Re: Self-Archiving Refereed Research vs. Self-Publishing Unrefereed Research

From: Arthur P. Smith <apsmith_at_APS.ORG>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 16:46:50 -0500

Stevan Harnad wrote:

>
>
>>There seem to be a few cases of this in bio-medicine in recent years
>>
>>
>
>Which?
>
>
The placebo-effect for one. A recent review seems to have seriously
questioned the original "placebo-effect" research.

Almost any "twin" study on heritability seems to be met with great
skepticism now since the abuses of the original researchers in the early
20th century were uncovered.

And there seem to be frequent reports of researchers only publishing
"positive" results about drugs, under the encouragement of the companies
funding their research.

Andrew Odlyzko mentions an interesting phenomenon that has arisen in
response to the flood of information, much of it of questionable quality
- the "authority site". You could think of these as another level of
"peer review", although they tend to be run by just a single individual
(and consequently somewhat narrowly focused - but that's not that
different from a highly specialized journal). Should we be moving to
fund this sort of thing as a replacement for peer review, or in
addition? Is there some way these should be formalized and included
within the recognized knowledge infrastructure of our fields? How do you
ensure the trust-worthiness of those responsible for these efforts (and
how exactly is that different from trusting peer review at a regular
journal?) What aspects of the current information infrastructure for
scholarly communication help, or hinder, the work of the people creating
these sites?

            Arthur
Received on Wed Mar 05 2003 - 21:46:50 GMT