Social peer review and humanities

Abstract

The article deals with the evaluation of papers published in specialized journal of the Humanities area. Assessment techniques, qualitative (ex-ante) and quantitative (ex-post), became a fundamental instrument of the academic research. This paper traces the evolution of the evaluation techniques, describing the different methods for peer-review (a very well known praxis for the exact sciences, while still not used much in humanities for historical, epistemological, and economic reasons). Some experimental forms of peer-review are due to the digital environment and to Web 2.0, and started to be used to set up a new assessment practice for humanities. This so called social peer-review is a more appropriate to humanities, and presents many experimental examples based both on qualitative and quantitative methods. Those methods represent a valid option in order to contribute to the academic and cultural debate, and to raise up the level of the research in Humanities.