The staff of the Harvard Crimson has written an editorial condemning journals, like PLoS ONE, that use open review.
I have no problem with arguments for traditional peer review, just as I have no problem with arguments for innovative new forms of peer review. It's a healthy debate on which I don't take sides because open access is compatible with both.
But this editorial fails two counts. First, it confuses open review with non-review. Second, it assumes that all online-only journals (open access and subscription-based) use open review --i.e. that traditional peer review requires print.
Note to the editors: do your homework, or try peer review, especially if you're going to lard your argument with self-congratulations ("Getting into Harvard is hard, very hard....But getting a scientific paper published in Science or Nature, today's pre-eminent scientific journals, is oftentimes harder....Science has its own admissions committees....")
Update. Mike Eisen, Harvard grad and PLoS co-founder, skewers the editorial in a letter to the editor, October 13, 2006.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/05/2006 08:52:00 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.
