Part of my frustration with academic journal publishing (and I'm sure others share this frustration, too) stems from the narrow conception of "peer review" that seems to predominate today. Now, I should preface what I'm about to say by noting that I've had mostly good experiences with peer review, so I'm not advancing this criticism to express "sour grapes." Instead, I think it's worth questioning the extent to which assessment by two or perhaps three anonymous "experts" constitutes a "peer review." I also think it's worth thinking about the conditions under which this particular system of review arose. They seem to me quite different, technologically speaking, compared to the prevailing conditions today.

So instead of resting on our laurels, why not begin thinking about how to make peer review work even better, given the current technological context we inhabit? Here I'm imagining a system that would utilize some form of crowdsourcing as the platform for peer review. Now, I know that opens up a whole can of worms, one I'll need to deal with in the next paper. But all the same, there seem to me untapped opportunities to make "peer review" a more genuine, and indeed rigorous, peer review.