Transparency in peer review: Exploring the content and tone of reviewers' confidential comments to editors.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Recent calls to improve transparency in peer review have prompted examination of many aspects of the peer-review process. Peer-review systems often allow confidential comments to editors that could reduce transparency to authors, yet this option has escaped scrutiny. Our study explores 1) how reviewers use the confidential comments section and 2) alignment between comments to the editor and comments to authors with respect to content and tone.

Methods

Our dataset included 358 reviews of 168 manuscripts submitted between January 1, 2019 and August 24, 2020 to a health professions education journal with a single blind review process. We first identified reviews containing comments to the editor. Then, for the reviews with comments, we used procedures consistent with co

SUBMITTER: O'Brien BC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8629260 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature