Effect of institutional prestige on reviewers' recommendations and editorial decisions
J. M. Garfunkel, M. H. Ulshen, H. J. Hamrick and E. E. Lawson
Department of Pediatrics, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill 27599-7230.
OBJECTIVE--To determine whether manuscripts from institutions with greater
prestige are more likely to be recommended for publication by reviewers and
to be accepted for publication. DESIGN--Retrospective study of reviewers'
recommendations and editorial decisions for manuscripts from the United
States received at the Journal of Pediatrics between January 1 and July 31,
1992. Manuscripts were classified as major papers or as brief reports.
Institutions were ranked in quintiles according to the monetary value of
grants funded by the National Institutes of Health. Reviewers'
recommendations were classified as reject, reconsider, or accept, and
editorial decisions as accept or reject, without regard to qualifying
recommendations. RESULTS--For the 147 brief reports, lower institutional
rank was associated with lower rates of recommendation for acceptance and
of selection for publication. For the 258 major papers, however, there was
no significant relationship between institutional rank and either the
reviewers' recommendations or the acceptance rate. Similar results were
found when the manuscripts were divided into five numerically equal groups
according to institutional rank. CONCLUSIONS--Major manuscripts from
institutions with greater prestige were no more likely to be recommended or
accepted for publication than those from institutions with lesser prestige.
In contrast, the likelihood of recommendation for acceptance and of
selection for publication of brief reports appeared to correlate with the
prestige of the institution.
