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criticism was delivered.
_Withdrawal
Finally, during explicit negotiations, a review may be withdrawn.
This eliminates the referee from those prepared to respond to an
invitation.
Cycle of operation
The sequence of events with a consensus journal is the same as with
an invitational journal. The review method, however, involves the
entire readership, or at least those who offer a judgment. New
authors are then selected based upon the review judgements. While
most articles will follow from reviews and be connected to their
target articles, independent articles are also permitted. However,
articles posted without consensus based invitations are less likely
to be read and can not be assumed to have support of other referees.
If we assume that a consensus journal is already functioning, we can
follow the events through a cycle of operation that starts with
reading of an article. While it is not essential for smaller
readerships, we assume that participants exchange information
electronically.
All readers are presented with a target article at the same time. A
reader offers a review judgment in order to be considered for future
authorship. The review message must be received before a certain
deadline, say one week later. The review message consists of scores
along several preselected dimensions. For instance, a scientific
article is expected to be relevant, correct, and original. A more
conversational approach might include the dimensions completeness,
clarity, and appropriateness.
At the deadline, the mediator runs a statistical procedure to
determine if there are consensus positions among the referees. The
most central referee from each of these positions is invited to
submit a new article. These most central referees are also
considered most knowledgeable, within the framework of cultural
consensus theory. D'Andrade (1987) discusses the evidence supporting
this view.
Cultural consensus theory is based on the assumptions of common
truth (i. e., there is a fixed answer pattern "applicable" to all
referees), of local independence (i.e., the referee-dimension
response variables satisfy conditional independence), and of
homogeneity of items (i.e., each respondent has a fixed "cultural
competence" over all dimensions) (Romney, Weller & Batchelder,
1986). Results can be obtained with as few as three respondents, but
four are required if the significance of the results are to be
calculated (i. e., a degree of freedom is then available in the
statistical model) (Batchelder & Romney, 1988). A recent development
in the model is the ability to identify two consensual groupings
within the population of respondents (Romney, Weller & Batchelder,
1987) This is extremely helpful since it permits a minority to
publicize their viewpoint under the same conditions as a majority.
Cultural consensus theory assumes that we have no _a priori_
knowledge about referees, that is, they have no reputations. This is
extremely valuable when a new topic comes up or when there are
violation of assumptions required for calculations concerning a
current article based upon previous information (Stodolsky, 1984b).
Given that reputations have developed and assumptions are satisfied,
however, the theory requires elaboration to be applied most
effectively. Cultural consensus theory provides, in effect, a cross
sectional estimation of competence. That is, given a sample of
responses at a given moment, relative competence is estimated. On
the other hand, given a performance history, Bayesian estimation can
be used to assess the relative importance of different persons'
judgments. That is, there are reputations that give information
about relative competence independent of the current responses. This
assumes stationarity, that is, that the same area of competence is
required for correct response, and that responses are generated in
the same manner (e. g., respondents continue to give honest
answers). Both methods are based upon likelihood estimation,
therefore, a combined theory should be achievable. The combined
sources of information would likely make achieving an implicit
consensus more frequent.
The mediator issues an invitation report showing submitted
judgments, the degree of consensus achieved, the number of consensus
positions identified, degree of knowledge of each referee, and so
on. If consensus has been reached, invited referees are expected to
submit articles.
Negotiation must proceed explicitly if no consensus can be
identified (Figure 2). In that case, referees may look at the
judgments submitted and decide if their positions have sufficient
support. If not, they could reconsider their review judgments, and
either revise them or withdraw from the review process. The author
of an article might, on the basis of these judgments, cancel an
article, thus avoiding potential reputation damaging criticism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ R: Review ------- M: Invitation -------
| Read |----------->| Calc. |--------------->| Write |----------->
------ ------- ------- R: Article
^ | |
R: Review | | M: No consensus | R: Renege