Review-by-Few or Review-by-Many?

Abstract

It’s clear that traditional forms of academic publication are rapidly becoming obsolete. It’s also clear that peer review is a seriously flawed process that could be much improved upon by modern methods of communication. The primary flaw in the peer review process is that it gathers the opinions of a small group (two-to-four) of individuals, and attempts to make a decision based on that sample. It is my contention, that, except in rare cases, this decision is based on too small a sample to be valid. In this opinion piece, I suggest a method for gathering reviews from a wider group of people with the aim of improving the decision-making process.