I don't have a strong opinion, but note that double-blind review is often not truly double-blind.  Often, reviewers can figure out who the authors are by the tendency of authors to self-cite.  Sometimes the authors or editor forget to edit the acknowledgment section which may give away institutional affiliation.   A fellow expert might recognize the writing of a colleague.  Thus, achieving double-blind review in practice seems difficult.  Many top journals do not use a double-blind approach.  Knowing something about author's research background might help explain a disciplinary perspective (or bias?) or raise concerns if an author is publishing way out of their area(s) of expertise.

I don't have a strong opinion, but note that double-blind review is often not truly double-blind.  Often, reviewers can figure out who the authors are by the tendency of authors to self-cite.  Sometimes the authors or editor forget to edit the acknowledgment section which may give away institutional affiliation.   A fellow expert might recognize the writing of a colleague.  Thus, achieving double-blind review in practice seems difficult.  Many top journals do not use a double-blind approach.  Knowing something about author's research background might help explain a disciplinary perspective (or bias?) or raise concerns if an author is publishing way out of their area(s) of expertise.

Henry is right. Whether with publications or grants, it's very easy to guess who the authors are, unless the submitters are completely new to the field. It's also easy, if a bit more challenging, to guess who the reviewers are. Double-blind might work--maybe--if the journal or grant organization commissioned a third party to re-write and summarize the piece and the reviews: obviously too expensive/wasteful and complicated. Instead of trying to double-blind, why not remove the blinders entirely?

Dear Ehsan, in most of the fields that I am active (e.g., geoscience, archaeometry) there is no too much sense to apply the double-blind review. As Henry pointed out above, in most of the cases the reviewer can figure out who the authors are, or at least which research group has contributed to the manuscript. Beside the self-citations, mostly the region of interest (geology: area, archaeology: archaeological site), the topic (in archaeology the age, in archaeometry the measurement technique) and the approach together "fingerprint" the author(s)/groups. For instance if I write a tectonic geomorphic contribution, I will almost surely include something about slope distributions, so my colleagues can identify me if they invest some effort. Similarly, other colleagues have favourite topics and/or techniques. (I do not want to give examples, intentionally :-))

However, being somewhat active in engineering sciences as well, I realized that in that branch it can be a good idea to have double-blind review. Many contributions cannot be really localized; if new processing technologies are presented it is often done on standard data (i.e. for comparison) and there are numerous research groups working on certain problems, consequently the citations will cover several groups. This way the identification of the authors is by far less easy.

@Henry: A short comment on your last half sentence: "...raise concerns if an author is publishing way out of their area(s) of expertise". As a reviewer I never consider the authors' area of expertise (mostly I don't even know). I evaluate the contribution,not the authors. They can be doctoral students or professors, for me it does not matter at all, IMHO the quality of the contribution matters only.

Kind regards, Balázs

I am in favor of the double blind process, although it is very difficult to implement at the journal level. In my area, I have found very established people whose paper do not  get rejected, even though they should. I know of cases of high quality papers, that are rejected because the authors are junior, or come from a country outside US. Having a blind-less process is tricky because the authors may be senior people and be asked to review proposals or the promotion process of the reviewer.

Here is an example where my role as a reviewer was disclosed to the authors of a publication, making the review blind-less. The journal paper in question was of poor quality, and written by an established senior author in my field. As a reviewer, I always give a chance to the authors to resubmit a revised paper, unless there is plagiarism. So in my case, I asked for clarifications/improvements to the authors. I also asked the editorial staff to correct the typo of my last name in the two references of my work, whenever the paper was deemed acceptable for publication. The editorial staff asked the authors to correct my name, giving away my identity to the authors (I was one of two reviewers). At that point, I could not reject the paper, even though the answers to my concerns were not satisfactory. 

@Valeria:That's a good story, I will tell to my doctoral students to be even more careful. I think your name is easy to spell (if someone pays attention). Imagine my case (I stopped counting the versions, I always contact Scopus Feedback that funny sequence of letters people cited in their paper it's me) :-) Regards, Balázs

Thanks, Balazs, and take care!

Thanks, Ali. To be honest, I think the only way to fix the review process is to have a double blind process. However, the editor in charge of a journal needs to be able to take the heat and stick to his/her principles when contacted by upset senior people who have been rejected. 

