About this peer commentary wiki

by Derek Morrison, 21 May 2008

This wiki has been created as a companion site to the Research Observatory (TEL strand) wiki. The latter is administered by Martin Oliver.

So why a separate but complementary site to the Research Observatory wiki?

The "peer-commentaryHE" wiki is intended to act as a place where invited guests can make extensive comments on previously published papers and postings. By having a separate wiki we can control authoring rights more easily which is important for the purposes of this wiki which is to model a "authored thought piece" > "invited commentary" > "author response" scholarly approach. We also would like to evaluate the affordances and constraints associated with this approach.

There are some antecedents to what we are doing. One example is the UK Open University's Journal of Interactive Media in Education (JIME) which implemented an open peer-commentary model in which online articles were linked with the open source online discussion system Phorum. Another journal employing peer commentary is the internationally renowned Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS). Perhaps less academically prestigious, but still significant, are the reader/consumer review facilities provided by Amazon and similar companies. Interestingly, there does, however, seem to be a paucity of such public peer reviews on Amazon.uk by those who have purchased texts related to e-learning, with the normal state being "No customer reviews yet. Be the first". Perhaps the number of used copies offered on Amazon at a discounted price provides an alternative indicator of the perceived current value of such texts, e.g. falling price and lots of used copies = time for a new edition? An alternative argument is, of course, that reviews of such books tradionally take place in the academic and not the public domain.

The invited peer commentary model being piloted here is part of the investigation Martin is leading into the different models of community engagement that we want to inform the Academy's thinking about how a sustainable Research Observatory can be implemented. So rather than opt for the immediate development of a technically-sophisticated web site we want to take a more modest and measured approach that makes appropriate use of easily available technologies and services. The lessons we learn may well be used to inform something more technically sophisticated and Academy-hosted at a later date. Any work submitted here can be ported to whatever successor system is developed and so won't go to waste.

This wiki, will therefore, also act as a portal to articles and postings that we would like to invite commentary on. To start the ball rolling the first article is available below. If you are approached to become a peer commentator please respond positively.

Articles & Postings for invited commentary

1. You take the high road: National Programmes for the Development of e-Learning in Higher Education by Terry Mayes, and Derek Morrison in Reflecting Education, Vol 4, No 1 (2008), 6-16