Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Shakespeare Quarterly Testing Open Peer Review

In what now appears to be a trend, the NYT reports that the prestigious 60-year-old Shakespeare Quarterly is also experimenting with open peer review.

In the forthcoming fall issue, SQ will become the first traditional humanities journal to break away from the traditional closed review system. Another journal, Postmedieval, is planning a similar trial for next year.

Mixing traditional and new methods, the journal posted online four essays not yet accepted for publication. A group of experts were invited to post their signed comments on MediaCommons. Anyone could add their thoughts as well as long as they registered with the system. In the end, 41 people made more than 350 comments. The comments elicited responses from the essay authors. Sphere: Related Content