On Gatekeeping and Bias in Peer Review #PeerReviewWeek18

The editor of a journal (on whose editorial board I am) recently emailed me thanking me personally for my thorough review. Because people rarely take the time to do that anymore. I can relate. I have reviewed papers really thoroughly only to find another reviewer just ticking all the boxes and offering no comments.

I recently tweeted this:

I'm thinking that traditional approaches to peer review can be the face of academic gatekeeping and epistemic violence.

Wondering what folks think, particularly those from groups often excluded from the decision-making around what is valued in academia.

— ℳąhą Bąℓi, PhD مها بالي 🌵 (@Bali_Maha) September 9, 2018

This comes ahead of a lightning talk I am going to be giving on Twitter/Periscope Tues Sept 11 at 5pm UK time (4 GMT) which I plan to focus on academic gatekeeping and bias in peer review.

Some questions I plan to pose

1. Who decides who gets to be on an editorial board?
2. What kind of power do editorial board members have?
3. How do editors choose reviewers? What happens to radical thinkers and researchers?
4. Who chooses CfPs? Can CfPs themselves perpetuate bias and gatekeeping? Indeed, who peer reviews the CfPs?
5. The differences in power and values between double blind, single blind and open peer review (I wrote about this here). Open supportive peer review seems like the more ethical choice perpetuating constructive relationships to advance the field via conversation rather than antagonism.
6. Do journals offer training or any prof dev for peer reviewers to encourage more thoughtful reviewing? Hybrid PED trained us on supportive open peer review.

Gosh will I manage this in 10 minutes?

I did it in 6. Here is the video. Feel free to tweet questions to #PeerReviewWeek18 and tag @bali_maha

Also see the open access version of my article advocating for open peer review

Here is open access version of my article advocating for open peer review #PeerReviewWeek18https://t.co/cJraiChSMt@Grassr_Journals https://t.co/HtLZzJnmHq

— ℳąhą Bąℓi, PhD مها بالي 🌵 (@Bali_Maha) September 11, 2018

Thanks!

P.S. Victoria Okoye shared this useful thread with me and I want to save it here

Such good points here! I am at the African Studies Association-UK conference, and in a session on Early Career Researchers’ experiences in African universities, similar points were raised, which @ASAUK_News has thankfully captured so well here:https://t.co/qy8sv1ldie

— victoria ogoegbunam okoye (@_ogoegbunam_) September 11, 2018