Todd A. Carpenter (National Information Standards Organization) uploaded “What Constitutes Peer Review of Data: A Survey of Published Peer Review Guidelines” to the Cornell University Repository to download. The paper reviews the policies around publication of data sets and how to understand peer review and data sets. Carpenter writes:

The process of peer review of articles varies from title to title, but it usually consists of two stages: an editorial assessment by the journal’s editor or editorial team, then an external evaluation by several peer reviewers…If a paper moves passes this initial test, it is then sent to independent reviewers for consideration. These reviewers usually provide a deeper analysis and critique of the paper, a step that, according to Walker and Rocha da Silva, involves factors such as study design and methodology, soundness of process and results, data clarity, interpretation of results, completeness of the study, novelty and significance, ethical issues, and other journal-specific criteria. Of course, this process isn’t without its critics, its faults, its troubles, or its resulting errors.

The Open Library of Humanities announced the launch of their platform with an editorial by directors Martin Paul Eve and Caroline Edwards. Launched after more than two years of planning, with supporting membership funding, OLH represents “the seed of a scalable model for journal transition to open access in the humanities that does not rely on payment from authors or readers” and that attempts to counter “staunch resistance in the humanities to open access.” As Martin and Edwards write:

For this initial launch, six journals have moved from their existing homes to our new model: 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long-Nineteenth Century; The Comics Grid; Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon; ASIANetwork Exchange; Studies in the Maternal; and The Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry. These publications span the range of journal types that the platform can support: those publications that are already open access but that rely on unsustainable volunteerist labour; those that are open access but that rely on unsustainable article process charges; and those that are currently subscription-based but that want to achieve open access. Applications are now open for other journals that wish to join the platform.

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