A person is an independent researcher. Does the identity of the independent researcher affect the questioning of the research during the review of the journal? If yes, how to prove the research expertise?
Reviews are often blinded so the reviewers don't know the affiliation of the authors.I would suggest that in such a case the editor would need to make an effort to check the background of the author and make sure the study was conducted in an adequate way (in terms of IRB, etc.).
Dear it may not affect the questioning because the paper is objectively and blind peer reviewed.
I assume you are asking whether an author's identity of a paper submitted for publication in a journal should be kept hidden from the reviewers. I have always felt that this information should not be withheld. Good reviewers will review the paper on it's own merits without giving much, if any, weight to side knowledge they may have about the author(s), their affiliation(s), or previous work. Well known authors in the field would probably be identifiable, anyway, based on the paper's content and their citations in the paper's references. In some cases publication or rejection might be recommended a little more strongly for author(s) with, respectively, a good track record or one of plagiarism, for example. But that should not be a sufficient reason to hide the information in question.
I'm going to reply to B.E. White above and say that I respectfully disagree. Double-blind review is always best. My distinguished colleague Dr. White has ignored the influence of politics in decisions like these, and if one were to review a paper by Famous Author X, there might be repercussions if you rejected it. Additionally, publish too many of these "famous authors" and they crowd out opportunities for lesser-known scholars to get published. I think, contrary to what my colleague has averred, we should ignore the person and review the scholarship, and dispense with opportunities for the person's identity to sway us.
The reviewers are blind, but the journal editors know who the authors are. They have some discretion in assigning "easy" or "tough" reviewers, if they like the article or the author, or conversely if they do not.
Thank you Patrick and Michael for your comments. You both make some good points. I'm too much of an idealist, I guess, in thinking politics should be ignored, at least to a large extent. [I can't imagine how some famous author would "repercuss" an anonymous reviewer for a rejection, other than to complain to the reviewer and editors online which undoubtedly would slightly damage that famous person's reputation among those readers.] I also feel that good editors will not assign reviewers based on their own opinions about the authors. I guess you might say, and I would tend to agree, that I'm somewhat naive as to how the world works. But on this rather narrow topic, I still vote for acting responsibly and objectively, and sharing information in the interest of mutual benefit and trust building and not punishing people for doing so. Brian
Some very interesting comments, though im not sure anyone has offered views of the future of scientific publishing. We know that reviewing whether blind or double blind has its merits and its issues, but either way journals are capitalising on the good faith of reviewers to offer their services for free in the name of science. I recently started reviewing with PeerJ which has a really interesting model which we ought to see more of in future journals/ejournals. Reviewers can opt to be named, facilitating an open professional discussion and review of a manuscript without potential concerns over one sided anonymity. Preprints can be published alone, or authors can go through rounds of review for official publication and opt to make those rounds available. Transparency in science is crucial for us (researchers) to maintain control and rigour (journals currently have the power), and perhaps double blind reviewing offers some protection but no transparency. I think more candour is required, and then researcher or reviewer identity is not an issue as the review process can be publicly available, with a focus on the merits and limitations of the work - rather than politics.
For sure the review process is affected by the authors names and affiliation. Not all journals follow the double blind review policy, but it is better to choose the journal that follow this policy for your article. When I get invited to the editorial board of any journal, I first check if the journal policy can be changed to double blind review. I do believe all journal should follow this policy for fair assessment of the research papers. However, blind review may not affect the editorial decision "which is not blinded" especially when rejecting an article. Open review is an extreme and may be embarrassing for reviewers to reject articles under this policy.
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