Journals report that it is becoming harder and harder to find willing reviewers, so the idea of paying them to review is getting a new airing. The Researcher to Reader conference this year held a debate (Part 1 & Part 2 viewable online) on the motion “Resolved: Publishers Should Pay Academics for Peer Review” and both of us (Tim Vines and Alison Mudditt) were asked to speak against the motion. Since our opening and rebuttal statements were only read aloud at the debate, we present an adapted version of our case here.
A new peer review bureaucracy
There are so many problems it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s go with the fee itself.
Just like articles themselves, reviews vary wildly in length, quality and complexity — where would we start with assessing an appropriate fee? Our fellow debater James Heathers has started a movement calling for reviewers to be paid $450 for their reviewing efforts. Reviewers can ask for any amount they like, so why pick $450?. Some articles are so intricate that there are perhaps only a handful of experts on earth who can review them — what are their reviews worth? The going rate for expert witness testimony in a court case starts at about $300 per hour — using this rate, a 20 hour review of a long and complex article could then come in at $6000.
The rest of this interesting article can be found on The Scholarly Kitchen.
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