Computer Simulations of Scientific Peer Reviewing

A simple mathematical model of the scientific peer reviewing process is developed. Papers and reviewers are modeled as numerical vectors, respectively representing the paper's value among multiple quality dimensions, and the importance given to these dimensions by a given reviewer. Computer simulations show that the model can reproduce various characteristics of a real-world paper decision process, and in particular its propensity to act as an "arbitrary" decision procedure for a range of submissions. A key finding of this study is that the appearance of randomness can be explained by a mismatch between high quality dimensions of a paper, and those valued by the reviewers it is assigned to. As a consequence, a program committee may exhibit arbitrariness even with a set of completely reliable reviewers. Various factors contributing to this arbitrariness are then examined, and alternate selection models are studied that could help reduce arbitrariness and reviewer effort.