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ABSTRACT

The current system for scholarly information dissemination may be amen able to significant improvement. In particular, going from the current system of journal publication to one of self-distributed documents offers significant cost and timeliness advantages. A major concern with such alternatives is how to provide the value currently afforded by the peer review system.Here we propose a mechanism that could plausibly supply such value. In the peer review system, papers are judged meritorious if good reviewers give them good reviews. In its place, we propose a collaborative filtering algorithm which automatically rates reviewers, and incorporates the quality of the reviewer into the metric of merit for the paper. Such a system seems to provide all the benefits of the current peer review system, while at the same time being much more flexible.We have implemented a number of parameterized variations of this algorithm, and tested them on data available from a quite different application. Our initial experiments suggest that the algorithm is in fact ranking reviewers reasonably.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.7 DOCUMENT AND TEXT PROCESSING

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Documentation, Experimentation, Human Factors, Management, Measurement, Performance, Theory