Dear fellows,
I would like to know your opinion, as authors of academic papers, on your preferred peer-review type(s). Different journals implement different policies, from completely open to double-blind in various shades.
Please feel free to discuss your preferences in the comments!
Here is a starting list of existing and more creative options:
- Single-blind review. A classic. The name of the reviewers is not known to the authors, but the reviewers know the names of the authors. The reviewers may choose to disclose their identity during the peer review process or upon publication.
- Double-blind review. Increasingly popular. The name of the reviewers is not known to the authors, and the reviewers do not know the names of the authors. The identity of the reviewers might be disclosed upon publication.
- Open review. The name of the reviewers is known to the authors at any stage of the peer review, and it's published with the paper afterwards.
- Fully open (all-in). The name of the reviewers is known at any stage of the peer review and afterwards. In addition, the reviews are published online with the accepted paper.
- Open discussion. The manuscript is immediately published as a preprint. Reviewers (which may choose to remain anonymous or not) are appointed by an editor. Their reviews appear online as soon as they are submitted. The authors post their response online together with the revised manuscript, and so on until the editor makes a final decision.
- Very open discussion. Like the open discussion, but also members of the community can post (signed) online comments to the manuscript, and the authors may reply and account for them in the revised manuscript.
- Triple-blind. The review process is not public. The authors don't know the reviewers, the reviewers don't know the authors, and even the handling editor doesn't know the authors.
- Quadruple-blind (poker). The authors don't know the reviewers, the reviewers don't know the authors, the editor doesn't know the authors, the editor doesn't know the reviewers (which are chosen from a pool of eligible reviewers through keywords).
- Quintuple-blind. Like the quadruple blind, but the authors don't know the name of the handling editor.
- Sestuple-blind. Like the quadruple blind, but even the reviewers don't know the name of the handlind editor.
- Hardcore-blind. The authors submit their manuscript to the publisher, without the possibility of indicating the target journal. After anonymous peer review, the publisher suggests the suitable journal based on the reviewers scores. The authors may agree or appeal.
Other variants/suggestions are welcome!
Double blind review is an illusion as the authors' identity is easy to unveil. Douple-open review is the only ethical, democratic and responsible system. Those who choose to be anonymous reviewers because of fear to say their opinion eponymously are not capable of being reviewers.
Prefer Double-blind for next five years. Then, may be open discussion. :)
Hi Ali P. Yunus, I feel that young scientists tend to prefer double-blind, as we recognised on the analogous post on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/reviewer2/permalink/10157453966780469/
Is this in your opinion because young scientists fear that their breakthrough results and less established name would trigger negatively-biased opinion from more established (and conservative) members of the community?
What I feel :
Single blind - biased a little, not always (depends upon reviewer, his mood, author nationality, English language as identified from authors name and affiliation, conflict of interest)
Open reviews / fully open - The acceptance rate of paper will be give and take policy between authors and reviewers if both are familiar with each other (most common in specific field)
Open discussion/Very open discussion - Open discussion I feel okay as seen from EGU journals (again it is like single blind). But very open discussion may harm most of the time the authors. As no paper is perfect, and every member may have a different opinion, some time conflicting - It will be hard to address all of them/ then you make anti-paper groups :D
Double blind / Triple Blind: At present stage, I feel double blind is a good option. Triple blind might be for future as more and more journals are coming in to the market in which every reviewer 2 may become a journal editor/handling editor.
Others - at present and near future is not necessary.
Probably a new version of the single-blind review is missing: The name of the reviewers is known to the authors, but the reviewers do not know the names of them. Actually, why should be important to know the name of the authors? A good manuscript can speak by itself. On the other side, revealing the name of the reviewers can help to more objective reviews since reviewer's name is unveiled.
What do you think Gianvito Scaringi and Ali P. Yunus?
Alonso Pizarro!
Let's call it reverse single-blind review. It is an interesting perspective. On my facebook poll I received the same observation. Actually, someone theorised a reverse double-blind, where authors know both the reviewers and the editors but not the other way round. But, someone else also pointed out that it might be more difficult to find reviewers if they are not protected behind anonimity.
Alonso Pizarro
I second Gianvito Scaringi comment. Apart from that, in a few cases critical evaluation of work requires anonymity because of multiple reasons.
Double blind review is an illusion as the authors' identity is easy to unveil. Douple-open review is the only ethical, democratic and responsible system. Those who choose to be anonymous reviewers because of fear to say their opinion eponymously are not capable of being reviewers.
Fully agree with Prof. Koutsoyiannis that double-blind is an illusion as author identities are easy to reveal (how many people in a particular field are actually working on a given problem? Often not many). I also think that open reviews should be the default. However, given the power imbalances prevalent in academia I believe journals should have a mechanism for reviewers to request anonymity (particularly for early career researchers reviewing papers by established authors). In cases where a reviewer reasonably fears repurcussions (deliberate or otherwise) of publishing a negative review, mandatory open review can disincentivize critique and thus harm the field.
