On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Sally Morris <sec-gen_at_alpsp.org> wrote:
>[sm] We recently carried out an online survey of current peer review
>[sm] practice. We got 200 replies, representing many more than 200
>[sm] journals (some respondents were multi-journal editors, or
>[sm] publishers). You can find the results at www.alpsp.org/pub4.htm
Interesting report (at:
http://www.alpsp.org/pub4.htm)! One of the
questions in the report was:
"Q7 What percentage of papers are eventually accepted for publication?"
The summary of the responses to this question was:
"Acceptance rates show a wide variation and the broad bands used in this
questionnaire do not provide a particularly clear picture. However, the
majority of journals represented in the survey lie in the 25-50% band. A
considerable number of respondents accept more than 50% and less than 20%
(ie 80% rejection) of articles. A few journals have acceptance rates
higher than 75% and lower than 10% (90% rejection)."
A question for Sally:
Have the results for this question been cross-tabulated, to see whether or
not rejection rates are consistently higher for journals in some fields,
in comparison with journals in other fields?
I'm particularly interested to know whether or not these results are
consistent with those reported by Zuckerman and Merton in 1971, They
reported substantial variation, with rejection rates of 20 to 40 percent
in the physical sciences, and 70 to 90 percent in the social sciences and
humanities.
[See: Zuckerman HA, Merton RK. Patterns of evaluation in science:
Institutionalization, structure and functions of the referee system.
Minerva; 1971. 9:66-100].
Jim Till
University of Toronto
Received on Wed Jan 03 2001 - 19:17:43 GMT