Reviewer Guidelines

ASCILITE 2017 has a competitive submission process. As a reviewer, your work is of critical importance to the conference and we are reliant on you, your subject matter expertise and your review quality to help us curate an excellent conference program. We have provided the following guidelines and criteria for you to consider as you review each submission. Your recommendations will be used by the Organising Committee to make a final decision on whether to accept the submission.

These guidelines contain important information about the review process and highlight the steps you need to work through to complete your review. They also outline the review criteria. Please read these guidelines carefully and ensure you are familiar with the steps in the process.

All the Background

Purpose of the review

The primary aims of peer review are to improve the quality of the submission and provide a recommendation on whether the submission would make a valuable contribution to the conference program.

Review timeline

The timeline for the peer review process is as follows:

• Reviews assigned: Monday 12 June 2017
• Accept or reject your reviews by: Monday 26 June
• Complete and submit your reviews by: Monday 24 July 2017

If you are unable to meet the review deadlines for any reason, please advise the conference Organising Committee (ascilite2017@usq.edu.au) so that another reviewer can be identified.

Review system

We will be using the conference management tool EasyChair to undertake the peer reviews. Information on how to use EasyChair to conduct your reviews is available here. Once logged into EasyChair, you will see the list of submissions to which you have been assigned.

We have created EasyChair Instructions for Reviewers [PDF] to help you with using the system.

Questions about reviewing

If you have questions at any stage about any aspect of the review process, please contact the Organising Committee by email at ascilite2017@usq.edu.au. The Organising Committee can help you with a range of issues, including:

• Problems with EasyChair
• Effectively communicating your review
• Re-allocating papers where there is a conflict of interest.

It is particularly important that you contact the Organising Committee early if you are unable to complete your reviews for any reason. The review and resubmission timeline is tight and we need as much notice as possible to re-allocate papers.

Review mentoring

This year, we are offering a mentoring program to support reviewers who might be new to reviewing. Mentees will have the opportunity to get feedback on one of their reviews before it is returned to the author. Mentors can expect to provide feedback on one or two reviews. If you would like a mentor, or you would like to be a mentor, please contact the Organising Committee: ascilite2017@usq.edu.au.

Review anonymity

The blind reviewing process is designed to keep the authorship of submissions anonymous, however, there are some steps you need to take to ensure confidentiality and anonymity throughout the review process.

• When writing your review please do not provide information that reveals your identity.
• Please don’t seek to discover the identity of the author/s.
• Please don’t show the submissions to anyone.

If you inadvertently discover the identity of the author/s for a submission you have been allocated, please advise the conference Organising Committee immediately (ascilite2017@usq.edu.au) so that another reviewer can be identified.

Conflict of interest

The Organising Committee has worked to avoid conflict of interests when allocating papers, however, from time to time, submissions may be allocated to a reviewer who has a conflict.

Conflicts of interest occur when you are allocated to a submission from an author who

• belongs to the same institution as you
• has co-authored with you in the past five years
• holds or has applied for a grant with you
• currently collaborates with you
• has a business partnership with you
• is a relative or a personal friend.

If you believe you know the author/s of a submission you are allocated or you have some other conflict of interest, please advise the conference Organising Committee immediately (ascilite2017@usq.edu.au) and reject the review in EasyChair so that another reviewer can be identified.

Overview of Review Process

The ASCILITE 2017 review process is a two step process. Please ensure you complete both steps on or before the dates indicated.

Step 1: Accept the invitation to review by Monday 26 June

Please log in to EasyChair as soon as possible after your reviews are allocated, but no later than Monday 26 June.

You should check submissions to make sure that:

• you do not know who the author is (while papers have been checked to ensure they do not contain identifying information, it still may be possible for you to identify the author in some instances, for example, where you are familiar with a project)
• you do not have a conflict of interest.

If you have a conflict of interest, or you know who has written the submission, you should reject the submission as soon as possible so that we can re-allocate it.

If you do not know who the author is and you do not have a conflict of interest, please accept the submission.

Remember, you must do this by 26 June 2017 to ensure the review process runs smoothly.

Step 2: Complete your reviews by Monday 24 July

Complete the reviews for your assigned submissions by assessing them against the criteria for evaluation outlined below.

