Open peer review - transparent way of gatekeeping science

Themes

Open peer review - transparent way of gatekeeping science

What is this about?

Open peer review can mean a few different things. It can be a process in which names of the peer reviewers of papers submitted to academic journals are disclosed to the authors of the papers in question. Sometimes the review texts are published with the accepted papers, and in some forms of open peer review, the reviewers’ names are published along with their comments (1).

Why is this important?

Open peer review is slowly becoming the norm. Nowadays, journals often disclose the names of the reviewers to the authors, and even publish all of the reviewers’ comments if the article is accepted for publication. This kind of practice makes misconduct in peer review much more difficult, since the reviewers’ names are known to more people than just the editor. Also, it is considered that reviewers will be more mindful if their names are known, and leave thoughtful comments and constructive criticism (as they should). Not all research areas are equally open to open peer review, especially to disclosing the reviewer identities to authors (2).

For whom is this important?

phd students

The Embassy Editorial team, Iris Lechner, Andrijana Perković Paloš, Elsa Amin, Ivan Buljan contributed to this theme. Latest contribution was Oct 22, 2021

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