Peer choice - does reviewer self-selection work?

The British Journal of Educational Technology (BJET) uses a novel system for obtaining referees by e-mailing the abstracts of submissions to a panel of over 250 referees and allowing these individuals to choose which papers they would like to review. An analysis of 13 experienced referees showed that, of 473 reviews assessed, these referees were slightly more lenient than the editor and that electronic records provide useful data that can be mined in interesting ways