Scientific refereeing in a distributed world and the worldwide physics network physNet

Abstract

Requirements for screening prime scientific documents in the digital age are discussed: Separation of publish first on the web (posting), refereeing then allows careful refereeing, taking its time without hindering the distribution of new research results. It possiblyallows multiple and/or parallel refereeing. The requirements for its organization call for professional search engines, international standard metadata usage, a long term stable archiving and an integration into document networks. A realization scheme is presented. By use of the new Open Archives Initiative framework the library of each research institution or University serves for its local authors as a local online repository of their prime scientific documents. The library organizes the new postpublishing refereeing process. The signed incoming reports are stored, posted and linked to the document. Refereeing is voluntary. The level of strength of the quality filter is defined by who is asking for refereeing: the local research group head, scientists of the same field of neighbour universities, experts as named by the corresponding national learned society.