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What Peer Reviewer Anonymizing options are available in Editorial Manager?
Last updated on October 23, 2024
EM allows for customization of reviewer anonymizing settings in the journal configuration, to control which details reviewers can and cannot see about the Authors. For example:
- The Reviewer PDF can be configured for each article type, to include only certain file types and to determine what details and metadata will be displayed on the PDF cover page.
- Reviewer roles can be defined to enable or disable various information sources that could directly or indirectly reveal author identity.
- Letter templates can be customized to either include certain merged information or not. Editors would still be able to add or remove merge codes and potentially hide or reveal information.
- An anonymized decision letter can be configured so that reviewers can view the author decision letter stripped of any merged information such as author names, affiliations, etc.
This article includes three detailed areas for reviewer anonymizing, as well as common terminology for Peer Review anonymizing policies.
Common Peer Review Anonymizing Policies
Single-Anonymized Review: Refers to a journal where authors are unable to see the identity of reviewers, but reviewers can see the identity of authors. The level of detail shown in EM can be customized by journal, but in general Single-Anonymized simply means that the reviewers are able to view the full author list including names and affiliations.
Double-Anonymized Review: Refers to a journal where authors are unable to see the identity of reviewers, and reviewers are unable to see the identity of authors. This does add some burden to authors, they must prepare their main manuscript with no revealing details, and a separate file with the author information for editors. EM allows for flexibility in configuring Double-Anonymized as described in the next section.
'Triple-Anonymized' Review: Some journal policies require even more information to be hidden from some parties than what is included in Double-Anonymized review. However, different journals use the term 'Triple-Anonymized' to mean different things, which may or may not be feasible within EM. If more privacy is needed than Double-Anonymized, please discuss the exact needs with your Publisher and Journal Manager. For example:
- Hide editor identity from authors: Possible by carefully customizing all correspondence to not include any editor details. Care must be taken not to accidentally include editor merge codes in any letters to authors, or cc editors on any such letters.
- Hide editor identity from reviewers: Possible by carefully customizing all correspondence to not include any editor details, and disabling reviewer permission to view history and editor assignment details. Care must be taken not to accidentally include editor merge codes in any letters to reviewers, or cc editors on any such letters.
- Hide author identity from editors: Impossible in EM, editors can always see the author names via their author menu.
- Hide reviewer identity from editors: Impossible in EM; no editor role can be defined to make decisions without seeing the identity of the reviewers.
Mixed Reviewer Anonymizing: Some journals wish to mix their policy, so that some reviewers are double-anonymized, while others such as editorial board members can see author information. This is possible with some care in configuration, by defining different reviewer roles. The Reviewer PDF must be built to the most restricted standard because all reviewers get the same PDF. Other settings can allow one reviewer role additional information via the reviewer menus. The additional information could also be shared by letters used only for one reviewer role, but care must be taken not to accidentally use the wrong letter and reveal information that should be hidden for that reviewer.
Open Peer Review: Refers to a journal where the author can see the identity of reviewers, and the reviewers see the author. In some cases this is opt in: while completing a review the reviewer can choose to have their identity revealed to the author.
Editor Blocking: Editors can be blocked to a specific manuscript; a blocked editor will not be able to see that manuscript on any of their menus, via Search Submissions, or by looking at the history of any individual connected to the manuscript. This must be done manually by another editor, and is most commonly used when the editor to be blocked is an author of the submission or has some other conflict of interest. See How can an Editor be blocked from seeing a certain submission?
Detailed EM options for Reviewer Anonymizing
Reviewers can potentially see author details in three ways: Within the Reviewer PDF, on their Reviewer Menus in EM, or in Correspondence sent from EM. When making any changes to reviewer anonymizing polices in a journal, all three areas will need to be updated.
The Reviewer PDF, like the Editor/Author PDF, consists of an EM-generated Cover Page (which might be more than one page long) followed by the author's source files. The files in both versions will be in the same order, with the same settings for file types to be either fully built into the PDF or only linked for download (e.g. videos). The difference between the Editor/Author version and Reviewer version is the Cover Page, and in certain files being left out of the Reviewer version.
