A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review [version 2; referees: 2 approved]

Peer review of research articles is a core part of our scholarly communication system. In spite of its importance, the status and purpose of peer review is often contested. What is its role in our modern digital research and communications infrastructure? Does it perform to the high standards with which it is generally regarded? Studies of peer review have shown that it is prone to bias and abuse in numerous dimensions, frequently unreliable, and can fail to detect even fraudulent research. With the advent of web technologies, we are now witnessing a phase of innovation and experimentation in our approaches to peer review. These developments prompted us to examine emerging models of peer review from a range of disciplines and venues, and to ask how they might address some of the issues with our current systems of peer review. We examine the functionality of a range of social Web platforms, and compare these with the traits underlying a viable peer review system: quality control, quantified performance metrics as engagement incentives, and certification and reputation. Ideally, any new systems will demonstrate that they out-perform and reduce the biases of existing models as much as possible. We conclude that there is considerable scope for new peer review initiatives to be developed, each with their own potential issues and advantages. We also propose a novel hybrid platform model that could, at least partially, resolve many of the socio-technical issues associated with peer review, and potentially disrupt the entire scholarly communication system. Success for any such development relies on reaching a critical threshold of research community engagement with both the process and the platform, and therefore cannot be achieved without a significant change of incentives in research environments

A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review

Peer review of research articles is a core part of our scholarly communication system. In spite of its importance, the status and purpose of peer review is often contested. What is its role in our modern digital research and communications infrastructure? Does it perform to the high standards with which it is generally regarded? Studies of peer review have shown that it is prone to bias and abuse in numerous dimensions, frequently unreliable, and can fail to detect even fraudulent research. With the advent of web technologies, we are now witnessing a phase of innovation and experimentation in our approaches to peer review. These developments prompted us to examine emerging models of peer review from a range of disciplines and venues, and to ask how they might address some of the issues with our current systems of peer review. We examine the functionality of a range of social Web platforms, and compare these with the traits underlying a viable peer review system: quality control, quantified performance metrics as engagement incentives, and certification and reputation. Ideally, any new systems will demonstrate that they out-perform and reduce the biases of existing models as much as possible. We conclude that there is considerable scope for new peer review initiatives to be developed, each with their own potential issues and advantages. We also propose a novel hybrid platform model that could, at least partially, resolve many of the socio-technical issues associated with peer review, and potentially disrupt the entire scholarly communication system. Success for any such development relies on reaching a critical threshold of research community engagement with both the process and the platform, and therefore cannot be achieved without a significant change of incentives in research environments

Part of a forthcoming volume Family Well-Being After Welfare Reform

By a convenient coincidence, this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Housing Act of 1949, celebrated widely in housing circles (and unnoticed elsewhere). That act enunciated the national housing goal: “a decent home in a suitable living environment for every American family. ” That’s a useful framework for considering the housing and neighborhoods in which children live: (1) housing—whether children live in decent homes, (2) neighborhoods—whether children live in suitable living environments, and (3) the homeless—the people who do not live in any home at all. Housing policy is different from other social welfare issues. Housing programs are fundamentally different from the other programs discussed in this volume, and housing policy analysts use different data sources and different measures of well-being. This chapter therefore describes housing data sources in some detail before discussing the substantive questions. One fundamental difference between housing and other social welfare programs is that housing assistance is not an entitlement. Until TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), housing was the only major low-income benefit program that was not an entitlement, and in the entire history of federal housing programs, going back to the 1930s, it never has been. Less than 30 percent of eligible households with children receive assistance. We are all familiar with the stereotypical welfare mother living in public housing, so it is worth pointing out that the stereotype is not the norm in either welfare or housing. In 1996, only about 25 percent of the households on AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children