Improbable fairness: Reviewing under the lenses of Impact Factor

This study presents an agent-based simulation model of a peer-review process to study how bibliometric measurements may affect the assessment of a paper. The Impact Factor (IF) is selected, for it is diffused and a well-known source of judgement bias. By using affiliation to community of researchers that are more or less tied to an understanding of quality qua IF, the model simulates how much peer evaluations connect to scientific value of a paper, thus affecting the review process. Simulation findings show that the effect of IF extends to those reviewers affiliated with an IF-agnostic group as well.