Managing peer review bias

One of the key challenges in any evaluation of human performance is the issue of bias, and peer review is no different. If a critical goal of peer review is fairness, then we must avoid any actions—intended or unintended—that would bias the results.

What is bias? It is a tendency or preference toward a particular perspective or result. It may be either a conscious or an unconscious prejudice that is introduced into a process. It may be due to individual preferences or a systematic error introduced into sampling or testing that encourages one outcome over another. Intended or not, bias undermines the reliability or accuracy of the result.

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