What is scholarly work?
All university faculty are familiar with the pressure to publish their scholarly work. As the saying goes, "publish or perish." The gold standard of publications is the peer reviewed article. My question is this: who are the peers? Traditionally, the peers have been other scientists. Can the public act as our peers when it comes to evaluating our scholarly work? They are the ones paying our salaries. Would this increase our accountability to the public.
The mechanism for this public assessment would be a simple yeah or nay. Just as Cesar would give a thumbs up or down to determine the fate of a fallen gladiator. The public would express their opinion through a simple positive or negative assessment (plus or minus comments). The best real world example of this is the digg.com website.