Page 55 - Becoming Metric Wise

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Publishing in Scientific Journals

may rightly deserve extra scrutiny, but this is made impossible in this
review system. According to Weller (2001) this system is applied in about
one third of cases.
Open review. In this system, authors know reviewers and vice versa.
A big advantage of this approach is that vindictive scientists cannot hide
behind the cloak of anonymity. Yet, in an open review system, it would
probably become even harder (than it already is) to find competent
reviewers. Moreover, the idea of open peer review includes making
review reports open—publishing them—to everyone. In this way the peer
review process becomes fairer and completely transparent (Callaway,
2016).
As an aside, we mention that open peer review always happens for
reviews of published books, but note that submitted book manuscripts are
also reviewed by blind or double blind review. Models exist in which
anything is (electronically) “published” and anyone may comment on it.
In such models, authors and reviewers are not only known to each other,
but to anyone who cares to read the submission. In these models, it is
usually the case that, after a certain period, a final version is published
which takes comments into account. Yet, this postpublication review
model is, for the most part, still in the experimental phase. A mixed form
is F1000prime (http://f1000.com/prime), which provides postpublication
peer review for articles that are already published in peer-reviewed
journals.
Signed review. It may also happen that authors are unknown to the ref-
eree(s) but not vice versa. One advantage of this system is that authors
can easily contact reviewers and discuss problems. Yet, in any of the sys-
tems, reviewers may ask to be known to the authors, or sign their review.
In any system where one of the parties is known to the other, the review
becomes an opportunity to make an acquaintance, to exchange informa-
tion, to invite for a talk, or for collaboration in a project.
In some journals, or for some conference proceedings, reviewers
may read comments of other reviewers. This sometimes happens before
a decision has been made, so that reviewers can change their opinion or
sometimes after a decision has been made. In both cases, reviewers can
learn from each other. Reviews can still be anonymous, so that one
knows the content of a review, but not who wrote it, or reviewers may
be known to each other. If reviewers are known to each other and can
read their comments before a decision is made, this is a strong incentive
not to take a review too lightly. Journal editors may send exceptionally