Peer review and preprint policies are unclear at most major journals

Abstract

Clear and findable publishing policies are important for authors to choose appropriate journals 15 for publication. We investigated the clarity of policies of 171 major academic journals across disciplines regarding peer review and preprinting. 31.6% of journals surveyed do not provide information on the type of peer review they use. Information on whether preprints can be posted or not is unclear in 39.2% of journals. 58.5% of journals offer no clear information on whether reviewer identities are revealed to authors. Around 75% of journals have no clear policy on co-20 reviewing, citation of preprints, and publication of reviewer identities. Information regarding practices of Open Peer Review is even more scarce, with <20% of journals providing clear information. Having found a lack of clear information, we conclude by examining the implications this has for researchers (especially early career) and the spread of open research practices. 25

Journal policies and editors’ opinions on peer review

“…For example, in our sample, 18% of editors reported that reviewer anonymity was left at the reviewers' discretion. This estimate is consistent with findings from Klebel et al 2020 [27], and almost four-times higher than the highest estimate from Publons data in 2017 [29]. However, importantly we note this movement toward greater flexibility was somewhat overshadowed by the 39% of editors reporting that reviewers identifying themselves within a blinded framework would be grounds for editing the report without the reviewer's permission.…”

“…Furthermore, given that it is estimated that 10% of reviewers account for 50% of performed reviews, it is not surprising that the perceived impact of changes on an editor's ability to recruit reviewers contributes heavily to journal policymaking decisions [7]. It is therefore also not surprising for the reasons above that we note very low uptake of the three policies interactions in the current study and previous research [26,27,29].…”

“…Despite the low popularity of unblinded models, previous research has noted increasing adoption of policies that allow authors and reviewers greater flexibility in deciding whether to disclose their identity or not during peer review [27]. For example, in our sample, 18% of editors reported that reviewer anonymity was left at the reviewers' discretion.…”

“…Criticism of the "black box" nature of peer review has also been a topic of interest since at least the 1990s and is associated with a large body of literature discussing the merits of "opening up" various aspects of the process. Some research has focussed on "open peer review": most commonly referencing peer review policies that require full disclosure of the identities of authors and reviewers, increased interactions between all stakeholders and publication of review documentation [25], while other research has focussed on improving the reporting of journal policies to the scientific community [26,27]. Three such ongoing initiatives include the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, the Transparency in Scholarly Publishing for Open Scholarship Evolution (TRANSPOSE) project and the European Commission's Open Science Monitor [27][28][29].…”

Open up: a survey on open and non-anonymized peer reviewing

“…Variants of these processes also include zero-blind (neither reviewers nor authors are anonymous), single-blind (reviewers are anonymous), and double-blind (both authors and reviewers are anonymous) systems (see for example [4]). With the major changes *Correspondence: lonni.besancon@gmail.com Deceased 1 Linköping University, Norrköping, Sweden 2 Université Paris Sud, Orsay, France Full list of author information is available at the end of the article currently happening in scholarly communication systems, there is now a strong imperative for those who manage the peer review process to be absolutely clear about their policies and, where possible, upon what evidence such policies are based [5].…”