Criteria for Evaluation

All submissions will be reviewed against the following criteria.

A note on types of submissions

Please check the table at the top of every submission for the submission type and ensure you keep this in mind as you complete the review. Remember, poster and short paper submissions are shorter than a full paper and will not provide the same depth of discussion.

Alignment to the conference theme

When evaluating against this criterion, please consider the extent to which the submission fits with the conference theme: Me. Us. IT. The theme of the conference reflects our focus on exploring the interrelationships between the individual, community and technology in tertiary education contexts. The theme is intended to support exploration of a wide range of topics and to encourage authors to focus on the intersection between people, technology and pedagogy. Further details on the theme can be found on the Call for Participation page.

Conceptual quality

When evaluating against this criterion, please consider the following questions to help you make an assessment of the submission:

• Does the submission present a clear, precise and complete review of relevant literature? (Please keep in mind that shorter submissions, including short papers, will have limited space to provide a review.)
• Are the methods used to collect and analyse data appropriate to the research problem being explored, without major flaws, and clearly described?
• Does the submission make a clear link between theory and practice?

Originality and innovation of the work/proposal

When evaluating against this criterion, please consider the following questions to help you make an assessment of the submission:

• Are the ideas presented in the submission actually new; or, are they applied in a new context or in a novel way?
• Does the submission provide new insights and evidence to inform and/or change practice?
• Does the submission offer sufficient innovation and contribution to warrant program space?

Clarity, coherence and organisation of writing

When evaluating against this criterion, please consider the following questions to help you make an assessment of the submission:

• Are relevant terms and concepts explained?
• Does the submission make a clear and coherent argument?
• Does the submission use accessible and comprehensible language?
• Has the content of the submission been presented in a manner that is easy for the reader to follow?

The value/interest of the topic for a diverse range of delegates

When evaluating this criterion, please consider the following questions to help you make an assessment of the submission:

• Would the submission be of interest to a sufficient number of delegates attending the ASCILITE conference?
• Would the submission encourage new and different delegates to attend the ASCILITE conference?
• Does the submission reflect the overall quality an audience would expect when attending an ASCILITE conference?

Appropriateness of the session type/format for the topic

Is the session type appropriate for the nature and content of the submission? ASCILITE 2017 is not just about papers. It’s about opportunities for engagement. This means we are looking for a diverse range of session types. Authors were invited to select the format that would work best for their topic.

Full details on the sessions types available can be found on the Call for Participation page.

Please provide an assessment of whether the session type/format is suitable for the nature and content of the submission. If it is not, please suggest an alternative submission type that would better suit the work.

Writing the Review

What to include in your review

• Begin your review with a short summary of the submission’s content, to assist the Organising Committee with understanding the nature of the submission.
• Highlight the strong points of the submission.
• Provide details of specific areas that require strengthening, along with suggestions for how to improve these areas. The more detail you can provide, the more useful the review will be to help the author improve their submission.
• Be specific. Making vague criticisms won’t help the authors to improve their work.
• Include detailed, polite and constructive comments.

Things to keep in mind

• It is important that you take the time to thoroughly read the submission.
• Submissions are to be judged on how well they stimulate thinking and discussion.
• Authors will use different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches in their submissions. Please try to be open minded.
• Please be respectful of the author/s, regardless of your assessment of the submission.
• Remember, this is an opportunity to help the author/s to further develop and improve their work, even if your overall recommendation is to reject the submission.
• Consider numbering your comments to help authors when it comes time to respond to your feedback.

How to provide your feedback

Reviewers are encouraged to provide their comments within the EasyChair online evaluation form, however we realise there may be times when it would be more effective to provide comments in other ways (e.g. marking up a copy of the submission). Please contact the Organising Committee (ascilite2017@usq.edu.au) if you have any questions about how best to communicate your review. Please keep in mind that if you do mark up a submission, you will need to remove all identifying information from the document before uploading it to EasyChair.

Looking for further guidance?

• We’ve published a blog post on what to look for in a submission.
• This article about mistakes reviewers make covers some useful points to keep in mind as you complete your review.
• Contact the Organising Committee (ascilite2017@usq.edu.au) if you have any questions about the review process.

Questions

If you have any questions, please email the Organising Committee at ascilite2017@usq.edu.au.