The Convergence of Digital-Libraries and the Peer-Review Process

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel repository-centric peer-review model integrated with pre-print repositories, utilizing social-network algorithms for reviewer selection and metadata tags to enhance the peer-review process within the OAI-PMH framework.

Contribution

It introduces a deconstructed publication model with an OAI-PMH peer-review service that uses social-network algorithms and new metadata tags for improved peer review.

Findings

A peer-review service mediated by social-network algorithms

Introduction of peer-review specific metadata tags

Integration within the OAI-PMH framework

Abstract

Pre-print repositories have seen a significant increase in use over the past fifteen years across multiple research domains. Researchers are beginning to develop applications capable of using these repositories to assist the scientific community above and beyond the pure dissemination of information. The contribution set forth by this paper emphasizes a deconstructed publication model in which the peer-review process is mediated by an OAI-PMH peer-review service. This peer-review service uses a social-network algorithm to determine potential reviewers for a submitted manuscript and for weighting the relative influence of each participating reviewer's evaluations. This paper also suggests a set of peer-review specific metadata tags that can accompany a pre-print's existing metadata record. The combinations of these contributions provide a unique repository-centric peer-review model that fits within the widely deployed OAI-PMH framework.