Recently I have acted as a referee in a journal which discloses the names of the referres on published articles. As it is said in the Decision Stage Quality of the journal.
The names of the Associate Editor and reviewers are disclosed on published articles to encourage in depth and rigorous reviews, acknowledge work well done on the article and to bring transparency and accountability into peer-review.¨"
I am completely agree with this statement. What are the possible disadvantages?.
Kind Regards.
Sebastian
1. Frank and blunt opinions do not find place. The referees tend to become milder in their comments.
2. Sometimes they get pestered in conferences and seminars
3. The researchers whose paper got rejected develop a kind of hatred towards the referees.
I do not think that disclosing the names of referees serves the best interests of research publication due to several factors, e.g. 1) By keeping the names of referees hidden, they are given the freedom to approve or reject a paper but, of course, they have to point out the reasons in both accounts. 2) Knowing that a friend of yours is among the referees may tempt you, as an author, to contact him/her in order to go easy about what you want to publish. 3) The referees will be placed under awkward conditions and may be attacked & described as either too lenient or too hard and such depiction usually spreads rapidly.
Few years ago, I was given a research paper as a referee & I was assured that my name will NOT be disclosed. I read the paper 3 times & then rejected it entirely for reasons that I wrote on 2 full A4 papers. I thanked the editors for not disclosing the name(s) of author(s) & for not disclosing my name as well. I warned them about damaging the image of the place(s) s/he/they comes/come from if the paper gets published. I think another referee gave similar opinion to mine because the paper did not appear in that journal.
Dear All
Thank you for your very interesting and helpful answer.
Only I should say that the researchers whose paper is evaluated do not know the names referee´s before the article is published- Also, if the paper is rejected, the authors do not know the name of the referee´s.
My personal believe is that disclosing the names of the reviewers in published articles increases their responsaiility encouraging in depth and rigorous reviews,
Kind Regards.
Sebastian
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