Nature tries to compare open peer review with ‘traditional’ peer review
It was recently announced on the blog that (the leading journal) Nature runs that:
Nature is conducting a peer review trial of its own. From today, submitters to the journal are being offered the option of having their manuscripts posted on a preprint server to solicit public comments. At the same time, their work will go through the usual anonymous peer review process, and both sets of comments will be considered by the editors in making their decisions.At the end of the trial, which will last for about three months, Nature editorial staff will assess the overall value of comments from self-selected public contributors versus those from invited anonymous reviewers.
It was Nature you might recall that also tested Wikipedia against the Encyclopedia Britannica and, controversially, found them to be roughly equivalent, so this latest move is consistent. Since the administration of the peer review process is one of the reasons advanced by commercial journals to explain why they are still necessary it will be interesting to see whether Nature really does have the courage to undermine its own business model…