ACM
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DOI: 10.1145/1866739.1866744
David;Roman

scholarly Publishing
model needs an update

Science demands an overhaul of the well-established system of peer-review in scholarly communication. The current system is outmoded, inefficient, and slow. The only question is how!

The speed of scientific discovery is accelerating, especially in the field of computing, with an increasing number of ways to communicate results to global research communities, and to facilitate the exchange of ideas, critiques, and information through blogs, social networks, virtual meetings, and other electronic media in real time. These changes represent an enormous opportunity for scientific publishing.

Technology facilitated this acceleration, but technology alone will not provide the solution. Scientific discovery will not reduce or replace the need for good judgment, expertise, and quality should always take priority over speed. At times, these values are at odds with the speed of digital communication, and this is never more apparent than when spending a few spare moments reading general Twitter or Facebook posts in response to serious scholarly articles published online in established publications. The combination of social networking and scientific peer review is not a de facto home run.

Nevertheless, if implemented well, technology can help to serve as a springboard for positive changes to the scholarly communication process. But it’s not clear how to measure the import or impact of these activities, or their ability to truly change the current system, which is still heavily dependent on a long established system of “publish or perish” in scholarly journals or conference proceedings. Many of the ways in which we communicate scientific discovery or conduct discourse are simply not counted in professional assessments, and this provides a negative incentive to changing the present system. The existing model of peer review is part of the problem, but the social system of rewarding only the long-established scholarly media (print/online journals and conference proceedings in the case of computer science) is also a major hurdle. The publication media that are accepted by the academic establishment happen to be those that take the most time to reach their intended readership. It is also worth noting that these media have stood the test of time. Science [CoNtINUeD oN P. 96]

Jan camenisch Wins
siGsac’s outstanDinG
innoVation a WaRD Jan Camenisch, a research staff member and project leader at IBm Research- Zurich, is the recipient of aCm’s Special Interest Group on Security, audit, and Control’s (SIGSaC’s) outstanding Innovation award. Camenisch was recognized for
outstanding theoretical work on
privacy-enhancing cryptographic
protocols, which led to IBm’s
Identity mixer, a system that
authenticates a person’s identity
while preserving their privacy.
with colleagues, Camenisch
has addressed the problem of
preserving privacy in distributed
systems, which often require a
user to disclose more personal
information than is necessary to
gain access to online resources.
for instance, Camenisch
has developed cryptographic
tools that allow a person to
create a pseudonym for a
subscription-based web site.
the cryptographically secure
pseudonym proves the person
has a subscription, but doesn’t
reveal any information about
the individual’s identity. It can
be used in nearly all situations
that require authentication,
such as transacting business
online with a smart card.
as technical leader of the
european Union-funded Privacy
and Identity management for
europe project, which aims to
give users more awareness of
and control over their personal
information, Camenisch is in
the process of developing an
entire identity management
system.
he says many users of
facebook and other social media
sites do not realize the extent of
the footprints they are leaving
on the web, and that system
designers don’t put enough
emphasis on identity protection.
his advice for prospective
security experts? “Get fascinated
by the cryptography and believe
that you can solve seemingly
paradoxical problems,”
Camenisch says. “and, of
course, come work for IBm.”
—Neil Savage