"Content Matters" on Nature's peer review trial
Barry Graubart writes about Nature's peer-review trial at his Content Matters blog. Mr Graubart refers to the Wall St Journal's erroneous comment that Nature has "cancelled" the trial. As explained in the Nature report , the trial was originally intended to be a three-month experiment starting in June. In the event, we extended it by a month, closing it to new submissions in October. Since then, the remaining manuscripts in the trial have completed the peer-review process and we have been analysing the results (which necessarily meant waiting until the final manuscripts had received referees' reports and could be removed from the trial).
Mr Graubart writes: "While it's disappointing that this experiment did not succeed, the fact that they tried this open peer review process is a testament to the team at Nature. I have previously posted about Nature's position as an innovator among content providers. While this experiment may not have produced the results they'd hoped for, I have no doubt they will continue to push the envelope in testing new technologies."
We're grateful for those kind words, and are sure that Mr Graubart's final suggestion is correct.
