0400

There is one experiment with transparency in scholarly communication
that I have not seen.  I'd be glad to hear if there are any cases where it
has been tried and to hear comments on the possibility.

The most confidential part of the process of "public"ation is peer
review.  An author submits an article to a journal and it is accepted
or rejected; if rejected, the author goes elsewhere and repeats the
effort to win acceptance.  Journals boast of their acceptance (i.e.,
rejection) rates.  Something I would like to know - but now cannot
find out, when I read an article - is whether and how often and by whom
the same piece has been rejected.  Many editors would be glad to have
that information about individual items and "average prior
rejections/article" would be an interesting metric of the quality of a
journal.

Publishing this information would also allow for validation of the
peer review system:  articles with high citation counts and multiple
rejections would be interesting in one way, but it's likely in most
fields that the reverse would be the near-universal norm.  Who
would not benefit from such transparency?  If we are to mandate
access to results of research -- is this not one of the results?

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown