A couple of great posts from other bloggers on the peer review process, journal publishing and the open access movement:
- Peers, review your actions by Michael Taylor on September 29th, 2011
- Access to scientific publications should be a fundamental right by petermr on September 30th, 2011
I’m excited that others are sharing their thoughts on this issue. I’ve written about this before (see “Access to peer reviewed journals“ ). Petermr’s piece specifically advocates for patients (among other groups) to have access to this information and uses the Human Rights code as a foundation to make the argument. Brilliant work!
It should be noted that JMIR has adopted two unique methods for open access publishing. The fast track fee provides the option of paying a fee for a three week turnaround. I believe the money is used to compensate the reviewers for their time. There is also an Open Peer Review Articles process, which allows JMIR users to review articles who have yet to undergo peer review. Abstracts for these articles are posted at the site so please take a look if you are interested in engaging in this process.
Update: Monday October 3rd, 2011
I recently found out about a repository, arXiv that has been used for pre-publication papers in the sciences since 1991. It was started in physics and later expanded to include other fields such as computer science, mathematics and astronomy. Although the papers posted are not peer reviewed moderators do review the submissions to ensure they are relevant topic-wise. We should consider this unique model to disseminate information when considering changes to the current system.
