Library Intelligencer

this article is open access
Authors: Tananbaum, Greg; Holmes, Lyndon

Source: Learned Publishing, Volume 21, Number 4, October 2008 , pp. 300-306(7)

Publisher: Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
Abstract:
Web-based peer-review systems are ubiquitous within scholarly publishing today, providing valuable efficiencies for authors, editors, and referees. These systems are the result of a general evolution from paper-based workflows to electronic processes that began in the 1970s. DOS-based systems paved the way for Windows desktop systems and, in the mid-1990s, Web-based peer review. Governmental, academic, and commercial stakeholders all participated in advancing the state of peer review by experimenting with different technologies, workflows, and features. These experiments have coalesced into a new steady state in which Web-based peer-review systems are the norm, and in which continued evolution tends to focus on incremental improvements to traditional workflow.