Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting

Alun Salt is my new guru. In a recent post, he put me onto the Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting and their Research Blogging aggregator.

The basic goal is to allow "readers to easily find blog posts about serious peer-reviewed research, instead of just news reports and press releases." They provide guidelines and technological mechanisms for self-identification of those posts in which blog authors "thoughtfully address" the content or outcomes of peer-reviewed research.

The emphasis is so far largely on science, but there's nothing stopping ancientists of all stripes taking a similar approach. Indeed, Alun has just invoked the BP3 badge and guidelines in writing about Peter Heslin's reconsideration of the so-called Horologium Augusti in the latest issue of the Journal of Roman Studies.

I'm curious: do others here see value in this initiative? Pitfalls? If so, why?

3 comments:

Sebastian Heath said...

Very cool. Just registered and will blog myself into that stream soon. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

david meadows said...

The only pitfall I foresee is the one that seems to plague classics/ancient history. There seems to be a genuine 'cultural' abhorrence of technology which potentially creates a situation where a 'potential publication' might be intellectually purloined. The BPR3 is the online equivalent of a post-paper discussion at the minimum and possibly the equivalent of those shorter notes/articles which one used to more regularly see in things like Classical Journal (or older, Classical Weekly). I'm going to mention this initiative at rc on Sunday ... we'll see if anything results ...

david meadows said...

The only pitfall I foresee is the one that seems to plague classics/ancient history. There seems to be a genuine 'cultural' abhorrence of technology which potentially creates a situation where a 'potential publication' might be intellectually purloined. The BPR3 is the online equivalent of a post-paper discussion at the minimum and possibly the equivalent of those shorter notes/articles which one used to more regularly see in things like Classical Journal (or older, Classical Weekly). I'm going to mention this initiative at rc on Sunday ... we'll see if anything results ...