Revealing Reviewers’ Identities as Part of Open Peer Review and Analysis of the Review Reports

Marolov, Dejan (2020) Revealing Reviewers’ Identities as Part of Open Peer Review and Analysis of the Review Reports. Liber quarterly, 30. ISSN 2213-056X

[thumbnail of 10347-23543-2-PB.pdf]
Preview
Text
10347-23543-2-PB.pdf

Download (899kB) | Preview

Abstract

This research article is aimed at comparing review reports, in which the
identity of the reviewers is revealed to the authors of the papers, with those
where the reviewers decided to remain anonymous. The review reports
are gathered as part of the peer review process of the European Scientific
Journal (ESJ). This journal maintains a single-blind peer review procedure
and optional open review. Reviewers are familiar with the names of the
Revealing Reviewers’ Identities as Part of Open Peer Review
authors but not vice versa. When sending the review reports, the reviewers
can opt to reveal their identity to the authors.
The sample of 343 review reports from members of the ESJ editorial board,
gathered within the period of May to July 2019, were analysed. The data
analysis was performed using the Python programing language based on
NumPy, Pandas, and Scipy packages.
Half of the reviewers decided to choose the open option and reveal their
names to the authors of the papers. The other half remained anonymous.
The results show that female reviewers more often decide to remain anonymous than their male colleagues. However, there is no significant difference
in the review reports on the basis of gender or country of institutional affiliation of the reviewers.
Revealing identities did not make a difference in the reviewers’ point
appraisal in the review reports. This difference was not significant. However, a majority of the reviewers who recommended rejection in their
review reports were not willing to reveal their identities. Even more, those
reviewers who revealed their identity were more likely to recommend in
their review reports acceptance without revision or a minor revision

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Social Sciences > Other social sciences
Divisions: Faculty of Law
Depositing User: Dejan Marolov
Date Deposited: 31 Aug 2020 07:37
Last Modified: 31 Aug 2020 07:37
URI: https://eprints.ugd.edu.mk/id/eprint/24397

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item