Implications of new technology for the reviewing process

摘要

The process employed in refereeing and peer review is fundamentally the same as the scientific method of investigation desired in all activities we characterize as research. Reviewing of manuscripts and proposals involves the acquisition, organization, and logical evaluation of evidence relating to factors such as appropriateness, originality, relative quality, and conformance to specific standards of content and presentation. In practice, and for good reasons, reviewers often deliver only “quick and dirty” research when they review, thus giving cause for complaints about the dependability and even the necessity of reviewing. Abandonment of reviewing would not be a solution. New technology does not yet offer much hope for replacing human reviewers with automated and superior reviewing processes. However, there are various ways in which technology might be applied to assist and supplement the human reviewer. Further progress might come through the extension of efforts to achieve automated identification of the parts of texts that correspond to desired elements of scientific activity.