What is the sensitivity and specificity of the peer review process?

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce the concepts of sensitivity and specificity to mathematically describe the accuracy of the peer review process. Sensitivity refers to the probability that the final decision for a manuscript would be acceptance, provided the manuscript meets the journal standards required for publication (i.e., true positive rate). Specificity refers to the probability that the final decision would be rejection, provided the work does not meet the standards required for publication (i.e., true negative rate). Therefore, in the peer review process, sensitivity measures the ability to correctly accept manuscripts that meet the required standards (true positives) and specificity measures the ability to correctly reject manuscripts that do not meet those quality standards required for publication (true negatives). Sensitivity and specificity values can inform the editor under what conditions the outcome of a peer review process becomes more precise and, therefore, if this does not occur, when the editor must improve the analysis involved in processing the information received from reviewers’ reports. Sensitivity and specificity understood in this way can promote the ethical conduct of peer review processes and improve the validity of manuscript editorial decisions.