Editors and authors can always view the Editor/Author PDF, and may have permission to view the Reviewer PDF as well. It is additionally possible to require the Author and/or Editor to view and approve the Reviewer PDF after making any changes.
- Cover Page: Each Article Type can potentially be linked to a different Reviewer PDF Cover Page, or they could all be the same. Reviewer PDF Cover Pages can be defined to include almost any submission detail or metadata information, including author responses to custom submission questions.
- Source files: The Reviewer PDF will be built with the cover page as defined in the article type, followed by some of the Author's source files. Each article type has settings for all defined file types in the journal, with the option or 'exclude from reviewer PDF' available for any file type.
- The names of the file types should be clear so that authors can tell which files must be kept free of any identifying information.
- Many journals will check incoming submission to be sure the author identifying information is only in files that will be hidden from reviewers.
When changes are made to these settings, they affect only new PDFs built after the change.
Reviewer Roles can be defined to allow access to direct or indirect author (or editor) details, either via action links or in the columns displayed in relevant reviewer menus. Note this is unrelated to whether those details are included in the Reviewer PDF or Correspondence to Reviewers. These optional details include:
Options possible in all reviewer menus:
Each reviewer role can be defined to include or hide the following details in all reviewer menus. Changes made to these settings apply immediately, when the reviewer next refreshes or navigates to a new screen.
- Submission detail columns: These columns can be displayed or hidden for each reviewer role; each setting applies to all reviewer menus. This is separate from whether these details are included on the PDF coversheet.
- Manuscript Number: Note that even if this is hidden in the reviewer menus it can be seen as the reviewer PDF filename.
- Article Type
- Article Title
- Status Date
- Current status
- Assigning editor
- View Abstract: If enabled, the reviewer can click to view the abstract text as entered by the author during submission. This is separate from any abstract that might be part of the reviewer PDF cover page and/or source files.
- Send email: If enabled, the reviewer can send any ad-hoc email templates defined as 'Ad hoc From Reviewer'. Each template has one or more defined recipient, and can have additional mandatory or optional cc/bcc recipients such as editors, reviewers, and authors connected to the submission. In general "From Reviewers" are only defined with either as 'The Journal' or 'Handling Editor' as recipient, depending on journal preference.
- Search tools: Can be enabled or disabled for each reviewer role.
- Search Similar article in MEDLINE
- Search Author Publications in MEDLINE: this WILL reveal author details
- Google Scholar Title Search – will search on the manuscript tile, could reveal author details via a preprint server or other means.
- PubMed title search – will search by title on PubMed
- Scopus Keyword Search – will search Scopus for the submission keywords
- Science Direct Author Search – this WILL reveal author details
- Own Review History: adds a link to the reviewer main menu showing their personal activity history (much like the editor's view in the people record). This will not include any author details.
Options possible for review invitations
Each reviewer role can be defined to include or hide the following details in their 'New Reviewer Invitations'.
- Corresponding Author and Affiliation or All Authors and Their Affiliations: Single-Anonymized journals may wish to display one or the other of these to allow potential reviewers to quickly notice a conflict of interest and decline the invitation.
- Download Reviewer PDF: This setting controls whether the PDF can be viewed by an invited reviewer, or if they must wait until they have agreed not review.
- Download [Specific file type]: One file type may be designated for the reviewer role to download that source field at invitation, separately from the reviewer PDF. For example, an author disclosure that would allow the potential reviewer to notice a conflict of interest and decline the invitation.
- Classifications: Displays the classification list in a column on the New Reviewer Invitations menu. This is separate from the option to include classifications on the PDF coversheet.
- Keywords: Displays the keyword list in a column on the New Reviewer Invitations menu. This is separate from the option to include keywords on the PDF coversheet.
Options possible for review assignments
Each reviewer role can be defined to include or hide the following details in their 'Pending Assignments' and 'Completed Assignments' folders (one setting applies to both areas).
