{"title":"Publishing review reports to reveal and preserve the quality and fairness of the peer review process","authors":"M. Seeber, M. Klemenčič, M. Meoli, Cristina Sin","doi":"10.1080/21568235.2023.2192549","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Peer review has several known limitations, but it is still an important and central institution in modern science (Seeber 2022): findings that have not faced the test of peer review are seen as unreliable, while works that have passed the scrutiny of peer review assume a sort ‘truth’ status (Baldwin 2018). Peer review is therefore adopted by academic outlets as the legitimate way to select scientific contributions (Lamont 2009), and to guarantee the quality of the research published and the credibility of scientific claims (Warren 2003; Bornmann 2008; Kalleberg 2012). It is commonly assumed that the establishment of peer review occurred with the first example of peer review, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665 (National Academy of Science 1995). However, despite a common belief that peer review has always been a central, immutable institution of modern science, the institutionalization of peer review is a much more recent phenomenon (Fyfe et al. 2020). Only in the second half of the twentieth century, did editors begin to rely systematically on external referees to cope with the increasing size and specialization of scientific production (Burnham 1990; Baldwin 2018). Over time, peer review adopted different forms to respond to priorities and necessities of the scientific community. For instance, peer review was initially single blind, meaning that the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers, while reviewers know the identity of the authors. In the 70s, sociology journals started to adopt a double-blind peer review, whereby authors and reviewers do not know each other’s identity. This choice was driven by the universalism norm of Science (Merton 1973), which prescribes that scientific claims should be subjected to the same ‘pre-established impersonal criteria’, regardless of their source and not affected by the reputation and prestige of its authors or their institutions of affiliation. In computer science, the prime channel of communication is conferences, rather than journals, and reviewers are not selected by an editor: instead, conference chair members act as reviewers and choose which paper they wish to review (Seeber and Bacchelli 2017).","PeriodicalId":37345,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Higher Education","volume":"35 1","pages":"121 - 125"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Higher Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2023.2192549","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Peer review has several known limitations, but it is still an important and central institution in modern science (Seeber 2022): findings that have not faced the test of peer review are seen as unreliable, while works that have passed the scrutiny of peer review assume a sort ‘truth’ status (Baldwin 2018). Peer review is therefore adopted by academic outlets as the legitimate way to select scientific contributions (Lamont 2009), and to guarantee the quality of the research published and the credibility of scientific claims (Warren 2003; Bornmann 2008; Kalleberg 2012). It is commonly assumed that the establishment of peer review occurred with the first example of peer review, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665 (National Academy of Science 1995). However, despite a common belief that peer review has always been a central, immutable institution of modern science, the institutionalization of peer review is a much more recent phenomenon (Fyfe et al. 2020). Only in the second half of the twentieth century, did editors begin to rely systematically on external referees to cope with the increasing size and specialization of scientific production (Burnham 1990; Baldwin 2018). Over time, peer review adopted different forms to respond to priorities and necessities of the scientific community. For instance, peer review was initially single blind, meaning that the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers, while reviewers know the identity of the authors. In the 70s, sociology journals started to adopt a double-blind peer review, whereby authors and reviewers do not know each other’s identity. This choice was driven by the universalism norm of Science (Merton 1973), which prescribes that scientific claims should be subjected to the same ‘pre-established impersonal criteria’, regardless of their source and not affected by the reputation and prestige of its authors or their institutions of affiliation. In computer science, the prime channel of communication is conferences, rather than journals, and reviewers are not selected by an editor: instead, conference chair members act as reviewers and choose which paper they wish to review (Seeber and Bacchelli 2017).
期刊介绍:
The European Journal of Higher Education (EJHE) aims to offer comprehensive coverage of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of higher education, analyses of European and national higher education reforms and processes, and European comparative studies or comparisons between European and non-European higher education systems and institutions. Building on the successful legacy of its predecessor, Higher Education in Europe, EJHE is establishing itself as one of the flagship journals in the study of higher education and specifically in study of European higher education.