Not too many journal article authors opt for anonymous peer review, ScienceInsider reports.
A study conducted by the Nature Publishing Group found that when presented with the option of having blinded reviewers, only about 12 percent of manuscript authors take it, ScienceInsider adds. Additionally, it notes that the study found that papers that underwent double-blinded review were less likely to be accepted for publication.
Double-blinded peer-review of manuscripts in which the authors don't know the reviewers' identities and vice versa has been proposed as a means to combat personal, gender, seniority, and other biases in the review process. A survey in 2009 found that 76 percent of respondents thought that a double-blind approach could improve the peer-review process.
In 2013, Nature Climate Change and Nature Geoscience both began offering double-blinded review, and Nature Publishing Group expanded the option to additional journals in 2015.
That, ScienceInsider now reports, formed the basis of Nature Publishing Group's new study. Authors were slightly more likely to choose blinded peer-review for the journal Nature, 15 percent, than for other Nature-branded journals. Additionally, the study found that only a quarter of papers that underwent double-blind review were accepted while 44 percent of ones that went through single-blind review did.