This is a tricky issue. As a research scientist, my, nearly exclusive, motivation to review is “because I should”. When I am desperate to move my own publications, not to mention funding, forward,...
This is a tricky issue. As a research scientist, my, nearly exclusive, motivation to review is “because I should”. When I am desperate to move my own publications, not to mention funding, forward, this moral obligation is just not sufficient. I’m not sure what the solution is, but government funding to pay reviewers would be an interesting option.
Solving any problem is comparatively easy as opposed to solving a problem systematically. Any incentives you create will, over time, lead to the system adapting to maximize the profit out of those...
Solving any problem is comparatively easy as opposed to solving a problem systematically. Any incentives you create will, over time, lead to the system adapting to maximize the profit out of those incentives, even if the individuals in it are well-meaning. Something similar happened in the German healthcare system, where specific treatments like surgery were incentivized over others, which over the decades lead to a system where for specific ailments invasive surgery is prioritized over other, better, less invasive treatments for those ailments.
I think solving any problem at scale is always immensely difficult. You will always have a select (often very small) percentage of people in the system abusing it for their own gain, which will often be used by populists to say that the entire system is flawed. I don't know where to place the threshold upon which to say "Well, the system works!". It might seem trivial to say, but the easier an exploit is, the more people will abuse it, viewing it as "free money". People who are otherwise fine upstanding citizens.
I think hiring academics to just review stuff would be good. I wouldn't want it to be payment per review, that seems easily exploitable, but the range of academic publications seems to broad to settle on some performance requirement, so how would you measure that these hired people aren't just schmoozing, but working to review stuff?
It's a similar problem that comes from measuring productivity for programmers. Not all lines of code are created equal, there are days where I produce just ten for an entire workday because of the amount of research, testing, writing, rewriting that is required to get to that spot. How do you balance oversight against micromanagement?
Only somewhat jokingly, if the publishers can get USNEWS to use number of peer reviewers at an institution as a scoring criteria in their rankings, it would become a part of tenure and promotion...
Only somewhat jokingly, if the publishers can get USNEWS to use number of peer reviewers at an institution as a scoring criteria in their rankings, it would become a part of tenure and promotion rankings the next day.
It's the same problem IRBs have recruiting and retaining top members. Extra duties and time, no extra pay, and you may or may not have it officially included in your performance review depending on your school or institution.
This is a tricky issue. As a research scientist, my, nearly exclusive, motivation to review is “because I should”. When I am desperate to move my own publications, not to mention funding, forward, this moral obligation is just not sufficient. I’m not sure what the solution is, but government funding to pay reviewers would be an interesting option.
Solving any problem is comparatively easy as opposed to solving a problem systematically. Any incentives you create will, over time, lead to the system adapting to maximize the profit out of those incentives, even if the individuals in it are well-meaning. Something similar happened in the German healthcare system, where specific treatments like surgery were incentivized over others, which over the decades lead to a system where for specific ailments invasive surgery is prioritized over other, better, less invasive treatments for those ailments.
I think solving any problem at scale is always immensely difficult. You will always have a select (often very small) percentage of people in the system abusing it for their own gain, which will often be used by populists to say that the entire system is flawed. I don't know where to place the threshold upon which to say "Well, the system works!". It might seem trivial to say, but the easier an exploit is, the more people will abuse it, viewing it as "free money". People who are otherwise fine upstanding citizens.
I think hiring academics to just review stuff would be good. I wouldn't want it to be payment per review, that seems easily exploitable, but the range of academic publications seems to broad to settle on some performance requirement, so how would you measure that these hired people aren't just schmoozing, but working to review stuff?
It's a similar problem that comes from measuring productivity for programmers. Not all lines of code are created equal, there are days where I produce just ten for an entire workday because of the amount of research, testing, writing, rewriting that is required to get to that spot. How do you balance oversight against micromanagement?
It's a tough nut to crack.
Only somewhat jokingly, if the publishers can get USNEWS to use number of peer reviewers at an institution as a scoring criteria in their rankings, it would become a part of tenure and promotion rankings the next day.
It's the same problem IRBs have recruiting and retaining top members. Extra duties and time, no extra pay, and you may or may not have it officially included in your performance review depending on your school or institution.