[Edling] Transparent Peer Review - Your Thoughts?

Fri Jan 29 16:59:29 UTC 2021

Dear Colleagues,

There is an emerging practice in academic publishing known as "transparent
peer review."  I encountered it recently for the first time in our field
when reviewing for a journal by a major publisher (I won't name the journal
since the editors have not yet responded to my queries about the
practice).  In talking to colleagues about it, many had not heard about
transparent peer review so I wanted to raise awareness about it and share
some thoughts I have after reflecting on it.

If you are not familiar with transparent peer review, you can see an
overview at these sites:
https://publons.com/benefits/publishers/transparent-review

https://authorservices.wiley.com/Reviewers/journal-reviewers/what-is-peer-review/transparent-peer-review.html

In brief, transparent peer review makes the full reports from peer
reviewers public in a published format that is permanently connected to the
published article so that readers can see both the article itself and all
the peer review and editorial comments on it.

What strikes me about it are the wider sociocultural, sociopolitical, and
psychological implications and consequences.  At a time when we are only
getting started addressing the challenges of global inequities in academic
publishing, it is a worrying development.  A number of journals in
applied/educational linguistics have taken leading roles in improving
equitable access to English-medium publishing.  I worry that if so-called
transparent peer review were to gain footing in our field, it would lead us
in the wrong direction.  It seems to me that the risks far outweigh any
possible benefits.

The risks I see are the following, though there would likely be other
unintended consequences as well:

(1) Many peer reviewers will self-censor their review texts because the
readership of the review is public.  A review becomes, in effect, an online
publication.  Accordingly, many reviewers will write for a public audience
and not for the confidential audience of the editors and authors.  Authors,
in turn, will be deprived of candid commentary that will help improve their
work.

(2) Related to the point above, self-censorship among peer reviewers would
do disproportionate harm to scholars in countries/contexts who have access
to fewer academic resources, including reference materials as well as
training in English academic writing.  An important role that peer
reviewers play in fostering global equity and publication access is
providing scholars from such contexts with thorough and constructive
reviews.  Not meant for public consumption, such detailed reviews often
provide extensive constructive feedback about literature review scope,
research design, and data analysis because these authors need a deeper
level of guidance than they might have received in other ways.  Such
reviews are more so a work product of the writing process than mere
evaluation of submission quality.  They often lead to extensive further
development and revision where the final product ends up looking
substantially different from an earlier submission.  When reviewers are not
comfortable writing such deep and constructive reviews because they would
be made public, scholars who need this support will not get it.  This, in
turn, will result in favoring publications by scholars in academically
privileged contexts.

(3) Some peer reviewers may write unvarnished peer reviews, whether
anonymous or not, that can be damaging both psychologically and
professionally to authors.  This is a particular concern with respect to
junior scholars for whom the power relations with respect to (often more
senior) peer reviewers is especially inequitable.  As experienced
researchers, we know that there is great variation in the tone of peer
review texts, and it is not uncommon to see blunt or strident statements or
even mischaracterizations of methods and epistemologies.  Having such a
peer review forever associated with one's published article can do major
damage to a researcher's professional reputations and sense of self as a
scholar.  It can be harmful for mid-career scholars too, but those who have
already established their reputations and gained respect in the field would
be able to weather a harmfully framed review while a junior scholar just
starting their career might not.  It would be similarly more harmful to
scholars from less academically privileged backgrounds for either
unvarnished critiques or work-product-style reviews as noted in the point
above to be made public.

(4) A further implication of concern about publishing peer review reports
is the chilling effect it will have on researchers' willingness to submit
papers.  There is already in many contexts around the world high stakes
associated with publishing in respected international journals.  Having
coached scholars at various points in their careers in a variety of
countries, I have seen firsthand the psychological challenges that follow
from navigating the peer review process.  Even receiving a confidential
review can be threatening to junior scholars' sense of academic confidence,
and it stifles their willingness to submit manuscripts to journals.  The
psychological barrier that would follow from a peer review report being
forever attached in public to a publication online would be paralyzing for
many.  This would be especially true of scholars in many global contexts
who already harbor insecurities about English-medium publication and
submitting to international journals but are nonetheless under pressure
from their institutions to do so.

In sum, so-called "transparent" peer review poses many risks and ethical
dilemmas with which I am greatly troubled.  I wonder if others have also
encountered it in our field and what your experiences and thoughts are
about it.

Best,
Francis

--
*Francis M. Hult, PhD, FRGS* | Professor
Department of Education
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

Editor, Educational Linguistics Book Series
<https://www.springer.com/series/5894>
Co-Editor, Contributions to the Sociology of Language Book Series
<https://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/16644>

Web Profile <https://education.umbc.edu/faculty-list/francis-m-hult/> |
Academia.edu <http://umbc.academia.edu/FrancisMHult> | TESOL at UMBC
<http://esol.umbc.edu/>
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