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Substantial Agreement of Referee Recommendations at a General Medical Journal – A Peer Review Evaluation at Deutsches Ärzteblatt International

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  • Christopher Baethge
  • Jeremy Franklin
  • Stephan Mertens

Abstract

Background: Peer review is the mainstay of editorial decision making for medical journals. There is a dearth of evaluations of journal peer review with regard to reliability and validity, particularly in the light of the wide variety of medical journals. Studies carried out so far indicate low agreement among reviewers. We present an analysis of the peer review process at a general medical journal, Deutsches Ärzteblatt International. Methodology/Principal Findings: 554 reviewer recommendations on 206 manuscripts submitted between 7/2008 and 12/2009 were analyzed: 7% recommended acceptance, 74% revision and 19% rejection. Concerning acceptance (with or without revision) versus rejection, there was a substantial agreement among reviewers (74.3% of pairs of recommendations) that was not reflected by Fleiss' or Cohen's kappa (

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Baethge & Jeremy Franklin & Stephan Mertens, 2013. "Substantial Agreement of Referee Recommendations at a General Medical Journal – A Peer Review Evaluation at Deutsches Ärzteblatt International," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(5), pages 1-7, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0061401
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061401
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lutz Bornmann & Rüdiger Mutz & Hans-Dieter Daniel, 2010. "A Reliability-Generalization Study of Journal Peer Reviews: A Multilevel Meta-Analysis of Inter-Rater Reliability and Its Determinants," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(12), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Lutz Bornmann & Hans-Dieter Daniel, 2009. "Reviewer and editor biases in journal peer review: an investigation of manuscript refereeing at Angewandte Chemie International Edition," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 262-272, October.
    3. Richard L Kravitz & Peter Franks & Mitchell D Feldman & Martha Gerrity & Cindy Byrne & William M Tierney, 2010. "Editorial Peer Reviewers' Recommendations at a General Medical Journal: Are They Reliable and Do Editors Care?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(4), pages 1-5, April.
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