Some Overseas Perspectives Regarding Periodicals.

Abstract

Periodicals in the biomedical and natural sciences differ in fundamental ways, such as whether they use an impact factor. Peer review is considered another key element in scientific publications, but also can be viewed as having various flaws, e.g., poor in detecting fraud, highly subjective, prone to bias, expensive, and easily abused. Single-blind peer review is the traditional model in which reviewers know the identity of authors, but the reverse is not true, thereby raising a related concern that there is a serious power imbalance. The results of a recent study describe an investigation in which it was found that after switching from single-blind to double-blind peer review the quality of review reports, measured using the modified Review Quality Instrument (RQI), improved. Results indicate that double-blind peer review is a feasible model to a journal in a small language area without major downsides. The Journal of Allied Health uses double-blind peer review.