Peer review of manuscripts, a process of vetting research for publication, has been operating in the Anglophone world since the 17th century (Philosophical Transactions, 2014) and can be seen as ‘one indicator of disciplinary formation and professionalization’ (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995: 62). ‘Blind’ peer review (BPR) helps editors judge manuscript quality to maintain journal standards and provides contributors feedback to improve their papers (Paltridge, 2013). In a recent study, I found that the adoption of BPR was an important part of the history of an English language teaching (ELT) journal in Taiwan, enabling its inclusion in a domestic citation index (Sheridan, 2015). However, because of the scope of the study, participants’ perspectives and experiences with BPR at the journal were not addressed. The purpose of this chapter is to report on research that sought to explore such perspectives through in-depth interviews with individuals who have participated in the production of the ELT journal and in which they discussed their experiences and perceptions of BPR. First, I draw on the research literature to introduce the range of types and purposes of peer review. Second, I provide an overview of the higher education (HE) environment and development of citation indexes in Taiwan that established BPR standards there. This is followed by an explanation of the theoretical framework related to the effects of globalization on Taiwanese HE before reporting findings from the research on which this chapter is based: six in-depth interviews with Taiwanese scholars who have participated in the production of English Teaching and Learning (ETL), a Chinese and English bilingual journal published by a university in Taiwan.

Types and Purposes of Peer Review

Weller (2002:16) defines a peer-reviewed journal as ‘one that has a portion of submitted manuscripts evaluated by someone other than the editor of the journal’. Researchers categorize the peer-review process into three types depending on the degree of ‘blindness’. In non-blinded open review, reviewers and authors know each other’s identities.