Blind Peer Review by Academic Journals

The peer review process is central to the advancement of scholarly knowledge and is vital to the advancement of individual careers. With so much at stake, it is important to examine, and reexamine, issues pertaining to the fairness and quality of peer review on an ongoing basis. One central issue is blinding. In this chapter, we review evidence from across a variety of disciplines on the efficacy of blinding as a means of reducing bias and yielding higher quality reviews. We find that evidence is, in general, inconclusive. Most, though not all, benefits attributable to blinding are contingent on blinding being successful. Therefore, we also review evidence on the feasibility and efficacy of blinding and find that blinding is moderately effective. We conclude by examining the views of stakeholders in the peer review process and determine that, although the evidence is mixed, there is broad support for blinding.