Relationship Between Anonymity, Contribution Statements, and Bias

Investigate how authorship anonymity during peer review interacts with explicit contribution statements and affects bias in the evaluation of visualization and HCI research.

Background

The paper examines the tension between anonymized submission and explicit contributor lists. Anonymity may reduce bias associated with prominent or familiar author names, whereas contribution statements may clarify what individual authors contributed and potentially counter assumptions based solely on author identity or ordering.

The authors identify the relationship among anonymity, contribution statements, and evaluative bias as unresolved. This issue is especially relevant in venues where reviewers may already know authors’ identities despite formal anonymization procedures.