Hello
We are a feminist peer-reviewed, online, open access journal and, believe me, we are targets for trolls. We do not want to include a list of our peer reviewers on our website, as we would prefer to avoid exposing them to harassment or otherwise.
How can we remove the list of Previous Reviewers in Previous Year section of the Editorial Masthead?
We have searched through all the plug-ins to see if this section can be removed.
Thank you for any suggestions.
We’re migrating to OJS 3.5.
Currently we use OJS 3.3.
Hi @Linnea, Thanks for raising this point, as I’m one of the people behind this new feature. It has to do with open access needing to educate readers, especially from among the public, about peer review, as well as about building trust in the process in an Age of Misinformation. But are you feeling that it’s enough that author names have to appear, as well as the editors’, and that sharing reviewer names is unnecessary? Would reviewer initials work longer term, while I can look into whether we can offer a short-term solution that suppresses this feature?
-John Willinsky, PKP
Hello, @Willinsky
Thank you for a prompt response. We appreciate your intention of educating readers about peer review and building trust in this Age of Misinformation, and would normally support this initiative wholeheartedly.
However, in our case, we sometimes receive unpleasant and, a few times, threatening messages. In this context, it is much more important to us to preserve the anonymity of our individual reviewers and, potentially, their safety and dignity, than any other consideration. We do conduct rigorous double-blind reviews for every research article and regularly reach out to specific experts for their views, including racialized and Indigenous people. In doing this, we accept responsibility for maintaining the blind in perpetuity.
As you say, it is enough for us that author names appear on their article, along with the members of the journal’s Editorial Collective.
If it proves impossible to remove the Peer Reviewers in Previous Year section, we will simply remain with OJS 3.3 until (if ever) a future upgrade does not force us to disclose the names of our reviewers. However, it would be very helpful if there were to be a way to suppress the feature!
Best wishes,
Linnéa
@Linnea, and @Willinsky,
Perhaps as a practical next step, @Linnea: could you create a Feature Request post, based on the discussions here, and following the format suggested in our Feature Request format. This way we will be able to track the request more formally, and bring its attention to the development team, so it could be explored for future development.
-Roger
PKP Team
Hi all,
See also this relevant conversation:
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
Asmecher, thank you for directing me to that conversation.
Hello, Roger,
I just made a Feature Request under almost the same title.
Thank you.
Thanks for your answer @Willinsky. I believe that transparency is a good practice for a journal, but that it is a bad idea to impose this kind of thing on journals. They should be able to decide for themselves what information to display on their website.
Moreover, requiring the inclusion of reviewers’ names on journal websites will be problematic for several journals applying to the DOAJ, with regard to the endogeny criteria. Without going into too much detail, if a reviewer is also an author in the journal, their article will be considered endogenous. If the proportion of endogenous articles is too high, the journal will not be eligible for inclusion and their application will be rejected.
Hi Linnea - I was looking for your Feature Request to support it, but couldn’t find it for some reason. Could you (or someone else on this thread) point me to it? I think it’s a good point that the journal should have the choice to display this information and I’m a bit surprised as generally I understand PKP’s approach is to allow for maximum flexibility for making use of features, especially new ones.
I can’t find it. I’m not sure what happened to it.
@rcgillis Should I make another Feature Post for this topic?
Hi @Linnea,
Bizarre - I cannot find it either - would it be a lot of effort to re-articulate it in a new post?
-Roger
PKP Team
Heya, @rcgillis
No worries, I’ll make one this afternoon.
@rcgillis Done! Sorry for the delay.
@jhatherill You should be able to find this topic as a Feature Post now.