From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 19:46:47 -0500

This is the same principal as to say that Wikipedia is better than
Britannica.  But it's not.  It's different, not better or worse.  Gold
OA is different from traditional publishing (assuming both species are
practiced responsibly)--not better or worse, just different.

Joe Esposito


On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 4:02 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 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