Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of referee behaviour on the quality and efficiency of peer review. We focused on the importance of reciprocity motives in ensuring cooperation between all involved parties. We modelled peer review as a process based on knowledge asymmetries and subject to evaluation bias. We built various simulation scenarios in which we tested different interaction conditions and author and referee behaviour. We found that reciprocity cannot always have per se a positive effect on the quality of peer review, as it may tend to increase evaluation bias. It can have a positive effect only when reciprocity motives are inspired by disinterested standards of fairness.
Highlights
1.1 Peer review is a cornerstone of science
Results showed that the reciprocity motives of referees did not have per se a positive effect on the quality and efficiency of peer review when the publication rate was more competitive
By conceptualising peer review as a cooperation game, we can argue that referees could rationally bear the cost of reviewing so as to establish good standards of reviewing with the prospect of benefiting from cooperation by other referees when they are subsequently cast as submitting authors
Summary
1.1 Peer review is a cornerstone of science. The process allows scientists to experimentally pursue new lines of research through a continuous, decentralised and socially shared process of trial and error and ensures the quality of knowledge produced. In the case of reliability, referees did the best they could to provide an accurate evaluation and spent all needed resources for reviewing In this case, we assumed a normal distribution of the referees' expected quality and a narrow standard deviation of their evaluation score from the real value of the submission (σ=R(α)/100). Agents invested all available resources in publication ( i = 1), irrespective of positive or negative past experiences with the submission and review process In this case, there was no room for reciprocity strategies between authors and referees. If the referee evaluation approximated the real value of their submission (i.e., ≥ -10%), they concluded that the referee was reliable and had done a good job In this case, when selected as referees, agents reciprocated positively irrespective of their past publication or rejection history. 14/10/2015 standards through their experiences as authors and acted in a strategic manner
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