CANCELLED due to unforeseen circumstances. Why is peer review broken and how do we fix it?

Due to unforeseen circumstances we have had to cancel this seminar. We’re very sorry and if we are able to reschedule it in the future then we will let you know. Thank you for the interest you have shown in the EDU Research Seminar series.

Despite the massive changes in academic publishing in recent years, one thing remains more or less constant: the disdain many academics feel for peer review, and perhaps for peer reviewers themselves. This is possibly the most contentious and secretive practice in our academic lives, reviled and tolerated in equal measure but rarely loved. Slow, biased, contradictory, hurtful or wilfully obtuse, reviewers come in for a lot of stick. But are the criticisms levelled at peer review merited or is it an effective means of separating the sweet from the sour? Here I argue that while there is a lot wrong with peer review, it serves an important function for the academic community and that those of us in language education have a role to play in making it work.