Traditional methods of peer review are coming under strain as the volume of manuscripts and the number of forums for manuscript submission rise. These pressures can result in poorer quality reviews, extended publication times, and higher costs to the organisations that fund research. In this paper we describe a method for reducing reviewing burden, expediting feedback and shortening publication times. Furthermore, by its nature, the method produces leading (as opposed to lagging/trailing) publication metrics for authors and the manuscripts they write, and we show how these metrics can be used by search engines to provide more useful orderings of search results. Finally, we briefly discuss the potential to apply the underlying mechanism of the method to application domains beyond research publishing, such as the web as a whole.

via: http://digital-scholarship.org/digitalkoans/2009/07/23/fair-use-evaluator-and-exceptions-for-instructors-etool-released/

Journals should use a generic submission format until papers are accepted.

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