Simon's online peer review system is very interesting and welcome, but make no mistake about it: It is just classical peer review (implemented online -- but that's irrelevant, because peer-review is medium-independent anyway, and even on-paper journals are implementing their peer review on-line these days) plus a subsequent phase of open peer commentary.
(Cf. BBS (since 1978) <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/bbs/> and Psycoloquy (since 1989) <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/psycoloquy/> which both do the same thing, the former both on-paper and on-line, and the latter on-line-only.) So the rest is all down to the quality of the journal and its contents, which takes some years to establish. New journals start with a handicap, having no demonstrated quality standards or impact factor. But these experiments on implementing peer-review on-line, and supplementing it with open peer commentary, though they are eminently worth performing and will be extremely useful, have nothing whatsoever to do with the question of either "self-publication" or the untested merits of "open self-appointed, post-hoc review," as putative SUBSTITUTES for classical peer review. Simon's is classical peer review, implemented on-line, with post-hoc commentary as a SUPPLEMENT. Stevan Harnad On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Simon Buckingham Shum wrote: > At 10:28 am +0000 26/1/01, Stevan Harnad wrote: > ... > >There are some ongoing experiments with "open review," where it is > >self-appointed commentators' feedback that is being used to validate > >preprints, but these experiments are far too small, and it is far too > >early, to judge whether they have been successful in generating papers > >of quality and useability anywhere comparable to those generated by > >undergoing classical peer review. > > > Two responses to the above points, on [1] process, and [2] > infrastructure to enable it. > > 1. OPEN PEER REVIEW PROCESS > > We have developed a web-mediated, hybrid eJournal review process > which is more Open than some Open models. > > Reviewers are: > > - APPOINTED (for their expertise and commitment to review the submission) > - NAMED (though they can post anonymously) > - and ANSWERABLE (encouraged to discuss a submission with > EACH OTHER and AUTHORS, who are relieved to have the RIGHT OF REPLY) > - this is initially a PRIVATE forum > > If it clears this phase, the submission is added to the main journal > website as a PrePrint Under Review, and goes into: > > - PUBLIC open peer review, announced to relevant communities, > inviting them to view the discussion, and contribute their own insights. > > You can see how this has been implemented in Jnl. Interactive Media > in Education: > http://www-jime.open.ac.uk > > Reflections on this action research experiment can be found at: > http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/about.html#reading > > > 2. INFRASTRUCTURE > > The above is only possible with web publishing support. Our "Digital > Document Discourse Environment" (D3E) [http://d3e.open.ac.uk] > implements peer review forums tightly linked to a document, and we > are moving slowly towards a version for free distribution. We will be > discussing potential convergence with OAI at the March workshop on > OAI and Peer Review Journals [http://documents.cern.ch/OAi/]. > > Anyone wishing to receive future D3E announcements is welcome to drop > us a line. > > Cheers, > > Simon & Tammy > > Tamara Sumner > Center for LifeLong Learning & Design & Dept. Computer Science > University of Colorado at Boulder, U.S.A. > http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~sumner > Simon Buckingham Shum > Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, U.K. > http://kmi.open.ac.uk/sbs >