The new release candidate allows you to rate articles using the following criteria
- Insight – How thought-provoking a user found the article or how much it advances our scientific understanding
- Style - How well performed and presented a user considers a study to be
- Reliability - How secure a user feels the results and conclusion are in a study
The criteria are interesting. They are along the lines of peer review, in a more open, wisdom of crowds kind of way. Are these criteria sufficient? Are they the most important ones?
Pedro has some nice screenshots, and as a member of the group, I should really start following what’s being posted on Facebook
Technorati Tags: PLoS One, Wisdom of Crowds, Peer Review
4 Comments
I think the most important criterion for any scientific document is usefulness – was it used by another scientist in the execution of their research?
I think the most important criterion for any scientific document is usefulness – was it used by another scientist in the execution of their research?
I like the insight part. How would we rate the usefulness of something like the discovery of RNA interference (just to give an extreme example) ? When we read it we know that it is something that other people should read, even it I am not going to use it immediately for my work. Sometimes we just want to say how far reaching this discovery can be and go tell the world about it. Some other times we can find it useful for a very small niche area. So I think the perceived impact, that comes before the use (although directly connected) is also important. We rely on impact factors for this today, but it would be better to evaluate the impact of individual papers from user ratings and of course usage values and citations.
I like the insight part. How would we rate the usefulness of something like the discovery of RNA interference (just to give an extreme example) ? When we read it we know that it is something that other people should read, even it I am not going to use it immediately for my work. Sometimes we just want to say how far reaching this discovery can be and go tell the world about it. Some other times we can find it useful for a very small niche area. So I think the perceived impact, that comes before the use (although directly connected) is also important. We rely on impact factors for this today, but it would be better to evaluate the impact of individual papers from user ratings and of course usage values and citations.
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