Peer Review: Single Blind vs Double Blind

Written by Researchbite | Updated on: November 20, 2022

Peer Review: Single Blind vs Double Blind

Let us understand how the peer review works in the research field.

Introduction

The process through which scholars evaluate the quality and correctness of one another's research papers is known as peer review. Peer review is often used in academia when academics examine one another's work before publication in significant academic research publications. Peer review is the procedure through which academic scholars examine the quality of each other's work before it is published. Peer review is similar to reporters proofreading and fact-checking one other's stories, but the process is far more involved, arduous, and time-consuming. Peer review has been chastised for various reasons, including apparent conflicts of interest, punctuality, and actual quality attained.

The peer review process begins when you submit your manuscript to a journal. Following submission, your article will be evaluated by independent experts in your area. The reviewers will judge your work's legitimacy, importance, and originality. Peer review is the impartial evaluation of your research article by subject matter experts in your area. The goal of peer review is to determine the quality and acceptability of an article for publication. Peer review not only serves as a kind of quality control for academic publications, but it is also a valuable source of feedback for you. Before your paper is published, you may utilize the input to improve it. Peer review, at its best, is a collaborative process in which writers participate in a discourse with peers in their profession and get constructive feedback to enhance their work.

While peer review remains the most common method of research validation, there are numerous ways to streamline your review process. Single-blind and double-blind peer reviews are the two basic types of peer reviews. Forests have been cut down to document the benefits and drawbacks of single-blind and double-blind peer review. Which method best maintains the quality of published research remains a contention, with many prestigious conferences and journals taking opposing positions.

What Is The Significance Of Peer Review?

Peer review is critical for maintaining high standards of academic communication and the quality of particular publications. It is also a valuable resource for the researchers who write the publications. Every journal relies on the dedication of reviewers to the importance of the peer review process. Each article is tested and refined by reviewers before it is published. Even in highly specialized publications, the editor can only be an expert in some papers submitted. As a result, the opinions and suggestions of carefully chosen reviewers are essential references for informing the editor's choice of a research article. There are also practical validations why peer review is advantageous to you, the author. The peer review procedure might expose you to flaws in your work or gaps in the literature that you may have noticed. Researchers routinely tell us that their final published manuscript is superior to the version they submitted before peer review. According to a Sense about Science peer review poll, 91% of respondents felt peer review helped them improve their previous publication.

What Is The Difference Between Single-Blind And Double-Blind Peer Review?

Single-blind peer review is a common technique of peer review in which the authors are unaware of who the reviewers are. The reviewers, on the other hand, know who the writers are. In contrast, a double-blind peer review occurs when neither the authors nor the reviewers are aware of the identities or relationships of the other. In contrast, to open peer review, where authors know the identities of their reviewers and vice versa, reviewers in single and double-blind peer reviews are always anonymous. The discrepancies stem from the author's increased anonymity in double-blind peer review. Double-blind peer review advocates say that it reduces the risk of bias in the peer review process. Anyone capable of examining a document will be an expert in the subject matter of that paper and so may have a conflict of interest. By concealing the author's identity, the reviewer's objectivity is not impacted by personal sentiments or professional objectives.

What Is Single-Blind Peer Review?

The conventional technique of review is single-blind peer review. In it, reviewers are aware of the writers' identities, but authors are unaware of the identities of reviewers. (In a double-blind review, neither authors nor reviewers know the other party's identity. Additionally, authors and reviewers may see one another in an open peer review process. In a single-blind peer review, the reviewer knows the author's name and institution, but the author is unaware of the reviewer's identity. The word "blind" refers to the information writers can see in a single-blind review. Authors are kept in the dark about reviewers' identities throughout a single-blind peer review. This is the conventional method of peer review, and it is still used the most frequently.

Benefits Of Single-Blind Peer Review

  • Maintaining the anonymity of your reviewers enables them to offer feedback on your work without being influenced by the writers. Since they don't know who the reviewer is, authors can't get in touch with them. This significantly lessens the burden on your reviewers and enables them to evaluate the study more impartially. They can also utilize their familiarity with the author's earlier work to inform their evaluation because they know who the author is.
  • Honest and unwavering peer assessment is the finest kind. Sometimes this entails highlighting a piece's flaws so everyone may notice them. However, the majority of individuals don't want to put themselves at risk. This issue is resolved through single-blind peer review, allowing the reviewer to be more truthful without worrying about backlash from the public.
  • Self-plagiarism and conflicts of interest may be easier to spot with single-blind peer assessment. How can a reviewer be expected to know, for instance, that the manuscript under review heavily borrows from prior work when an author is only known to a reviewer by an arbitrary reference number? These potential ethical issues might go unnoticed until publication if they aren't stated by the author, which could lead to a later retraction.
  • The benefit of single-blind reviewing is that it gives your reviewers the freedom to assess articles without being influenced by the authors. A reviewer can offer an honest critique, even when unfavorable if they are confident that the author (or the general public) won't see their name.
  • The reviewer can be honest in their research evaluation by being free to remain anonymous and not worry about the scientist who submitted the paper taking offense.
  • Knowing the author's place of employment enables Dedicated reviewers at the forefront of the peer review process is a must for any publication.