Since we are talking anecdotes, I will share another story: I am at the award talk of a famous researcher (he got an award by this professional association). He tells us how he had this theory, published a paper about it in a top journal, and somebody else needs to verify it experimentally. I call that a hypothesis, and the burden of the proof should be on him, not on other people. If I had done the same, I would have been rejected instantly.

Hello Ali,

you have shown high ethical behavior. The associate editor should have excused himself and get somebody else to take care of the review process. Withdrawing a paper is painful, and at the very least requires time reformatting the reference list. Some journals expect you to cite a number of references from those journals, to increase their stature.

We need to change the world, a bit at the time, and sticking to ethics. Some of these established people will eventually retire. Probably their students and post-docs will not, but we just need to move ahead.

Good luck to you!

@Valeria: "Some journals expect you to cite a number of references from those journals, to increase their stature."

"Some"? Most probably: "Many" or "Most of", (but hopefully not "Almost all") ;-)

Kind regards, Balázs

@ Balazs: you are right. Most of the journals I submit to (in the area of mechanics of materials) expect it, but I have seen a few exceptions. I did not know it was something common to journals in other disciplines.  One more thing that should be fixed in the process:-).

Have a nice day!

Thank you all for your complete answers and different views. 

I personally when review a paper, first take a glance at the background of the authors. This helps me judge the overall paper better, but doesn't mean that I won't go through all equations and discussions. This is because usually even if there is second or third university professor author, the first student author has the most important role; and typically, the professor does not have enough time to go through everything. 

For the double-blind review, you don't know with what kind of author in which level you are dealing. Hence, you cannot provide them with the feedback that fits their level very well.

I myself as an author and a reviewer do not prefer the double-blind system. 

I fully agree with Ali. I have served as a reviewer for about 15 years now. As a freshly graduated PhD, I used to be in awe of the big names. Well, not anymore. After hundreds of reviews, I have come to the conclusion that the big names do not correlate necessarily with high quality of research in every single publication (unless the professor is really on top of everything going on in his/her lab, has no life and does not sleep at night). Moreover, I really question the fact that US private institutions are at the top of worldwide academic rankings, especially after having served on PhD theses of out-of-US public institutions that are not ranked, but produce excellent, rigorous research that is off the mainstream radar. 

If I were to advice where to publish a really innovative idea coming from a junior researcher or somebody from a relatively unknown institution, I would highly recommend a double-blind journal. Problem is, there are not a lot of them. 

Maybe Ali, Balazs and I should take this issue in our own hands and start a double-blind journal ;-).

@Valeria,@Ali, Thanks for the opportunity. Well, a double-blind journal, it is much of work. If you are very good in programming in HTML in other web-based stuff, maybe you can create a handy supporting system, otherwise it is tough.

Valeria got the point "(unless the professor [...] has no life and does not sleep at night)", That's very true.

Well, I am somewhat proud of the fact that we started an open-access journal 10 years ago (note: 10 years ago open-access was not an established term, there were hardly any such journals at that time), and now Archeometriai Műhely is indexed in Scopus. (And the authors retain their copyrights and pay only if they want to have hardcopy of the issue. The web appearance of the peer-reviewed paper is free of charge.) It was and it is a great effort of the editor-in-chief (let me name her: Katalin T. Biró) and the editorial board; we do everything ourselves, with a minimalist design and web layout. (But the few printed copies are really aesthetic!)

Of course, it is not double-blind, as I mentioned before, because the topic is archaeometry. There is no reason for that. If you know that e.g., three researchers are analysing the stone material of an archaeological site (found via a rescue excavation due to a motorway construction), it would be very surprising if not these three researchers were the authors of the submitted the paper. (Then I would rather assume some unethical behaviour of their boss or someone in their institute.)

Furthermore, once I organized a relatively large ISPRS conference (300+700 pages of proceedings), so I have experience what is the approximate workload needed.

But, as a bottom line, I would like to emphasize that the real problem is not the workload. Well, if work is needed, it can be done. I would even do that. The real problem is how to distinguish yourself nowadays from the predatory journals! And even if you do everything perfectly the show can still be stolen, see the "hijacking" case of e.g. Wulfenia. Poor innocent guys of the - original - editorial board and poor - original - authors, I commiserate with them! 

