ABSTRACT
In 2006, the editor of the British Journal of Educational Technology emailed his panel of over 150 referees to ask them if they were happy with the procedures used to referee articles submitted to his journal. In this case, the referees choose papers that they would like to referee from an electronic menu. They make their selection from the editor’s list, which gives them the names of the authors and the titles of the submitted publications. The referees review the paper and send their reports via the editor to the author, unsigned. This process is called a ‘single-blind review’. In a ‘double-blind review’, the names of the authors and their institutions are deleted from the manuscripts, and the referees do not sign their reports. (Two other possibilities exist: ‘open review’ – where both the authors and the referees names are known to each other, and another (rare) form of single-blind review – where the referee’s name is known to the authors, but their names are not known to the referee.)
There were some two dozen replies to the editor’s question. Most of these supported the editor’s approach, some others were more neutral and raised additional concerns, and only three supported double-blind refereeing. These responses suggest that there was no serious opposition to the notion that referees should get to see the name(s) of the authors in advance, but that they should not give their names when refereeing the papers – a rather selfindulgent position.
