Parallel Paper Submission: Separate Refereeing and Editorial processes

[rinkus]

If people are genuinely interested in improving the scientific review
process you might want to consider making it unacceptable for the
graduate students of reviewers to do the actual reviewing. Graduate
students are just that...students...and lack the knowledge and wisdom to
provide a fair review of novel ideas.

In many instances a particular student may have particular knowledge and
insight relevant to a particular submission but the proper model here is
for the advertised reviewer (i.e., whose name appears on the editorial
board of the publication) to consult with the student about the
submission (and this should probably be in an indirect fashion so as to
protect the author's identity and ideas) and then write the review from
scratch himself. The scientific review process is undoubtedly worse off
to the extent this kind of accountability is not ensured. We end up
seeing far too much rehashing of old ideas and not enough new ideas.

Rod Rinkus