Thanks for reading, kind regards, Balázs

@ Ali and Balazs: I would love to start a double blind journal, that has been actually in my mind for about a couple of years now. My only experience in the editing world has been as guest editor of a special issue of an established journal, and that was a ton of work as it is. So, I am aware that I do not have a clear idea about how difficult starting a new journal would be, especially a double-blind journal.

One of the things I need to do first is to apply for promotion to full professor (which I am going to do this Summer). As soon as the letters from the reviewers are in, then I do not have to worry anymore about stepping on famous people's feet. Of course, my promotion may be denied, but then I will have greater problems than starting a double-blind journal.

@ Balazs: I definitely did not know that there was a legitimate open access journal 10 years ago. Now they are all over the place, and some of them seem scam. I receive many weekly invitations to submit to any of them. In my field, a journal which is only open access is considered sub-par. I was not aware of the case of Wulfenia, and will need to read more about it. 

I know a professor who has started a double-blind journal in my field. He is very established but he has also does not care to be considered a troublemaker. I can ask him about the process, and I am sure I will get a good picture of how difficult this is.

I really like the model of JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, www.jove.com. I published there so I have direct experience. It's by invitation only, there is a strict review process, and at the end, the authors pay part of the expenses of the production of the video, which is shot by a professional. They have different departments for different disciplines, so it has a quite large scope. In the case of a double-blind multidisciplinary journal, there would need to be a title encompassing multiple disciplines, then associate editors for each major discipline. JoVE used to be an open access journal, but now it does subscriptions, and they still need to charge US$4,000 to the authors for video's partial costs (which is still minor with respect to the extra pages fee that some journals charge).

I have no idea whatsoever how a new journal can sustain itself so that it does not become a drain on the pockets of the founders. I like Balazs' idea of charging the author only for the hard copy of the paper. This way, there is no ethical issue of the journal supporting itself because the authors pay to be published in it.

What I would like to recommend is

1) think very hard about it and whom to involve (I have a couple of people in mind from my area)

2) ask around as much as possible, in terms of what the process entails, and to find out the chances of getting a small but established publishing house to work with us, were we to move forward in this direction. 

Well, I need to get my kids to school, and give an exam to my students today.

I look forward to your thoughts. 

Have a great day!

Valeria

@ Ali: hi, good to hear from you! I started a new thread:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_you_have_experience_of_starting_a_double-blind_journal_in_engineering?cp=re72_x_p2&ch=reg&loginT=duDvWQ5qyyqQsY5-sCE7X3GoooN-5oJXWsh_xJ-xD0k%2A&pli=1

Great contributions on here! A system that prevents bias and subjectivity is the best.

Scientists already complain of a slow review process in reviews in scientific journals. There is enough workload to spread around with regular reviews let alone double-blinded reviews. When I see the results of a RCT comparing regular review to double-blinded review, then I will reconsider, in the mean time let's see some new research being published, not just sitting in a queue waiting to be double-blinded.

A double blind review no matter it's limitations (it is with every system) is better than the regular open reviews. It juices paper reviews with some amount of professionalism, fairness and rigor.

The real solution is that reviewers must always cling to the ideals of excellence and integrity. They must be dedicated to improving science irrespective of who wrote the paper, known or unknown. Biases in review is no review at all. It's just a waste of precious time!

It is a very interesting curious discussion. As for me personally, I believe that every article should be reviewed in the regular, traditional style. I'd like to know everything possible about this article - as for the names and work places of the authors, the country in which the work was performed, etc.

However, with all this the result of my review would depend on the quality of the article results, its ideas, methodologies and techniques used in the performance of the work, and the quality of the discussion and conclusions made in this article.

Double blinded reviews is a sign of a certain distrust in the reviewers' impartiality due to personal preferences, lack of objectivity and professionalism, and prejudices of every kind. It is the responsibility of journal editorial boards to eliminate, filter out such reviewers. Otherwise, the journal reputation will suffer a lot.

In my own opinion, double blind reviewing is not bad. I still prefer it regardless of its limitations. The major issue is that the reviewers must stick to all the principles and ethics of quality peer reviewing process of such journal aiming at improving the quality of the research regardless of who wrote it.

Dear Dr. Oluwaseun A. Otekunrin,

The issue is not with reviewers but with economics of the publishing industry. Every publishing house is a business that worries about their profit, investors, customers, and in some cases affiliated / associated societies and government agencies partially funding them and influencing their editorial board policies.

Sure, double-blind review is way better.