APPRAISE (A Post-Publication Review and Assessment In Science Experiment) | ASAPbio

"I describe here a new project – called Appraise – that is both a model and experimental platform for what peer review can and should look like in a world without journals....

The rise of preprints gives us the perfect opportunity to create a new system that takes full advantage of the Internet to more rapidly, effectively and fairly engage the scientific community in assessing the validity, audience and impact of published works....

APPRAISE (A Post-Publication Review and Assessment In Science Experiment)...

It is perhaps easiest to think of Appraise as an editorial board without a journal (and we hope to be a model for how existing editorial boards can transition away from journals). Like journal editorial boards they will curate the scientific literature through the critical process of peer review. However members of Appraise will not be reviewing papers submitted to a journal and deciding whether it should be published. Rather Appraise reviewers are working in service of members of the scientific community, selecting papers they think warrant scrutiny and attention, and reviewing them to help others find, understand and assess published paper....

In the spirit of openness we encourage Appraise members to identify themselves, but recognize that the ability to speak freely sometimes requires anonymity. Appraise will allow members to post reviews anonymously provided that there are no conflicts of interest and the reviewer does not use anonymity as a shield for inappropriate behavior. Whether reviewers are publicly identified or not, Appraise will never tolerate personal attacks of any kind.

We are launching Appraise with a small group of scientists. This is for purely practical purposes – to develop our systems and practices without the challenges of managing a large, open community. But the goal is to as quickly as possible open the platform up to everyone."