Open Peer Review

Open peer review is a model of scholarly peer review in which one or more elements of the traditional review process are made transparent rather than anonymous. This can include revealing the identities of reviewers to authors and readers, publishing reviewer reports alongside articles, or allowing community participation in the review process.

Traditional peer review, in which reviewers are anonymous and reports are confidential, has been the dominant model for evaluating scholarly manuscripts for decades. However, it has been criticized for lack of accountability (reviewers may be careless, biased, or hostile without consequence), lack of transparency (readers cannot assess the quality of the review process), and susceptibility to bias (including gender, institutional, and geographic bias). Open peer review addresses these concerns by introducing accountability and transparency, potentially improving the quality, fairness, and constructiveness of reviews. Several major publishers, including BMJ, eLife, and PLOS, have adopted various forms of open peer review. The evidence on its effects is mixed: some studies found signed reviews more courteous and constructive, while a randomized trial at the BMJ found that asking reviewers to be identified to authors did not change review quality but made reviewers more likely to decline.

Open peer review is not a single model but a spectrum of practices. A systematic review by Ross-Hellauer (2017) analyzed 122 definitions and found seven traits that models combine in different ways: open identities, open reports, open participation, open interaction (direct discussion between authors and reviewers), open pre-review manuscripts, open final version commenting, and open platforms (review organized by a service other than the publishing venue). At one end, open identity review simply reveals the names of reviewers to authors and sometimes to readers, while keeping the content of reviews private. At the other end, fully open review publishes reviewer identities, the full text of reviews, and the authors' responses alongside the published article, making the entire deliberative process visible to readers.

Some journals practice open participation review, in which a preprint or submitted manuscript is made available for comment by the broader scholarly community in addition to or instead of invited expert reviewers. This model can be combined with traditional invited review, with community comments supplementing the formal assessment. Post publication open review extends the process beyond the initial editorial decision, allowing ongoing community evaluation and commentary after publication.

The evidence on open peer review suggests several effects. When reviewers know their identities will be revealed, they tend to write more constructive and courteous reviews, though some evidence indicates that reviewers may also be less likely to accept review invitations and may soften critical assessments. Published reviewer reports provide readers with additional context about the strengths and limitations of a paper as perceived by experts. Open review can also function as an educational resource, allowing early career researchers to see how experienced reviewers evaluate manuscripts.

Different fields and journals have adopted open peer review to varying degrees. The medical sciences, particularly with journals like BMJ and BMC series, have been early adopters, while other fields have been slower to shift from traditional anonymous review.

Consider submitting to journals with open peer review when you value transparency and accountability in the evaluation of your work, when you want readers to be able to assess how thoroughly your manuscript was reviewed, or when your field encourages this model. Open peer review is particularly valuable for high stakes research where transparency in the review process strengthens public trust in the findings.

A common misconception is that open peer review always means that reviewers are publicly identified. In practice, many open review models focus on publishing review content without revealing identities. Another mistake is assuming that open peer review is inherently superior to traditional anonymous review; each model has strengths and limitations, and the best choice depends on the disciplinary context and specific implementation. Some researchers worry that open peer review discourages honest criticism; the evidence is mixed, since named reviews tend to be more courteous, some reviewers decline or soften their criticism, and trials have not found a clear loss of review quality. Confusing open peer review with absence of peer review (as sometimes occurs with predatory publishers) is a further error.

A neuroscience researcher submits a manuscript to a journal that practices open identity and open report peer review. Three reviewers evaluate the manuscript, and their names and full reports are published alongside the accepted article. One reviewer raises concerns about a statistical analysis, and the published exchange shows how the authors addressed this concern with additional sensitivity analyses. A graduate student reading the paper later finds the published reviews valuable for understanding why certain methodological choices were made and for learning what experts in the field consider important when evaluating this type of research.