- Similarity check results: Allows the reviewer to open the CrossCheck similarity report. This WILL reveal the author details to the reviewer, and is not recommended to be enabled for any journals.
- Reference Checking Results: Allows the reviewer to access EM's processed References list with DOI and/or PubMed links to each reference that EM was able to link.
- CheckCIF check results: or journals configured to process MOL files into InChl keys, allow the reviewer to view the processed files and Reaxys links. See Can I use Mol files and InChI keys in my submission?
- Status history: shows every action ever taken on the submission, including the name of the operator and the name of the person who may have performed the action by proxy. This WILL reveal author information to the reviewers, as well as all editor names, other reviewer names (including those who declined), etc.
- Correspondence history: Shows every email ever sent for this submission, including the names of every person who sent or received an email for this submission. This WILL reveal author information to the reviewers, as well as all editor names, other reviewer names (including those who declined), etc.
- Reviewer Comments: The link appears if this reviewer has completed a review, either for this or a previous revision. It always includes the reviewer's own completed reviews, optionally includes other reviewers if so enabled. The link may also appear when the reviewer has never yet completed a review for this manuscript in the case where some other reviewer has completed a review and either this reviewer role has permission to view other reviewer's comments, or the editor chose to share specific previous review(s) when sending this invitation.
Options possible for previous reviews and decisions
If enabled, these action links will appear in all reviewer menus when there have been previous completed reviews and/or editor decisions.
- Decision letter: When enabled this link will show all previous decision letters, either the anonymized or un-anonymized version as defined for the reviewer role.
- Other reviewer's comments to author and/or Confidential comments to editor: When either of these are enabled the reviewer will see previous reviewer names, recommendation terms, and the enabled author/editor comments in the same 'Completed Reviews' action link as their own comments. Note that editors can always selectively share previous reviews when inviting reviewers, which will enable this access even when it is not part of the reviewer's general permission.
- Author's Response to Reviewer Comments is an optional submission step that asks authors to enter comments onscreen while submitting their revision. If the submission step is used, and the reviewer role is enabled to view the response, then this link will appear for the reviewer to view the author's comments. Note this refers to author comments entered as a submission step, not to those that are uploaded in a file as part of the PDF.
Letter templates in an EM site should be configured to match the Reviewer Anonymizing Policy, excluding any information that Reviewers should not see. Editors are responsible to follow the policy when customizing emails, or when choosing the correct letter template in journals where different reviewer roles follow different policies.
Changes made to the letter template will affect only new letters; any pending alternate reviewers will receive the invitation as it was defined when they were set as alternate.
- Merge Codes: Letters to reviewers can include merge codes that pull in identifying author details. For a journal where reviewers should not get this information, these merge codes should be removed from letter templates. For a journal where different reviewer roles have different anonymizing polices, two sets of letters must be maintained, and editors must take care to select the appropriate one when sending letters to reviewers. When editors customize letters, they must take care not to add in a merge code that reveals too much information to the reviewers.
- Recipient Options: It is recommended that any letter be sent either to authors, or to reviewers, but never the same letter to both authors and reviewers. 'Send To', 'CC' and 'BCC' options on a letter can all potentially reveal identities.
- Everyone in 'Send To' and 'CC' will be able to see one another's email address.
- People in BCC will be able to see all the email addresses in 'Send To' and 'CC'.
- If one of the BCC recipients were to use 'Reply to All', they would reveal their own email address to everyone in 'Send To' and 'CC'.
- Reviewer Notification of Decision: For reviewers to see the decision letter without revealing authors and reviewers to one another, EM uses Reviewer Notification letters which can pull in the text of the Author decision Letter to be shared with reviewers. When so configured, EM will create two versions of the Author Decision Letter, one where the author's details are merged into the letter, and an 'anonymized' version where those merge codes are not resolved. The Reviewer Notification Letter is then defined to pull in either the Anonymized or Unanonymized version of the Author Decision Letter.
If you have any questions about your journal's current anonymizing policies and reviewer options, contact your Journal Manager or other journal contact. Editors considering changes should discuss these with their Publisher and/or Journal Manager.
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