Fallout and Miss in journal peer review

Abstract

Purpose: We further exploit the analogy between journal peer review and information retrieval. In this way we want to quantify some imperfections of journal peer review. Design/methodology/approach: We define fallout rate and missing rate in order to describe quantitavely the weak papers that were accepted and the strong papers that we missed, respectively. To assess the quality of manuscripts we use bibliometric measures. Findings: Fallout rate and missing rate are put in relation with the hitting rate and success rate. Conclusions are drawn on what friction of weak papers will be accepted in order to have a certain fraction of strong accepted papers. These curves are even new in peer review research when interpreted in the information retrieval terminology.