Science and the Web 2.0

There are still some open spots for junior reviewers at the IJTEL Young Researcher Special Issue on “State-of-the-Art in Technology Enhanced Learning”. This is a good opportunity to get to know the work of a referee. Junior reviewers will be asked to review 1-2 papers; furthermore, we require junior reviewers to participate in a workshop on article reviewing. If you want to become a reviewer, please apply here. The full CfR can be found below.

International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning  (IJTEL)

Call for Papers

Young Researcher Special Issue on: “State-of-the-Art in TEL”

Guest Editors:
Peter Kraker, Graz University of Technology, Austria
Moshe Leiba, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Martina Rau, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Derick Leony and Israel Gutiérrez Rojas, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Dirk Börner, Open Universiteit in the Netherlands, The Netherlands
Antigoni Parmaxi, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus
Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn, Germany

Introduction

The International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL) invites paper submissions for a special issue targeting young researchers in the community of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). This call for papers encourages a review of state-of-the-art of TEL topics, topped with a description of the current and future work carried out by the authors doing research on these topics.

This special issue is directed to all young researchers such as PhD students, post-graduate students, and post-docs working in topics related to TEL both in academia and industry, and from different disciplines of the community (technologists, educationists, psychologists, etc.).

The purpose of this special issue is manifold: (a) to provide a better overview on TEL research lines; (b) to investigate and expand current TEL research themes; (c) to promote international and multidisciplinary collaboration and exchange of ideas among young researchers; (d) to encourage young researchers to formalise their research questions, topics, and methodologies.

The International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL) recognizes the value and importance of the reviewing process in the overall publication process both in shaping the individual manuscript and in highlighting the reliability and reputation of a journal. Within this framework, the identification and selection of reviewers who have expertise and interest in the topics appropriate to each manuscript are essential elements in ensuring a productive review process.

Reviewer profiles

We are inviting:

• Junior reviewers (post-graduate students, PhD students, recent post-docs) working in research related to TEL in both academia and industry, who would like to get experience in being a reviewer and participate in a workshop on article reviewing;

• Experienced reviewers working in research related to TEL who would like to participate in the reviewing process for the special issue.

Workshop for Junior Reviewers

We will hold a workshop on initiation to article reviewing focusing on the subject of the special issue. The workshop will be online and it will take place on late February. The participation of junior reviewers is mandatory since it is the core of their mentoring process. Experienced reviewers are welcome to join in order to provide advice from their experience.

Review process

Contributions to the Young Researcher Special Issue of the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL) will undergo a double blind review process. All submissions will be reviewed by two or three reviewers, including at least one experienced reviewer. Junior reviewers must have participated in the workshop in order to get assigned articles to review.

How to apply

Please use this form to apply as a reviewer: http://bit.ly/zkcTlG

Important dates

Application deadline: 10/02/2012
Review of full papers: 01/04/2012
Publication of the special issue: second half of 2012

In the Research 2.0 workshop at EC-TEL, we had a lengthy discussion about new forms of academic peer review. Among other issues, blinding was one of the topics that came up. Some dismissed blinding in favour of a completely open process, but I am not so sure about that.

I agree that blinding does a bad job of protecting the author(s), especially in close-knit communities. References to earlier work, projects, or simply the focus point of the paper often give away the submittee(s). In combination with a closed process (i.e. the reviews do not get published with the paper), blinding leverages biased and ill-founded reviews. This is bad news in a world where it often comes down to a single review whether your paper or project gets accepted.
Still, blinding satisfies a very important social function: it protects the reviewers and allows to them be honest, without fearing repercussions. After all, the author of the paper you just reviewed could well be the reviewer of your next project proposal. Therefore, it plays an important role in academic quality control.
Nevertheless, we all get bad reviews from time to time; reviews which make it apparent that the reviewer just had a bad day, and that it was not the quality of our submission that caused a reject. The question is – how can we improve this situation and how can the capabilites of the web help us in this endeavour?

A middle way

You might have noticed the Call for Papers on the IJTEL Young Researcher Special Issue, where we are seeking to attract visionary articles of PhD students in the field of Technology Enhanced Learning. When we put together the CfP, we did not only want to broaden the scope of articles we would allow for submission. We also wanted to innovate on the reviewing process. One thing that we agreed upon very early was to have teams of junior and experienced reviewers, whereby the experienced reviewers will act as mentors for their younger colleagues.
Then I brought some new forms of peer review into the discussion. A completely open, unblinded peer review was off the table pretty fast: as a young researcher, you do not want your vision being crushed in public, possibly by an authority in the field. Still, there was a common understanding that we were not completely satisified with going down the road of a completely closed and blinded review. Therefore, after some heated discussions, we settled for a middle-way: we will have the authors submit abstracts first for a closed and double-blinded peer review. Then will be put both abstracts and reviews (still blinded) on TEL Europe and open them for comments by the community. This way we want to make the process more transparent and increase the quality of reviews, while at the same time protecting authors and reviewers.

Thomas posted links some links on TEL Europe to the Open Peer Review process in the Semantic Web Journal. They took a similar approach, although they made blinding for reviewers optional and completely dismissed it for authors.

What do you think? Is it enough to make corrections to the traditional peer reviewing process, or do we need a completely new approach in the light of the capabilites of the web?