[AISWorld] Sound conference desk rejection policy

[Cecil Eng Huang Chua]

I would like to start a discussion on desk rejections at conferences.  I want to start this, because I am editing/have edited for two conferences now where the editor instructions were “no desk rejects.”  A desk rejection occurs when either the track chair or associate editor rejects a paper without sending it to reviewers.

I suspect a proper policy is not “no desk rejects.”  It isn’t “give editor all the power to desk reject they want” either.  I am hoping that we will make some of the issues transparent so we can develop good policy.

An argument in favor of desk rejection is the total uncompensated manpower required for conference reviewing.  The typical conference structure is track chair, associate editor, and two reviewers.  So, each fully reviewed paper receives 4 man-review units of effort.  If there are 50 papers per track (yes, some tracks have hundreds of papers- bear with me), that’s 200 man-review units in each track.  If there are 15 tracks, that’s 3000 man-review units.  At just 5 major conferences  (ICIS, AMCIS, ECIS, PACIS, ACIS), that’s 15000 man-review units, and we have more than just 5 major conferences.  Desk rejections can shave a lot of uncompensated man-review units from this.

A counter argument is that one can get authors of a track to review for the track.  I would note that if the editor feels a paper is of desk rejection quality, that the authors may not be competent to review.

An argument against desk rejection is conferences are about providing feedback to authors.  However, this requires uncompensated time from reviewers.  In many of our premier conferences, there’s a pre-submission game where the track chairs try to “reserve” as many reviewers/AEs as possible.  We wouldn’t have that game if there wasn’t a shortage of reliable reviewers.  Indeed, there probably aren’t more that 5000 active researchers in the IS field at any one time- see above 15000 man-review units.  Everyone gets involved in the reviews.  It is unfair to favor authors who benefit from reviews rather than reviewers who are harmed (by having to spend uncompensated time) when they have to do reviews.  

Frankly, our community seems to underappreciate reviewers.  For the above conservative 15000 man-review units, we maybe give 5 best reviewer awards, which are often paper certificates with no money attached.  Best paper authors receive shiny plaques and often a cheque.  We could argue reviewer competence is recognized because reviewers are invited to become track chairs and editors.  To this, I would note the pyramidal structure of conference/journal organization-many reviewers, few board positions and the fact that appointment to boards is not explicitly based on reviewing competence and is often based on getting papers accepted.  Also, it is not clear to me that being appointed to boards is necessarily a reward.

So, that’s my discussion seed.  I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Cecil Chua