Drawbacks Of Single-Blind Peer Review

  • Single-blind peer review is the most popular type of peer review. However, it is only sometimes seen favorably by academics. For instance, reviewers could use their anonymity to be excessively harsh in their criticism of writers.
  • For instance, 85% of respondents to a poll by the Publishing Research Consortium said they had used single-blind review, but only 52% said it was successful (and just 25% said it was their favorite method).
  • Bias can exist in a single-blind review procedure. There is a worry that by revealing the author's name, their past would cast a shadow over and contaminate the assessment of the work that is now being examined. For instance, if the author just released ground-breaking research, it may impact the reviewer's viewpoint on the current project.
  • The potential for bias in the paper's non-scientific components is another worry. For instance, the reviewer could be prejudiced about the legitimacy of works by writers from a particular nation, gender, race, or academic institution if they know the author's identity and institution. Even though this kind of prejudice is not tolerated in the academic community, the single-blind review procedure makes eliminating it more challenging.

What Is Double-Blind Peer Review?

A double-blind review is one in which both the reviewer and the author are anonymous. Because it eliminates the possibility of prejudice based on gender, race, nationality, institution, or the author's prior achievements, this peer review is becoming more common.

Research comparing the outcomes of peer reviews of the submissions and Data Mining Conference was done by the peer-reviewed publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which is part of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Both the single-blind and double-blind techniques were used to evaluate each submission. The study demonstrated that writers with established reputations in their disciplines or who graduated from prestigious universities benefited significantly from single-blind evaluations.

While the double-blind procedure does eliminate the possibility of bias, others contend that knowing the author's identity gives the reviewer access to historical background, which enables them to make a more informed judgment than they could with a single-blind review. They contend that the study suffers if their identity is unknown.

Benefits Of Double-Blind Peer Review

  • An open peer review procedure, according to proponents, can help reveal any conflicts of interest between reviewers and writers.
  • It is assumed that disclosing everyone's names motivates reviewers to be more critical in their evaluation of the research supporting the article and that the comments supplied will be more considerate if the reviewer's name is connected to the review.
  • Because it is unjust for one party's identity to be revealed while the other is kept a secret, some contend that the open review procedure is the only moral way to conduct peer evaluations.
  • Double-blind offers all the advantages of the single-blind with a few more on top. This prevents reviewers from being swayed by an author's reputation because writers and reviewers are "blind." This implies that submissions from industry leaders will still be evaluated on merit rather than the importance of the author.
  • Reduced risk of reviewer bias is another advantage of the double-blind. Bias can take many different shapes, such as the author's gender, nationality, academic standing, or record of prior publications.

Drawbacks Of Double-Blind Peer Review

  • Double-blind only sometimes means double-blind in real life. Since your study area is not very large, reviewers will likely be able to identify the author based on the reference, subject, or writing style.
  • Although only 45% of respondents have personally encountered double-blind evaluations, the study above was more favorable in its judgment of them. Despite this, 56% of respondents said it was their favorite alternative, and 71% said it was effective.
  • Since reviewers are frequently reluctant to engage in an open review process, publishers fear that this makes it harder to locate reviewers.
  • Concerns have also been raised about the process's ability to foster nepotism and give well-known writers the impression that their work inherently outranks that of other scientists.
  • Additionally, there is the worry that the open review procedure would lead to inferior peer evaluations since reviewers are hesitant to offer direct criticism when the author is aware of who is assessing their work.

Peer Review: Double-Blind vs. Single-Blind

The authors discovered that the review groups varied from one another. For example, paper titles and abstracts were available to all reviewers. Reviewers choose the articles they want to examine based on this. However, 22% fewer manuscripts were requested for examination by the single-blind reviewers. Additionally, single-blind reviewers were more likely to review manuscripts from prestigious institutions or IT firms.

Additionally, they were more inclined to provide favorable reviews of publications written by well-known authors. The identities and organizations of the writers are known to single-blind reviewers. According to the study, the author's institution significantly impacted single-blind reviewers' choices on which papers to bid on. For this conference, there was no evidence of prejudice against female writers.

There was a considerable bias against female writers, according to a meta-review that combined the data from this conference with findings from previous research. Single-blind reviewers use information about authors and institutions in their evaluations, as demonstrated by the Web Search and Data Mining conference experiment. The reviewers may be using this information to inform their decisions. However, it's also possible that this disadvantages writers and works from less reputable universities.

Conclusion

Only the reviewers are anonymous in single-blind peer reviews. Reviewers are familiar with the names and backgrounds of the writers, but the reverse is valid for the authors. Both the authors and the reviewers maintain their identities during double-blind peer reviews. Only the editor is aware of everyone's real names. The academic research cycle includes peer evaluation, and bias is evident in this procedure. Women, people of color, and academics from less prominent universities are frequently impacted by reviewer bias. Journals utilize blind peer review to attempt to combat this issue. Single-blind peer review, however, favors well-known authors. However, double-blind peer review aims to minimize prejudice.

References

  • https://www.enago.com/academy/double-blind-peer-review-for-better-or-for-worse/
  • https://fourwaves.com/blog/single-double-blind-peer-review/

         

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