When peer review meets social networks
In its traditional form, peer review is the evaluation of a manuscript by one or more referees before its publication in a scientific journal. The referees (usually from one to three researchers or scholars who are experts in the field) are chosen by the editor of the journal.
There are multiple problems with this “pre-publication” model: the editor must find reliable referees who accept working without any recognition or reward; the referees may lack the time required to properly critique the authors’ work; the referees can project their own judgmental biases upon the scientific content; and sometimes the resulting evaluation process can let mistakes and flaws go unnoticed.
An alternative “post-publication” peer-review model is now emerging. Two online platforms, PupPeer and Publons (both launched in 2012), enable researchers to comment on scientific articles as soon as they've been published in journals. The space for criticism is no longer confined to just a few reviewers: all comments are consolidated into a centralized and searchable database, and authors are automatically notified when their article is commented on.
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