Arthur P. Smith wrote:
> 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?
Another example of a development to make better science, which can be seen
as complementary to peer review, is the Cochran Library
<
http://www.update-software.com/Cochrane/> in medicine. This is a group of
experts who evaluate (mainly) treatment efficiencies by meta-analyses of a
number of published trials. The conclusions sometimes go against what drug
companies would tell you.
Such efforts are independent of the journal peer review system.
regards
Hugo Alroe
Received on Thu Mar 06 2003 - 19:40:19 GMT