BMJ 1999;318:4-5 ( 2 January )

Editorials

Opening up BMJ peer review

A beginning that should lead to complete transparency

Papers p   23 Education and debate p   44

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The BMJ has until now used a closed system of peer review, where the authors do not know who has reviewed their papers. The reviewers do, however, know the names of the authors. Most medical journals use the same system, but it's based on custom not evidence. Now we plan to let authors know the identity of reviewers. Soon we are likely to open up the whole system so that anybody interested can see the whole process on the world wide web. The change is based on evidence and an ethical argument.

Peer review is at the heart of the scientific process yet was until recently largely unexamined. Now we begin to have a body of evidence on peer review (www.wame.org), and it illustrates many defects. Peer review is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, prone to bias, easily abused, poor at detecting gross defects, and . . . [Full text of this article]

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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Open peer review

D F P Larkin
bmj.com, 8 Jan 1999 [Full text]

Opening up BMJ peer review

Raj Bhopal
bmj.com, 12 Jan 1999 [Full text]

Open peer review system already exists, albeit, post publication

Babatunde A Gbolade
bmj.com, 18 Jan 1999 [Full text]

Re: Open peer review system already exists, albeit, post publication

Vincent V Richman
bmj.com, 25 Feb 1999 [Full text]

Evaluating a change in peer review

Annette Leclerc
bmj.com, 27 Feb 1999 [Full text]

Peer Review & Clinical Negligence

Andrew Reid
bmj.com, 14 Nov 2000 [Full text]

Editor's reply

Richard Smith
bmj.com, 14 Nov 2000 [Full text]

Re:Institutional and geographical bias in peer review system

Niranjan Bhattacharya
bmj.com, 31 Oct 2001 [Full text]

Re: Opening up BMJ peer review

M Justin S Zaman
bmj.com, 17 May 2007 [Full text]