Unpacking the many models of peer review new and emerging: Interview with Pippa Smart

Since its widespread adoption, beginning in the 1940s, peer review has been considered the gold standard of scholarly journal publishing — but in many ways, you could say that there is nothing standard about it. Of course, the fundamentals of peer review hold true across journals and there are many peer review best practices that have become expected of reputable journals, such as the COPE guidelines and disciplinary norms like the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ peer review recommendations. However, journals’ peer review models can vary widely — from different takes on single-blind, double-blind, and triple-blind to the somewhat elusive “open peer review,” a term that can have multiple definitions depending on whom you ask.