After this was mentioned in class, I wanted to find out a little
bit more about how content that is not peer-reviewed can still be considered a
reliable source of information.
I came across this article, which talks about the new system of
peer-reviewing when content is published instantly.
“In the case of social platforms, the metric that drives discovery is how much interaction there is with your content on the social platform in question. Examples of such interaction include the numbers of followers you have and the number of times your content is shared, liked, commented on, [and] viewed.These metrics show how much interest there is in your papers, and how widely they are read right now, and thus provide a sense of their level of impact.”
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| Courtesy of birgerking from flickr.com |
Personally, I’m not sure I’m ready to accept this as a
reliable peer review. While something may be popular and getting lots of likes
and shares on Facebook (we’ve all see, or even shared, those Huffington Post
articles), that doesn’t mean it is ready to be cited in an academic paper. While it’s great that ideas and content can
be published instantly, they still need to take the next step to phase three of
academic blogging to be taken seriously.
So, what are your thoughts? Can something be considered a
reliable source if it is getting a lot of attention online?
