Open Peer Review
Peer review is an essential tool to maintain the academic and practical relevance of published material. There is the general concern that, especially in times where academic careers, government-based funding or other values are related to publication quantities, the quality of the work might deteriorate. We operate a double-blind review process: Neither the reviewers nor the authors know each other, and thus we attempt to reduce bias in the review process. Peer review is not without its critics. Aside from being costly to administer, peer review is slow, burdens academic time, is subjective, prone to bias, easily abused, poor at detecting technical defects, and not useful for the detection of fraud.
Research has not found that open peer review generates better (or worse) reviews, but we are introducing Open Peer Review as a trial, largely for reasons of transparency and credibility of the process, feeding off what we believe are sound principles in sustainability.
Academia is progressively moving away from anonymity and into a phase of strategic alliances, co-opetition and joint use of scarce funding resources. It appears to us that anonymity as to authors might be helpful to protect the reviewer from a claim of bias, but that withholding the identity of the reviewer to the author, is anachronistic.
The primary argument against closed peer review is that any comments
by a reviewer should be matched, by the author, with the
reviewer's professional experience and credibility. Likely, a reviewer
who agrees to lift the veil of anonymity, will be more conscientious
with comments and critique, aiding the formation of an academically
valuable dialogue. Editors have seen curt, abrasive, devastating
reviews, and it is likely that this reviewer would not have written
in that way if the name were known. Openness also links
accountability with credit. One important defect of closed review
is that reviewers don't receive academic credit. We believe that
openness and transparency of the process might eliminate some of
the worst abuses of peer review. This is a trial. It is voluntary for
reviewers to be 'open', and there might be good reasons why
reviewers would wish to remain anonymous, i.e. fearing excessive
direct communication with argumentative authors or being
reluctant to critique the work of someone who might possibly have
an influence over the reviewer's future career. Any reviewer can
decline to review a certain paper, and any reviewer can decline to
disclose his/her identity. Anyone can decline to review a particular paper.
Of course, we will also, as a matter of principle and on a voluntary basis, disclose the names
of all editorial staff in-house, who have contributed to the review
and processing of any submission.
We hope that peer review will develop into an academic discussion
forum, creating value, rather than being a one-line judgment on the
merits of a submission. We believe reviewers should receive academic
credit for their reviews, i.e. by being named at the end of a
published article, and we will gladly record the impressions and
comments of our readers, authors and reviewers to decide on a
future refinement of our approach.
We thank you for your patience to read this background on our
peer review policy.
Prof. Tan Wee Liang, is an Associate Professor of Management at Singapore
Management University. His research interests include international human
resource management, entrepreneurship and strategy. He has published
numerous papers and co-authored Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
Development in Asia. Recently, he edited The Dynamics of Entrepreneurship.
