Submission dealing for special session extended to 27th April

The deadline for all Social Simulation submissions, including for those for the special session on simulating the social processes of science, have the deadline extended to 27th April.

Paper: "Alternatives to peer review: novel approaches for research evaluation"

A review article in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, describing experiments in a project on opening peer review (see http://peerevaluation.org/) coming out of the LiquidPub project.

Aliaksandr Birukou, Joseph Rushton Wakeling, Claudio Bartolin3, Fabio Casati1, Maurizio Marchese, Katsiaryna Mirylenka, Nardine Osman, Azzurra Ragone, Carles Sierra and Aalam Wassef (2011) Alternatives to peer review: novel approaches for research evaluation. Front. Comput. Neurosci., 14 December 2011. doi: 10.3389/fncom.2011.00056

In this paper we review several novel approaches for research evaluation. We start with a brief overview of the peer review, its controversies, and metrics for assessing efficiency and overall quality of the peer review. We then discuss five approaches, including reputation-based ones, that come out of the research carried out by the LiquidPub project and research groups collaborated with LiquidPub. Those approaches are alternative or complementary to traditional peer review. We discuss pros and cons of the proposed approaches and conclude with a vision for the future of the research evaluation, arguing that no single system can suit all stakeholders in various communities.

Scientific Reports introducing a fast-track reviewing process for authors who choose to pay to get their paper reviewed in three weeks

In an interesting, but controversial (see peerreviewneutrality.org), move Scientific Report (already an offshoot of nature with a lighter-touch but pay-to-publish open publication model) us offering authors who pay an additional fee a faster touch in terms of reviewing (paying reviewers in turn for timely reviews). This involves the Nature group sub-contracting the organisation of these reviews to a commercial third party, Rubriq (rubriq.com).

Rubriq offers any author a reviewing service that can be used to get feedback prior to publication for $650. Also see an article about this company at: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21578987-portable-reviews-look-set-speed-up-publication-papers-peer-peer

Submission instructions for Special Issue of Scientometrics on “Simulating the Social Processes of Science”

Details about the CfP here:
http://simsocsci.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/cfp-special-issue-of-scietometrics-on.html
Submission is by the end of April 30th 2015 in pdf format, with no particular formatting regulations for the review stage.

Papers should be submitted to: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sispos2015

Depending on the number of submissions by the 23rd April I will consider requests for extensions, but not if I already have notice of a good number of papers - so do NOT depend on this :-)

As ever, any queries or comments email me, bruce@edmonds.name

Bruce Edmonds

3 relevant papers in the latest issue of JASSS

http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS.html

• Innovation Suppression and Clique Evolution in Peer-Review-Based, Competitive Research Funding Systems: An Agent-Based Model
  by Pawel Sobkowicz
  http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/18/2/13.html
  
  
• Does Longer Copyright Protection Help or Hurt Scientific Knowledge Creation?
  by Shahram Haydari and Rory Smead
  http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/18/2/23.html
  
  
• Modelling Academics as Agents: An Implementation of an Agent-Based Strategic Publication Model
  by Xin Gu, Karen Blackmore, David Cornforth and Keith Nesbitt
  http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/18/2/10.html