Open Review

The Open Review process is designed to create better books, higher sales, and increased access to knowledge. Now, thanks to a grant from the Sloan Foundation, we've created the Open Review Toolkit, which is open source software that enables you put your book manuscript through Open Review.

Bit by Bit and Open Review

This is the Open Review website for Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age, but the Open Review period officially ended July 18, 2017. At this time we can no longer make changes to the manuscript, but continue to welcome your feedback. Please see the FAQs below for more information on how to send us your feedback.

In addition to a peer review, Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age went through an Open Review during which everyone could read and annotate a draft of the manuscript. You can view these annotations while reading the book online.

FAQ about open review

What kind of feedback are you looking for?

Open Review is not just about catching typos. Rather, Open Review is designed to collect all types of feedback, and I'd particularly welcome any feedback that you have about the substance of the book. Are there sections that you find particularly confusing? Are their points that you find particularly important? Am I making claims that you think need to be refined? Are there parts of the book that you think should be removed? When in doubt, I think you should follow one of the main principles at Wikipedia: Be bold.

Where can I send my feedback?

Send me an email.

Can I see the annotations that others are making?

Yes, all the annotations are public. You can see them on right hand side of the each page or you can read them in stream form.

What are the benefits for readers?

You get to read the manuscript and help make it better.

What are the benefits for authors and publishers?

The Open Review process will benefit both authors and publishers, even if they have no interest in increasing access to knowledge. The process will lead to higher manuscript quality through the explicit and implicit feedback. Further, the Open Review process will provide valuable data that can be used during that marketing of the book.

What is the build process for this website?

We will do a full blog post about that in the future. For now, you can read more about our code.

Has anyone ever done something like this before?

I'm sure that they have. Here are some somewhat similar projects that I've heard about:

Hadley Wickham seems to develop some of his books completely in the open, although I've never seen him write anything about it.
Lawrence Lessig's Code 2.0 was written in part on a wiki.
One book that really inspired me to try this is Michael Nielsen's book Reinventing Discovery. And, it seems that he is putting his new book on deep learning through a similar process.
Kathleen Fitzpatrick did something similar with her book Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy.

If there are other related projects that I've missed, please let us know and we'll add link.