From: Sean Johnson Andrews <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 14:23:13 -0600

Joe,

You make an important correction to the claim made here. And it's
possible that, as you point out, a copy editor or different peer
review process might have caught it before it got to this stage of
publication.  However, it doesn't appear to be a central piece of the
argument. More of an attempt  at supplying context for the study
they've undertaken. Here, the important point is that ebooks are a
growing portion of the market. It is open to debate whether the
specifics of this growth are important to the studied issue of
readability and cognitive effort - the latter being the more
disciplinary specific issues which the essay covers and which would be
more likely subject to the disciplinary peer review.

But imagine for a moment that it had been subject to traditional peer
review, subject to editing, and this marginally important fact
corrected (or not). What is the value of you being able to send this
link to all of us with the confidence that everyone on the list is
able to read it and comment, thus enlarging exponentially the number
of peers involved in the review?

I am torn on a certain level, particularly in relation to topics of
interdisciplinary social significance which might benefit from a wider
peer review. The traditional process encourages insular conversations
that are rarely checked or considered by those in other disciplines.
This has a value, but it also makes a wider process of peer review -
such as the one you are helpfully demonstrating with your casually
emailed critique - less likely and in some cases even illegal. How
many claims made by peer reviewed authors, based on a similarly
questionable purchase of the facts, sit idly in the scholarly record,
unchallenged and unlikely to be challenged? How many of those will go
on to inform future articles in insular journals, creating a feedback
loop of misinformation? Or, perhaps more charitably, how many attempts
at truly interdisciplinary scholarship are rebuffed by disciplinary
journals because reviewers aren't familiar with the range of
scholarship being engaged - insisting, as I've seen myself, that the
scholarship is invalid because it didn't rest solely on the
authorities reviewers are comfortable referencing (in some cases
because the reviewers themselves believe themselves - and their work -
the authority that must be engaged.)

Perhaps this is too hypothetical a query, but my feeling is that,
contrary to your concern, your ability to find and critique this
article - as a person outside the field who seems to know better some
basic facts about the subject under consideration - actually
demonstrates the importance of this model of publishing.  Certainly
there is a continuum here, but it seems a useful counterpoint to your
very relevant point.

Thanks,
Sean


On Feb 17, 2013, at 7:55 AM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 05:21:55 -0600
>
> I have been sitting in a conference this weekend in which one of the
> principal topics has been the future of peer review.  So it was with
> surprise and consternation that I happened to see the abstract to an
> article in PLoS ONE:
>
> http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0056178
>
> The article covers a study of how people read ebooks.  And there, in
> the very first sentence of the abstract, is a simple factual error.
> The abstract states that ebooks outsell print books in the U.S. and
> UK.  Not true.  Ebooks outsell print at Amazon, but the book biz is
> far bigger then Amazon, three to five times bigger, depending on who's
> counting.
>
> Is this a problem of peer review? A problem of insufficient
> copy-editing?  A copy editor would have fact-checked that item, but
> copy-editing is one of those things that is being cut back or even
> eliminated to reduce costs for Gold OA services.  The problem is
> structural:  Gold OA requires lower costs because the burden of paying
> for the work rests with the producer instead of being spread across
> all the readers.
>
> Gold OA, in other words, structurally requires lower editorial
> standards.  Much of the time we may not care about that, but then you
> stumble on one simple error and begin to reflect on the entire
> enterprise.
>
> Joe Esposito