Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2015
Volume 60, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 2–6, 2015; San Antonio, Texas
Session S3: Invited Session: Why Peer Review? |
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Sponsoring Units: FHP Chair: Robert Crease, Stony Brook University Room: 002AB |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 8:00AM - 8:36AM |
S3.00001: There is no ``I'' in referee: Why referees should be anonymous Invited Speaker: Daniel Ucko From the early days of modern science, it has been recognized that scientific claims must be verified by someone who is not the maker of those claims, and who furthermore has no stake in the matter. In other words, claims need to be evaluated objectively, by the community. The way in which this tends to be done is by peer review conducted by journals. Peer review as currently practiced touches on the themes of trust, where the trust is in institutions and procedures that emerge from expert communities. The practice of peer review is viewed as a citizenly duty of scientists in the scientific community, because all scientists take turns serving either as authors, referees, and editors in the peer review process We lack the resources to have a work evaluated by the entire community, so we substitute with a representative. Yet, in most examples of scientific review, the referee or referees are anonymous. This question is particularly important when the peer review process is brought to bear in order to evaluate matters beyond scientific validity, more ``subjective'' criteria such as relative importance, broadness of interest -- criteria that do not appear to have an objective standard of comparison and validation. I will show that the anonymity of referees, far from endangering this trust, actually strengthens it. I will show that this anonymity is crucial in order to maintain any objectivity in scientific peer review, and why authors should not try to unmask the referee. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 8:36AM - 9:12AM |
S3.00002: Validity, not Dissemination Invited Speaker: Samindranath Mitra Science journals have been transformed by the internet. In particular, increasingly their role appears to be to validate research, not to disseminate it. How are journals, and the communities they interact with, adapting? In this context, are alternatives to peer review on the horizon? Are these challenges unique to physics journals, or also seen in other publication scenarios? [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 9:12AM - 9:48AM |
S3.00003: Peer-review: An IOP Publishing Perspective Invited Speaker: Timothy Smith Online publishing is challenging, and potentially changing, the role of publishers in both managing the peer-review process and disseminating the work that they publish in meeting contrasting needs from diverse groups of research communities. Recognizing the value of peer-review as a fundamental service to authors and the research community, the underlying principles of managing the process for journals published by IOP Publishing remain unchanged and yet the potential and demand for alternative models exists. This talk will discuss the traditional approach to peer-review placed in the context of this changing demand. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 9:48AM - 10:24AM |
S3.00004: Inside Nature Invited Speaker: Andrea Taroni Since its launch in 1869, Nature has seen its mission as two-fold: facilitating the prompt communication of the most important scientific developments to the relevant research communities, while at the same time fostering a greater appreciation of these great works of science amongst the wider public. Although the publishing landscape for scientific research is currently undergoing a period of rapid change, these core principles remain largely unchanged. In this talk, I will endeavour to explain how Nature editors -- in particular those based at \textit{Nature Physics }-- apply these principles in practice, and so determine which few of the many excellent research submissions that we receive make it through to publication. [Preview Abstract] |
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