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ANNOUNCEMENT
Starting in March, Nature and the monthly Nature research journals will offer an alternative to conventional peer review. Authors will be able to request that their names and affiliations are withheld from reviewers of their papers - a form of peer review known as double blind. At present, the process is single blind: reviewers are anonymous, but they know the authors' identities.
Alternatives to the conventional peer-review process are often proposed. Some have suggested fully open reviews, in which the names of both authors and reviewers are known. Proponents of open peer review see its transparency as a way to encourage more civil and thoughtful reviewer comments - although others are concerned that it promotes a less critical attitude.
By contrast, advocates of double-blind peer review suggest that it eliminates personal biases, such as those based on gender, seniority, reputation and affiliation.
Both systems are already in use across scholarly publishing, but there is no consensus on which is best. Nature experimented with open peer review in 2006, but at the...