Pride and prejudice – What can we learn from peer review?

Figures & data

Table 1. Characteristics of the reports evaluated in this study.

Journal	Biodata mining	BMC Cancer	BMC Geriatrics	BMC Medical Education	BMC Medical Ethics	BMC Medical Genomics	BMC Medicine	BMC Public Health	Environmental Health	Infectious diseases	Anonymous peer review
CiteScore 2016	1.53	3.56	2.82	1.71	1.74	2.96	6.81	2.54	3.71	2.9
Number of review reports	34	64	65	66	63	50	73	61	60	60	46
Number of comments	6 (9.75)	4 (5)	7 (10)	4 (5.75)	6 (7)	7 (5.75)	7 (6)	7 (9)	7 (6.25)	7 (6)	9.0 (5.8)
Number of authors:	4 (2)	8 (4)	6 (3)	5 (2)	4 (2)	7 (3.75)	10 (7)	6 (3)	7 (4)	7 (5)	NA
Days between submission and publication	164.5 (143.75)	251.5 (149.75)	226 (76)	314 (133.5)	203 (141)	194 (159.5)	140 (59)	218 (179)	169 (63)	196 (124.75)	NA
Days between submission and review	46 (82.25)	86 (96)	75 (58)	74 (82.75)	61 (48)	58.5 (80.25)	30 (20)	57 (54)	44.5 (32)	53.5 (63.75)	NA
Request for additional analysis (%)	10 (29.41)	17 (26.56)	28 (43.08)	11 (16.67)	5 (7.94)	4 (8)	12 (16.44)	4 (6.56)	33 (55)	3 (5)	NA
Length of review	2 (2)	4 (1)	4 (1)	3 (1)	5 (1)	2 (2)	2 (2)	3 (1)	5 (1)	2 (2)	2
Level of detail	2 (2)	2 (2)	3 (1)	3 (1)	3 (2.5)	2 (2)	2 (2)	3 (1)	3 (2)	2 (2)	2
Constructiveness	2 (1)	3 (2)	3 (1)	3 (1)	3 (3)	1 (1)	2 (1)	4 (1)	3 (1.25)	2 (1)	1
Positiveness	2 (1)	2 (2)	3 (2)	3 (1)	3 (1)	1 (1.75)	2 (2)	3 (1)	3 (2)	1 (2)	1
Harshness	0 (0.75)	0 (1.25)	0 (0)	0 (1)	0 (1)	1.5 (2)	1 (2)	0 (1)	0 (1)	0 (0)	1
Total number of reviewers	2 (0)	2 (1)	2 (0)	2 (0.75)	2 (0)	2 (1)	3 (1)	2 (0)	2 (0)	2 (0)	3

All the variables are reported as median (IQR), Request for additional analysis is number of positive observations and percentage of the total number of reports.

Figure 1. Harshness in reviewers’ reports as a function of the seasons of the year. For each season, the icons size is scaled according to the mean values of harshness in that season (reported alongside it), and a bar plot with the percentage of reviews with each score of harshness (1–5) is provided.

Figure 2. The three subtypes of peer reviewers. These subtypes differed in terms of levels of: positiveness, detail, constructiveness and harshness; and in length of reviews. Further, differences were found in: number of comments, days from submission of the manuscript to review and whether they requested additional analyses to be carried out.

Data availability statement

All data generated for this study is available upon request.