crowd-based peer review

In clear connection with my earlier post on Peer Community In… and my visit this week to Montpellier towards starting a Peer Community In Computational Statistics, I read a tribune in Nature (1 June, p.9) by the editor of Synlett, Benjamin List, describing an experiment conducted by this journal in chemical synthesis. The approach was to post (volunteered) submitted papers on a platform accessible to a list of 100 reviewers, nominated by the editorial board, who could anonymously comment on the papers and read others’ equally anonymous comments. With a 72 hours deadline! According to Benjamin List (and based on  a large dataset of … 10 papers!), the outcome of the experiment is one of better quality return than with traditional reviewing policies. While Peer Community In… does not work exactly this way, and does not aim at operating as a journal, it is exciting and encouraging to see such experiments unfold!