[AISWorld] Sound conference desk rejection policy

[mmora at securenym.net]

My comments/reply on:

On Tue, February 28, 2017 1:48 pm, Cecil Eng Huang Chua wrote:
> Umm... typically we get track chairs who are within the domain of the
> track.  I, for example, am often involved in project management tracks.
> You'd think I'd know something about project management research.

Of course, but the interested researchers getting financial founds for
attending conferences with a PhD gained or with a PhD in process are
assumed to have also an adequate level of scientific knowledge on the
topic. Furthermore, there are privileged conferences (ICIS), international
top (AMCIS, PACIS, ECIS, etc), national and regional ones, and naturally
the authors try to compete in their natural league. I have never submitted
to ICIS, for instance, because it is reserved for IS researchers that have
published only in the 8-basket of IS top journals, or at least to have a
co-author with this academic credential (ISR journal only invoice special
issues with previous authors already published at ISR).


>
> When an empirical paper from a track comes to you that:
> -has no methodology section or a very weak methodology section
> -does not cite the relevant literature (see above about track chairs
> knowing the domain) -makes statements but not arguments (i.e., does not
> justify its thinking)

These are value judgments than usually must be interpreted like:

> When an empirical paper from a track comes to you that:
> - reports an implicit methodology or reports a methodology which is not
preferred by me (please remind that Qualitative Research Approach was
ignored at MIS Quarterly by years until a EiC of this journal defended
it (Alan S. Lee)). This is a fact and it is IMPERIALISM. Just make a
review of this #1 journal in the first 15 years.
-does not cite my identified relevant papers from my preferred journals
- makes statements but not arguments (i.e., does not> justify its
thinking)because there are a more engineering/natural sciences style where
the statements are truth or false, and minimal justifications are asked



> I feel asking the authors of that paper to review someone else's paper is
> a bad idea.  This isn't imperialist.  It is taking prima facie evidence-
> the authors don't know what they are doing- to make a judgement call.

In any track of any conference, there will be some senior, middle-range
and junior authors, so at least you can identify and ask to the senior and
selected from the other two groups the best ones from their abstracts.

> Conference tracks are open- anyone can submit.  The assumption that
> authors in a track know the subject area of the track is really
> dangerous.  I agree with asking authors to review if the paper they
> submit demonstrates knowledge of the track.

Ok, my previous argument: to ask assistance to qualified authors from the
track.

> I am not against tapping authors as reviewers.  I am against blindly
> tapping authors as reviewers.

Ok but sometimes there are excellent reviewers that are not excellent
writers! My case: I have received papers from 2 JCRs where I was not
accepted to be published, and I reviewed a project by about a grant of 2.5
million dollars and my highest grant has been on 10,000 dollars, so
sometimes no top writers are excellent reviewers. In these reviews, I
received congratulations letters from my reviews.

In summary, intellectual elitism in our discipline is dangerous and it has
the dominant paradigm in the last 15 years (I started to use computers
from high school in 1979, so I have in touch with several generations of
our core technology).

Manuel Mora


> Cecil Chua
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: AISWorld <aisworld-bounces at lists.aisnet.org> on behalf of
> mmora at securenym.net <mmora at securenym.net> Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2017
> 8:05 AM
> To: aisworld at lists.aisnet.org
> Subject: Re: [AISWorld] Sound conference desk rejection policy
>
>
> Colleagues, I agree with comments on the explosion of conferences and
> micro-topics asked in conferences. Our research CFPs and discipline? is
> ontologically flawed (conceptually redundant, overlapped and
> under-conceptualized and fashion-driven one). On rejection and objections
>  on authors' role for doing reviews, it suggests a lack of trust in our
> peers interested in the topic track and the application of some
> "imperialist" (term used from a Critical Systems perspective) review
> politics. It is clear that senior track chairs can identify levels of
> expertise and an automatic rejection on the suggestion that authors of
> the same track make reviews just increase the problem. Why  should
> external reviewers be more expert than interested ones in the track where
> they are submitting a paper? Manuel Mora
>
>
> PS. Zhang, H., Kishore, R., & Ramesh, R. (2004). Ontological analysis of
> the MibML grammar using the Bunge-Wand-Weber Model, is a good reference on
>  flawed ontology problems.
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> 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 Tue, February 28, 2017 8:41 am, Jerry Flatto wrote:
>
>> As I read the comments on this topic, let me add a few comments.
>>
>>
>>
>> First, as noted, reviewing articles is not beneficial from the
>> university perspective.  By this, I mean what gets a faculty member
>> "promoted and
>> tenured" in most locations.  Thus, there is a disincentive to spend too
>> much time reviewing articles.
>>
>> At the same time, there is a great need for reviewers.  Let's ignore
>> any journals for a moment.  I invite you to count the number of
>> conferences and calls for papers that is distributed on the AISWorld
>> list over the course of a week (or even day) and the corresponding
>> number of reviewers needed to support all these papers submitted for
>> conferences.   Do we have too many conferences that just makes the
>> situation worse?  I realize that I may have opened a "tempest" but
>> something else to look at.
>>
>> Jerry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a large
>> number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced..."
>>
>> Dr. Jerry Flatto, Professor, Information Systems Department - School of
>>  Business
>> University of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
>> mailto:jflatto at uindy.edu
>>
>>
>>
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