In Praise Of Peer Review: A Modest Proposal For Identifying Unscrupulous Open Access Journals

John Willinsky | Slaw | November 4, 2013

I remain indebted to peer review. Sure, I’ve been called a dilettante. Had ideas dismissed as half-baked. Had the floor swept with the derivative nature of my work. Been chastised for treating data as singular. And then the self-inflicted wounds of my own careless error. But having suffered from what appears only at first glance to be the slings and arrows of outrageous peer-review, I stand by this process.

I will defend a career’s worth of the anonymous and thankless work of reviewers who have provided the concerted kind of attention that I undoubtedly needed. It has made me, such as I am, a scholar of the peer-reviewed article and book. If I carry each kick, it aids my own revising, as I vow never again will they catch me out, okay, as it later turns out, maybe, once more. But then, no more.

Now, some think peer-review antiquated gate-keeping, arbitrarily or randomly assigned to two or more (overeager) gatekeepers. Some want to drag out of the closet, to thrust into the daylight of the crowd-sourced review, making it open and public.