[Roleplaying] Peer Review of Articles

[Jose P. Zagal]

Markus Montola wrote:
>> I think we are in a cultural shift towards interactive experiences and 
>> the older generation can't relate to that. That's why they insist on 
>> peer review articles because that's how they can delay the development 
>> of a new cultural elite based in interactive aesthetics and culture.
> 
> I think we are in a paradigm shift in terms of academic publishing. 
> Paper publications are going obsolete; who reads paper journals anymore? 
> Paper books will follow. Instead, we see loads of random internets 
> publications ranging from conference proceedings to reports and online 
> journals. Still, the system is trying to maintain that Book Chapters Are 
> Better Than Conferences, Since Hey, They Are Printed In Real Books After 
> All.

Well, lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. More than the 
format (journal/conference/etc.), what people really care about is the 
formal (and hopefully rigorous) review process that work goes through 
before it's published.

You can't really generalize that, say, book chapter is better than 
conference and whatnot, it really depends on the conference (and the 
book's editor, and so on). For example, in the graphics community, it is 
well understood that a full SIGGRAPH conference paper is a terminal 
publication (ie, complete and mature work). For other disciplines, the 
conference paper tends to be a "work in progress" towards some other 
form of publication (hence, abstract submissions in some areas for 
conferences).

So yeah, while PAPER may be on the way out, I don't think that the 
process necessarily is.


> And as journals are losing their importance, we are moving towards 
> faster and faster cycle of publishing, and many fields are already 
> taking steps towards, Publishing 2.0 where the publications are not end 
> results, but stuff is published on commentable and even editable forums 
> before being finalized.
> 
> Sometimes I wonder why don't we all go full speed on Wikipedia approach, 
> starting from the people in natural sciences. Except that in collective 
> process it's hard to show personal merits -- to  academic 
> decision-makers who are basing their measures on pointless metrics that 
> are more about gaming the system than publishing kick-ass papers that 
> advance the state of art.
> 
> Game studies has made me an academic anarchist: To me, only guerilla 
> scholarship makes any sense. The formal system is always perfect for 
> doing the research that has already been done, but starts to suck the 
> moment you start researching something new.

I guess I'm not that of a radical. For the the scholarship depends on 
what you're trying to do and how you need to go about doing it. I'm a 
big proponent of peer review because I feel that it really is an avenue 
for improving the quality of ones work. It's another issue entirely if 
peer review works in practice in many venues.


> 
> Some people cling to disciplinary divides, while the young generation 
> shops for whatever tools that address the task at hand. The word 
> "Oxford" is no stamp of quality in my books.


It's a minor indicator at most. :-)


Jose



> 
> 
>   - Markus
> 
> PS. Here's a dilemma where old system meets new field: Who would be 
> qualified to be an opponent in my defense? Requirements: Doctor, 
> preferrably been for a few years. Not a close colleague. Knowledgeable 
> on role-playing and pervasive gaming. Multidisciplinary. Preferrably 
> European.
> 
> If you have a good idea, send me a suggestion IN PRIVATE.
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