Molly Keener:

If scholars are to be truly evaluated on their impact to the field, a blog that fosters healthy debate and discussion, and ideally advances ideas or problems within the field, is a strong indicator of immediate impact. Blogging busts through access barriers that are currently limiting scholarly advancement by tying scholarship that “counts” to a centuries-old system that often fails to connect and engage scholars expediently. Through commenting and response posts, blogging has even evolved its own peer review system, albeit post-publication. Do you believe it is time for blogging to be validated by the academy as a means of scholarly discourse?

Widespread recognition of the scholarly impact of blogging is long overdue, and the fact that it is taking so long signals a dangerous lack of adaptability in the academy. A blog can help make scholarly work more transparent and approachable by giving readers a window into ongoing research, publishing findings to spark discussion and feedback, and giving potential collaborators or supporters an opportunity to discover ongoing work that’s relevant to their interests.

Keener says the peer review system on blogging is post-publication. That’s true for the blog itself, but in the larger scholarly research process it’s actually pre-publication. Much of what is posted on a blog comes before publishing a paper on the completed research, so a blog can enable an overall increase in peer review by allowing it to take place earlier, and impact ongoing research more quickly and iteratively.