Does single blind peer review hinder newcomers?

Marco Seeber,Alberto Bacchelli

doi:10.1007/s11192-017-2264-7

Marco Seeber, Alberto Bacchelli

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2264-7

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Journal: Scientometrics	Publication Date: Mar 3, 2017
Citations: 47	License type: open-access

Affiliation: Delft University of Technology

Abstract

Several fields of research are characterized by the coexistence of two different peer review modes to select quality contributions for scientific venues, namely double blind (DBR) and single blind (SBR) peer review. In the first, the identities of both authors and reviewers are not known to each other, whereas in the latter the authors’ identities are visible since the start of the review process. The need to adopt either one of these modes has been object of scholarly debate, which has mostly focused on issues of fairness. Past work reported that SBR is potentially associated with biases related to the gender, nationality, and language of the authors, as well as the prestige and type of their institutions. Nevertheless, evidence is lacking on whether revealing the identities of the authors favors reputed authors and hinder newcomers, a bias with potentially important consequences in terms of knowledge production. Accordingly, we investigate whether and to what extent SBR, compared to a DBR, relates to a higher ration of reputed scholars, at the expense of newcomers. This relation is pivotal for science, as past research provided evidence that newcomers support renovation and advances in a research field by introducing new and heterodox ideas and approaches, whereas inbreeding have serious detrimental effects on innovation and creativity. Our study explores the mentioned issues in the field of computer science, by exploiting a database that encompasses 21,535 research papers authored by 47,201 individuals and published in 71 among the 80 most impactful computer science conferences in 2014 and 2015. We found evidence that—other characteristics of the conferences taken in consideration—SBR indeed relates to a lower ration of contributions from newcomers to the venue and particularly newcomers that are otherwise experienced of publishing in other computer science conferences, suggesting the possible existence of ingroup–outgroup behaviors that may harm knowledge advancement in the long run.

Highlights

Peer review is the evaluation process employed by the largest majority of scientific outlets to select quality contributions (Bedeian 2004)
A macro-macro association is inappropriate to draw meaningful implication for a micro-micro relationship—i.e., that an article from newcomers has more chances to be accepted under double blind peer review (DBR)—because it would incur in an ecological fallacy, i.e., the relationship between individual variables cannot be inferred from the correlation of the variables collected for the group to which those individuals belong (Robinson 2009)
We explored the assumption of a reputation bias in computer science research, where two modes of peer review are adopted, namely single blind and double blind peer review, where identity of authors is revealed to referees in the first but not in the latter mode

Summary

Introduction

Peer review is the evaluation process employed by the largest majority of scientific outlets to select quality contributions (Bedeian 2004). Scholars have investigated the consequences of adopting peer review modes with different visibility criteria concerning the authors’ identity, double blind peer review (DBR)—where authors’ identities are disclosed only after acceptance of a paper— and single blind peer review (SBR)—where authors’ identities are visible throughout the entire review process. These studies, predominantly motivated by considerations of fairness, found that when authors’ identities are revealed to reviewers, evaluation is less objective and biases due to gender, nationality, and language, as well as the prestige and type of institution of affiliation play a role (Snodgrass 2006). The debate between supporters of DBR and SBR review has been to some extent a dialogue of the deaf, the former stressing issues of fairness and the latter focusing on functionalistic arguments, which implicitly justify un-blinding for the superior interest of the advancement of knowledge

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Results

Conclusion