I disagree with those saying that double blind is an illusioni. I did some double blind peer review. The references of self citations are usually censored, and it is impossibile t understand who were the authors. Of corse sometimes I had some idea based on the subject, methods or writing style, but was far from being sure about the authors.
I do not explicitly sign my reviews, but I let authors know my id by suggesting my studies to take into account. In any case, this conversation is not a hot issue these days. The alternative journals someone can publish are so many that unfair rejections cost nowadays only a delay. I think the hot issue now is the speed of the review process. Once, as an Associate Editor, I rejected a manuscript that lacked general scientific interest (a special case study). This manuscript, before being assigned to me, was kept rolling for 8 months over other Associate Editors who just let the manuscript to be ‘self-handled’. The authors complained strongly, and I do not blame them.
Thank you all for your discussion. I am learning a lot of new perspective here.
Open review is the best way to go. If reviewers want to dismiss you using subjective criteria, they can do so regardless of your name being hidden or not. Open review forces people to put time in and present a valid argument to maintain their own credibility as well.
I'm on the very open discussion side.
I don't think that double-blind peer review works, at least not if authors produce consecutive papers based on the same project and need to introduce their previous results. My group, for example, works in a relatively small research field, so if you know our topic and that he field site is in Northern Europe, that already reveals us as the authors.
I think that reviewers (may) need to have the opportunity to remain anonymous, otherwise reviewers become afraid of rejecting papers from important researchers in their field because of (real or imagined) fear of retribution. But I think the reviews themselves, as well as the decision letters and responses should be publicly available. Reviewer names should be published upon acceptance (for reviewers that stay on for the entire process) but not for rejected papers.
Peer review for most journals normally involves the written assessment of 2-5 persons.
Perhaps a better question would be "what is the variation of peer review for manuscript X"?
A common assumption of statistical analysis is one of independence, and this inherently in conflict with the definition of a peer. Semantic differentiation of the review process is therefore nearly impossible for the posed question.
Indeed, there is an entire field dedicate to these topics, called "the philosophy of science".
Relevant to this question is the blog discussion (open for comments):
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/blog/2020/12/11/challenging-conventional-wisdom-and-the-conventional-peer-review-system/
Also posted in RG:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346963540
Dear Demetris
Yes, very good I like that initiative
You put the finger on the wound
it is the time to change the peer-review system
Yes, I like the eponymous ''more effort and courage. But it is cooperative, democratic, equitable, ethical, productive and responsible''
Thank again more
Thanks for your comment, Salim. I am so glad that we share similar opinions.
Dear all,
I would like to share that "double Open Review" is very appealing to me, as Prof Demetris Koutsoyiannis earlier said. In my humble opinion, the review process should be a polite, respectful, constructive and engaging discussion between the reviewers and the authors of a given paper. If all those conditions are met, I cannot think of why the review should be undertaken in a blind fashion.
To add more food for thought to the topic, I would like to share the following links for in-depth reading:
Article Ten considerations for open peer review
(discussion) https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is-blind-peer-review-better-than-open-peer-review
Regards,
Roland.
Roland Yonaba , glad that we agree, and thanks for sharing this paper. One thing I noticed in it: the authors do not know the word "eponymous" and use "non-anonymous" (double negations) to describe it. They are not alone. We have mentioned this phenomenon in our blog post reproduced here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346963540
I would favor open discussion or very open discussion rather than open review options. Reviewers should have the opportunity to remain anonymous, to my feeling. I am e.g. thinking about an early career scientist writing a negative review (possibly suggesting rejection) about a manuscript of a scientist of high renown, which could be the boss in the future. Not absolutely sure if the early-career scientist would be hired later on by the scientist of high renown.
However, making the discussion open could help to prevent or at least to better rank/judge unfair reviews. In case of an very open discussion, scientific community can also argue against unfair comments of reviewers.
All review policies have biases.
I think that blind reviews lead to lower acceptance rates, while open reviews to higher ones. Early carrier scientist may have problems if they do eponymous reviews. So I do not strongly support anyone.
As with fake news, the crux of the matter is perhaps the intelligence and experience of the reader and transparency of analysis and results. But as "intelligence" and "transparency" have no deterministic definitions and their level is not "upper bounded", to solve these issues is a utopian ambition. Science comes with uncertainty, but society hates uncertainty. So a scientific publication needs to appear as something that gives perfectly true claims. But quoting Pontius Pilate: Quid est veritas? Science progress is instead as a random walk to truth.
It is maybe true that open review is more transparent and gives the opportunity to the intelligent reader to better assess the quality of a paper from his own perspective and expertise. But still this will not solve the issue of the "stochastic" nature of the progress of science.
With money-driven publication paths the path of science progress may become a very random walk turning around on the same point. And the solution maybe doest not reside in the way papers are accepted/rejected.
Now that I've given my daily share of bull***t, I can turn off the computer for today...
An interesting preprint (open for comments) on the past and future of scientific publishing with a case study on the journal Sci, from the Saarland University, (co)authored by the editor of Sci, Claus Jacob:
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202101.0395/v1
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Any_major_difference_between_review_peer_review_and_blind_review_What_really_they_want_with_an_article_Why_not_one
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