Peer review is the academic process that filters the papers written by scientists so that, theoretically, only the best get into journals. I have an article on the Peer Review Process if you want more information.
Most ecological/environmental journals use a peer review system in which the reviewers are aware of the paper's author, although the author is not told who reviewed their paper. (This is also a standard in archaeological journals such as American Antiquity). But in 2001, the journal Behavioral Ecology instituted a double-blind system, where both the author of a paper and the reviewers remain anonymous to one another. Surprisingly (at least to me), statistics comparing papers presented before and after the watershed year indicate that significantly more papers by women were accepted after the double-blind system was begun. Other environmental journals tracked over the same period that identify authors to the reviewers did not show a significant uptick in the number of woman-written papers being accepted.
There is a glass ceiling in science: anyone who has worked in any field of science recognizes how few women are in management positions even today. We've known that for a long time, and so the evidence brought forward by this paper is not deeply shocking. In terms of getting fair publication (not just fair to gender, but as publication on the basis of the merits of the paper itself), I've always believed the answer was to open both sides of the review process, so that reviewers are forced to sign off on their comments. But Budden and her colleagues may have something here.
Some other things on peer review/open access recently have cropped up, which are worth taking a look.
More Reading
Budden, A.E., Tregenza, T., Aarssen, L.W., Koricheva, J., Leimu, R., Lortie, C.J. (in press). Double-blind review favours increased representation of female authors. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, in press. The paper is currently in press, and can be purchased in this format from Science Direct.
Open access vs. peer review, on Incoherently Scattered Ponderings, which is a physics blog. Archaeologists and other scientists should pay attention to the physics folks on these issues, because they've had more experience with open access than the rest of us. This blogger comments that as an Assistant Prof in the field he simply doesn't have time to go through all the papers on arxiv (the physics open access site) and would prefer a filtering process.
BPR3 (Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting opened its doors finally last week. See the little icon on the top of this blog? It allows the BPR3 initiative to collect--amalgamate if you will--blog entries on peer reviewed articles, and you can consider this blog a test of the concept.
Seeing the Light: A Proposal for Peer Review in Archaeology
So what do you think? Is double-blind peer review a good idea? Feel free to comment or vote in the poll.
Comments
Wow, thanks for the link to that study. It seems like a double blind in archaeological journals would be difficult if not impossible, as it is such a small field with very specific sites/players. Still, it would be nice!
That’s a good point, Colleen. I still think the open process is probably a good (if, okay I’ll grant ya, idealistic) idea….
I’d agree that at least the principle of double-blind or open review are better ideas than merely anonymous reviewers. On balance open review may be better. I’ve only refereed one double-blind paper and I knew who wrote it because it was clearly building on their previous published conference paper on the same site.
One of the attractions of PLoS One is that the comments on the papers mean that review doesn’t end with the publication of the paper. If you see a paper as a contribution to a debate rather than as product then that’s very attractive.
Internet publication is removing some of the restrictions on journals, like the limited number of physical pages, and allowing new possibilities like trackbacks, ratings and on-going comments. It may be worthwhile one or two societies re-thinking what it is they want peer-review to achieve and discussing it at their conferences.
Alun, have you tried or looked at any archaeology papers or conversations in the PLOS One thing yet? That sounds like an interesting way to deal with the situation: sometimes it feels like most of our papers are ongoing discussions.
I looked, and there aren’t any, although at the moment there are two anthropology papers with a bit of commentary.
http://www.plosone.org/
Sorry for the delay responding. I’m not subscribed to comments for some reason.
This paper on shell ornamentation (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000614) is Lower Palaeolithic among other things and one I almost commented on. I didn’t because I’m strictly amateur when it comes to the Lower Palaeolithic, African Archaeology and Archaeozoology, which probably explains why I have some trouble seeing the connection between the data and the conclusion. I’m assuming the big problem is me not understanding something rather than a flaw in the paper.