Today's Wall Street Journal (Sept 14, 2006) has an article on page B1 entitled: "Journal Nature Opens Peer-Reviw Process to Comments Online" (subscription required). For more about the project, see http://blogs.nature.com/nature/peerreview/trial/
"Nature, one of the world's most prestigious scientific research journals, has embarked on an experiment of its own. In addition to having articles submitted for publication subjected to
peer reviews by a handful of experts in the field, the 136-year-old journal is trying out a new system for authors who agree to participate: posting the paper online and inviting scientists in the field to submit comments praising -- or poking holes -- in it." The Journal goes on to report that: "Nature says it's taking both sets of comments into account when deciding whether to publish."
The site is, quitely simply, a weblog. It's an easy and accessible way to get open feedback on scientific content. Participating scientists are required to list a name and institutional email address.
Apropos of the idea of "open review," I have posted a draft of "Peer to Patent: Collective Intelligence, Open Review and Patent Reform."
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