4 ms·
Isn't peer review usually blind?
by aj3 5y ago
Isn't peer review usually blind?
- unishark 5y agoIt's very common for journals to ask for reviewer suggestions. For example I guess this is the journal in question: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/vaccines/instructions https://www.mdpi.com/journal/vaccines/instructions "Reviewer Suggestions During the submission process, please suggest three potential reviewers with the appropriate expertise to review the manuscript. The editors will not necessarily approach these referees. Please provide detailed contact information (address, homepage, phone, e-mail address). The proposed referees should neither be current collaborators of the co-authors nor have published with any of the co-authors of the manuscript within the last five years. Proposed reviewers should be from different institutions to the authors. You may identify appropriate Editorial Board members of the journal as potential reviewers. You may suggest reviewers from among the authors that you frequently cite in your paper." Obviously people are supposed to do so ethically, but cabals of friends can potentially hack the process by suggesting each other and working together.
- radu_floricica 5y agoGod, the current publication system is worse than useless....
- aliasEli 5y agoIt depends on the journal. Anyhow it is probably useless anyhow because most scientist refer very often to their own work or that of their research group. If you have some knowledge of the research field, it is usually not too difficult to guess who the authors are. Referees are normally anonymous. But once they start advising to insert some references to some obscure and/or irrelevant articles...
- dekhn 5y agosort of, but many reviewer communities are small enough that you infer the reviewer's identify from the papers they ask you to cite and the argumentation style.