[AISWorld] Sound conference desk rejection policy

Mon Feb 27 18:33:36 EST 2017

I see more benefits than damages with cross-reviews from authors and in a
non-blind mode. Concentrated expertise from authors in the same track is
better than seniority status far away from topics. In any track there are a
combination from senior, middle range and young or PhD students, and cross
reviewers can be balanced. Finally, a real Assoc. Editor can really to
classify as sure rejection a low-quality paper from the abstract. In
addition, it has been critiqued than forms and fashions rather than
content and relevance are wrongly privileged in IS/IT research in the last
times, so we should foster relevant and provable findings rather papers
with a 600-toefl alike style on topics outside of the real relevant IS/IT
topics concerned with thousands of IS/IT managers and engineers. For
instance, none top journal neither top conference has a track on, the
maybe most important construct, Data Center Systems with technical (such
as Data Center design methods, IT service design methods, performance
benchmarks on IT used in Data Centers, Virtualization Methods, DCIM tools,
etc) and managerial issues (such budgets, human resources charts, economic
impacts, ITSM learned lessons, and so on). It is a real shame for our
discipline.
Manuel Mora

PS. On how to improve reviews, another suggestion:

Mora, M. (2016). Rejoinder to Ivari's (2016) Paper:" How to Improve the
Quality of Peer Reviews? Three Suggestions for System-level Changes".
Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 38(1).

On the deviations on an excessive rigor on reviews and get published on
JCRs in our discipline:

Dennis, A. R., Valacich, J. S., Fuller, M. A., & Schneider, C. (2006).
Research standards for promotion and tenure in information systems. MIS
Quarterly, 30(1), 1-12.

On strong critique on fashions/volatility on research themes in IS/IT
research (a collateral negative issue on IS/IT research):

Baskerville, R. L., & Myers, M. D. (2009). Fashion waves in information
systems research and practice. MIS Quarterly, 33(4), 647-662.

-------------------------------------------------
Manuel Mora, EngD.
Full-time Professor and Researcher Level C
ACM Senior Member / SNI Level I
Department of Information Systems
Autonomous University of Aguascalientes
Ave. Universidad 940
Aguascalientes, AGS
Mexico, 20131
http://x3620a-labdc.uaa.mx:8080/web/drmora

On Feb 26, 2017 1:36 PM, "Cecil Eng Huang Chua" <aeh.chua at auckland.ac.nz>
wrote:

> With regard to the use of authors as reviewers.
>
>
> In my original post I highlighted one problem with this is that authors
> (especially of desk rejected papers) may not be competent to provide a good
> review.
>
>
> Also, authors of papers can refuse to review.  As one of the people who
> privately mailed me noted, it sometimes seems like 20% of us are doing 80%
> of the work.
>
>
> I do agree that having authors who submit function as reviewers can
> partially alleviate the scarcity of reviewer problem.
>
>
> Academy of Managament/OCIS gets around this by having an elite reviewer
> and two ordinary reviewers, the elite reviewer being someone with some
> standing in the field.  AOM calls the elite reviewer an AE, but this person
> doesn't do the traditional AE job of finding reviewers- the track chairs do
> this.
>
>
> Cecil Chua
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Manuel Mora <dr.manuel.mora.uaa at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 27, 2017 8:29 AM
> *To:* Cecil Eng Huang Chua
> *Cc:* aisworld at lists.aisnet.org
> *Subject:* Re: [AISWorld] Sound conference desk rejection policy
>
>
> Dear colleague Cecil Huang,
> This is a great topic. My two cents contribution: 1) IT area has exploded
> in topics and subtopics and there is a scarcity of reviewers; 2) asking to
> authors from the same track for being reviewers plus final and fair
> decision from track chair can help to cope with scarcity problem; and 3)
> desk rejection is still valid for really low-quality papers that track
> chair can identify and avoid wasted time from reviewers. Thanks, Manuel
Mora
> On Feb 26, 2017 1:05 PM, "Cecil Eng Huang Chua" <aeh.chua at auckland.ac.nz>
> wrote:
>
>> What's interesting about this post is that I have received several
>> personal emails rather than posts to ISWorld.  As some people have
>> explicitly asked me not to repost their mails, I won't do so.
>>
>>
>> The correspondence I have received has been of the following forms:
>>
>>
>> (1) Interesting question. Complex issue.
>>
>> (2) War stories of how some editor had to ask many people before
someone
>> would finally review for them.
>>
>> (3) Comments about how some people write a lot of papers, but won't
>> review.
>>
>> (4) I used to oppose desk rejections until the day I became an editor.
>>
>> (5) The issue of trust- if you appoint editors you need to trust them to
>> desk reject appropriately.
>>
>> (6) Recommendation that journals adopt fee-based submission policies and
>> actually pay reviewers.
>>
>> (7) Requests for an update on the conversation.
>>
>>
>> I do think we should bring the issue out in the open and discuss it.  It
>> affects all of us, and a public discussion would better inform policy.
>>
>>
>> Cecil Chua
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 1:37 PM -0500, "Cecil Eng Huang Chua" <
>> aeh.chua at auckland.ac.nz<mailto:aeh.chua at auckland.ac.nz>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> 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
>> _______________________________________________
>> AISWorld mailing list
>> AISWorld at lists.aisnet.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> AISWorld mailing list
>> AISWorld at lists.aisnet.org
>
>
_______________________________________________
AISWorld mailing list
AISWorld at lists.aisnet.org