Re: The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)

From: Arthur Smith <apsmith_at_APS.ORG>
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 15:45:23 -0500

David Goodman wrote:
>
> [on my question of why we should want to be simply a contractor to
> universities in assessment of their faculty?]
>
> because, Arthur, the intellectual reputation and respectability of the
> physicists who constitute your society is much greater than any commercial
> --or governmental--organization would ever be. As your members care about
> physics as a science, they presumably will want to continue
> certifying research and researchers, and assisting universities in
> selecting physics faculty.

All I'm suggesting is that the society would find the risks of such a
business model likely outweigh our motivation based on any higher
purpose. As I said, managing and doing peer review is pretty thankless,
and if there's not much to really show for it (i.e. the literature is
already sufficiently available, searchable, archived, interlinked, etc.
despite anything we do) I doubt that devoting 70+% of the society's
budget to such a risky activity would be deemed worthwhile.

> [...] No matter how well you do publication, the purpose
> of the APS is not primarily or necessarily that of a publishing house.

Yup.

                        Arthur
Received on Fri Dec 21 2001 - 21:34:21 GMT