[AISWorld] To all PC chairs of scientific events

[ilia]

Dear PC chairs of conferences, workshops, and other scientific events

Being on both sides of the paper selection process (as an author, PC 
member and char) during a long period of time, I still wonder why some 
common reviewing errors are so persistent. Here are two examples:

1. Normally, a conference paper has a limitation on the paper size. 
Despite this limitation,  it is not uncommon that the reviewers complain 
that the paper does not take a number of issues, often peripheral to the 
paper content, without giving any suggestion on what parts of the text 
could be removed without loosing the essence of the paper.

2. Science is a free enterprise; a researcher is free to choose any 
specific approach, e.g. a modeling technique, to test in a specific 
circumstances. The choice, in my view, does not need any detailed 
reasoning. It is enough that the researcher likes the approach, is an 
author of it, or is just curious. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon that 
the reviewers complaint that there is no detailed justification on why a 
specific approach has been chosen. For me it does not matter, as long as 
the paper produce interesting results (positive or negative)

In case, I am a PC chair, I see to that such errors are not made, or if 
made - then corrected. Wouldn't it be a good practice that it is done 
for any scientific event? Is it so difficult to give reviewing 
instructions that exclude such errors? Would it be too time consuming 
for PC chairs to check for such errors and require corrections?

-- Best regards/Ilia
===============================================
Dr. Ilia Bider
Process- och systemutvecklingskonsult at IbisSoft.se
Lektor & Forskare/Professor i data- och systemvetenskap at DSV.su.se
ilia at ibissoft.se        +46 (0)8 164998