So what exactly is the function of “boosting scholarly reputations”?

Within the career and publications marketing system -the function is obvious: Respected people, publications and institutions attract money, readers, writers, students -and thus eventually (unless unmasked) even more prestige in a self-reinforcing system.

However, the more important question remains, How does scholarly reputation relate to the validity of the scholarly knowledge produced or reviewed by the scholar(s) concerned?

Unfortunately, here the tautological weakness of academic knowledge itself becomes frighteningly visible. Who and how are scholarly reputations built and how can they be questioned -when within the rules of the community involved-it is exactly those with the reputations who are the most qualified (simply on the grounds of their reputation) to judge their own reputations.

This is not a purely academic social-ritual based issue: It also relates to the whole nexus of belief systems upon which any single academic “fact” can be tested. At college, I was once told the charming story that Helmholtz claimed that Marconi was a fool -because radio waves traveled in straight lines and so without a mirror in the sky, or the earth being flat, radio waves could never reach America from the UK. Logically, Marconi’s succesful experiment proved the earth was flat. Although it seems that in fact, the even less plausible explanation for his contra-factual experiment seems now more acceptable: There really is a big mirror in the sky!

I’m sure that there are many other examples of peer review (based on widely held misconceptions) that have “disproved” facts that were later proven to be correct. I understand the tektonic plate theory in geology is an example. Frenology and the Ether were also widely accepted theories of phenomena supported by reputable academics. Who knows how many unknown examples are still haunting our scientific institutions.

As a pioneer artist/programmer I seriously suspect that In my own field a whole scala of both scientific and artistic information and propaganda organisations -inside and outside educational institutions, aided by government and commercial interests have developed a complete industry of professional reputations -that, in my view, are built entirely on sand. The sociological and economic implications of this are enourmous -although completely invisible, simply because of the tautology of the process that has been (perhaps carefully and deliberately) built up over the years. The power of Microsoft (and other companies) for example, seems closely related to the lack of information under the public regarding the nature of the commercial computing industry and any alternatives that might be potentially or actually available. This “digital feudalism” is supported by mainstream newsmedia -and by academics and educational institutions who are less than critical regarding the social effects of commercial exploitation of digital technology -and the way the public are educated to use it. It is also supported by deeply rooted (western) cultural habits (and an educational system that still preserves the “two cultures” system -while pretending to transcend it).

Surely, one ot the most potentially valuable functions that a trully “open access” can have is to break though the dangerous tautology of “peer review” and “scholarly reputation”. In a world in which so called “global communication media” are increasingly used to create a universal intelectual and cultural monoculture -the problem is far from academic.

Since WWII the American socio-economic system has been increasingly seen as the only “authority” around. It’s “scholarly reputation” was invincible. Now it is proving to the world that this invincibility can only be maintained by openly breaking all its own rules and using taxpayers money to keep it alive. One can only wonder how many hidden subsidies helped to create the solid reputaion of the system in the first place -and all the scholarly reputations that supported it.

A rival to the current journal model needs to solve the problem of how to give robust indicators of significance to publications or it will not gain traction.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments on those ideas about scholarly communication.

I hope it was clear we weren’t suggesting that OA itself favours traditional peer review. Furthermore, as I hope is clear from what I wrote, making material OA, whether in journals or not, is clearly essential to permitting the kind of separation of distribution and filtering that we think is valuable. As you say OA is compatible with any kind of review and filtering process.

However, and this was the major point we were trying to make, the major benefits of OA may lie, not in the freer access per se, but in the innovative filtering and reviewing processes these make possible. Thus, while the two topics of OA and filtering/reviewing are not coupled I do think they are linked. In particular, changes in filtering/reviewing depend on OA (though not vice-versa I would emphasize) and many of the benefits of OA are only realized by changes in the filtering/reviewing process.

I don’t know anyone in the OA movement who believes that OA intrinsically favors traditional peer review. On the contrary, the prevailing view (and certainly my view) is that OA is compatible with every kind of peer review, from the most conservative to the most innovative. For that reason, I think it’s best to treat the achievement of OA and the reform of peer review as independent projects. If they’re both important, and I think they are, then they should proceed in parallel. We have to link them if our preferred form of peer review depends on OA, which is the case for most forms of retroactive, distributed forms of peer review. But if we link them when we don’t have to, then the OA movement loses potential allies or delays progress while we try to achieve some (unlikely) consensus on the best form of peer review.