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February 19, 2007
Scientific Papers in the Internet Age
In a recent discussion at Machine Learning (Theory) blog the website called Faculty of 1000 (Biology) and Faculty of 1000 (Medicine) came up. It works as follows: users submit papers they like, and there is space for supporting and dissenting comments centered around the paper. This is the peer review as it should be done, not the opaque and time-consuming system currently in place with the journals.
As an example of a discussion, consider this example of one the highest rated papers, Why most published research findings are false. Do examine the negative reviews, or dissents, along with the response of the author.
What's still missing from the Internet are instruments of identity, trust and renumeration, but they should be up and running in a few years. As for trust, needed for guaranteeing high-quality information, Faculty of 1000 does institute "section heads" and "faculty members" for different topic areas. As for renumeration, needed to keep the whole thing running, there seems to be some sort of a subscription model with the Faculty of 1000 that might lock people out of the system unless they are affiliated with a major institution. I wish this was integrated with the idea of the Public Library of Science open access model.
Posted by Aleks at February 19, 2007 4:43 PM
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Comments
Aleks,
Actually, I think I commented skeptically on the "why most published research findings are false" paper on this blog, but I can't find my comments using our feeble search function.
Posted by: Andrew ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/mlm/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 19, 2007 8:49 PM.
It might be this link...
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2005/07/following_up_on.html
Posted by: Anonymous at February 20, 2007 12:05 AM.
Thanks for writing your entry. I have often longed for a mechanism to read comments (and offer comments of others) on technical papers. Something like a blog with each paper beginning one post.
Let's hope for more developments in this area.
Posted by: K Wright at February 20, 2007 9:19 AM.
Sadly, many universities (such as my own UC Davis) don't subscribe to faculty of 1000. I'm curious, though, what you think of the tools implemented at PLoS One - are they comparable, and are they perhaps something more journals should be adopting?
Posted by: jebyrnes at February 20, 2007 12:09 PM.
Posted by: Bruce Antelman at February 20, 2007 3:42 PM.
Have you seen the EGU "discussions" system? Eg http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/cp/cpd/2/ranking.html
[I deliberately linked to the list of most commented papers as generally there is little comment apart from the invited reviews, but the idea - and indeed this particular journal - is still young.]
Posted by: James Annan at April 23, 2007 7:28 AM.
James, I've looked, and it's very interesting. The main problem is that it's almost impossible to read the comments casually: each individual one is available only as a PDF file. Secondly, the comments resemble the formal template too much. But yes, that's the way to go.
Bruce, Computing Reviews seems closed, and my ACM membership isn't sufficient to enter.
Posted by: Aleks at April 23, 2007 10:29 AM.