For Scholars, Web Changes Sacred Rite of Peer Review - NYTimes.com

Why didn’t this happen 10 – 15 years ago?

Now some humanities scholars have begun to challenge the monopoly that peer review has on admission to career-making journals and, as a consequence, to the charmed circle of tenured academe. They argue that in an era of digital media there is a better way to assess the quality of work. Instead of relying on a few experts selected by leading publications, they advocate using the Internet to expose scholarly thinking to the swift collective judgment of a much broader interested audience.

For Scholars, Web Changes Sacred Rite of Peer Review - NYTimes.com