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The “invisible hand” of peer review: The implications of author-referee networks on peer review in a scholarly journal

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  • Dondio, Pierpaolo
  • Casnici, Niccolò
  • Grimaldo, Francisco
  • Gilbert, Nigel
  • Squazzoni, Flaminio

Abstract

Peer review is not only a quality screening mechanism for scholarly journals. It also connects authors and referees either directly or indirectly. This means that their positions in the network structure of the community could influence the process, while peer review could in turn influence subsequent networking and collaboration. This paper aims to map these complex network implications by looking at 2232 author/referee couples in an interdisciplinary journal that uses double blind peer review. By reconstructing temporal co-authorship networks, we found that referees tended to recommend more positively submissions by authors who were within three steps in their collaboration network. We also found that co-authorship network positions changed after peer review, with the distances between network neighbours decreasing more rapidly than could have been expected had the changes been random. This suggests that peer review could not only reflect but also create and accelerate scientific collaboration.

Suggested Citation

  • Dondio, Pierpaolo & Casnici, Niccolò & Grimaldo, Francisco & Gilbert, Nigel & Squazzoni, Flaminio, 2019. "The “invisible hand” of peer review: The implications of author-referee networks on peer review in a scholarly journal," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 708-716.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:13:y:2019:i:2:p:708-716
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2019.03.018
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Bianchi, Federico & García-Costa, Daniel & Grimaldo, Francisco & Squazzoni, Flaminio, 2022. "Measuring the effect of reviewers on manuscript change: A study on a sample of submissions to Royal Society journals (2006–2017)," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3).
    2. Anil, Akash & Singh, Sanasam Ranbir, 2020. "Effect of class imbalance in heterogeneous network embedding: An empirical study," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    3. Daisuke Sakai, 2019. "Who is peer reviewed? Comparing publication patterns of peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed papers in Japanese political science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 65-80, October.
    4. Zhentao Liang & Jin Mao & Gang Li, 2023. "Bias against scientific novelty: A prepublication perspective," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 74(1), pages 99-114, January.
    5. Saarela, Mirka & Kärkkäinen, Tommi, 2020. "Can we automate expert-based journal rankings? Analysis of the Finnish publication indicator," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).

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