In a nutshell

"The proportion of authors that choose double-blind review is higher when they submit to more prestigious journals, they are affiliated with less prestigious institutions, or they are from specific countries; the double-blind option is also linked to less successful editorial outcomes."

Goals and intentions

"Double-blind peer review has been proposed as a possible solution to avoid implicit referee bias in academic publishing. The aims of this study are to analyse the demographics of corresponding authors choosing double-blind peer review and to identify differences in the editorial outcome of manuscripts depending on their review model."

Review process
  • Review requested by
    Authors
  • Reviewer selected by
    Editor, service, or community
  • Public interaction
    No
  • Author response
    No
  • Decision
    Binary decision
Review policy
  • Review coverage
    Complete paper
  • Reviewer identity known to
    Editor or service
  • Competing interests
    Checked
Video
Results
  • Number of scholarly outputs commented on
    10,000+
  • Metrics
    Authors's preference for single- or double-blind review by journal, gender, country, and institution. Editorial decision outcomes
  • Results summary

    "Author uptake for double-blind submissions was 12% (12,631 out of 106,373). We found a small but significant association between journal tier and review type (p value < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.054, df = 2). We had gender information for 50,533 corresponding authors and found no statistically significant difference in the distribution of peer review model between males and females (p value = 0.6179). We had 58,920 records with normalised institutions and a THE rank, and we found that corresponding authors from the less prestigious institutions are more likely to choose double-blind review (p value < 0.001, df = 2, Cramer’s V = 0.106). In the ten countries with the highest number of submissions, we found a large significant association between country and review type (p value < 0.001, df = 10, Cramer’s V = 0.189). The outcome both at first decision and post review is significantly more negative (i.e. a higher likelihood for rejection) for double-blind than single-blind papers (p value < 0.001, df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.112 for first decision; p value < 0.001; df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.082 for post-review decision)."

  • Results URL
mood_bad
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