Peer review has long been held as the
gold standard for article evaluation. At its simplest, the goal of peer review is to ensure that a published article in a journal has been appropriately vetted by qualified scholars. Traditional models require that this process is either single- or double-blind; the editor assigns reviewers based on subject expertise and either/or reviewer and author names are hidden. In an ideal scenario, this fosters open and unbiased commentary, but attempts at evaluation and rigor can soon become gatekeeping and exclusion. The reality of peer review is often
fraught with issues, including
biases toward race, gender, and language proficiency.