To be more precise, it's adopting a form of two-track review in which one track is closed, internal, and prospective and the other is open, external, and retroactive. Two-track review was pioneered by Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and since adopted e.g. by PLoS ONE.
Nature itself does not seem to have made the announcement yet, so we have to rely on the press. See Matt Whipp, Nature journal puts blogging into peer reviews, PC Pro, September 15, 2006. Excerpt:
The scientific journal Nature is to adopt an open peer-review system to judge papers submitted for publication.
Manuscripts will be uploaded to a pre-print server and made available online in what is essentially a blog, allowing members of the scientific community to comment on the content's merit.
Comments submitted are subject to review themselves before being published, and anyone commenting must put their name and institution to their words.
As well as public review via the Peer Review Trial, manuscripts will also continue to be sent to Nature's experts for a closed review.
Authors can choose not to have their work reviewed in this manner, and their are potentially some disadvantages to having an open peer-review. Most obviously, such a public forum let's the cat out of the bag on new research before official publishing in the journal....
Comment. This news is about open review, not open access. I'm blogging Nature's decision primarily because I blogged the launch of the experiment itself. Here's what I said at the time:
First I'll make my usual point that achieving OA and reforming peer review are independent projects. OA is compatible with every kind of peer review, from the most conservative to the most innovative. Tying OA to just one model of peer review doubles the difficulty of persuading institutions to adopt or endorse OA....
But having made that point, let me add that there are a lot of exciting synergies to explore between OA and different models of peer review, and the Nature debate is one good forum in which to explore them. For one example, see Herbert Van de Sompel's contribution to the debate, Technical solutions: Certification in a digital era....
Update. This story is inaccurate. Nature hasn't yet made a decision one or the other about open review. See my correction posted 9/19/06.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/18/2006 11:51:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
