[Commons-research] Reviews

melanie dulong de rosnay mdulong at cyber.law.harvard.edu
Sun Feb 24 14:18:59 EST 2008


Dear all,

Le 24 févr. 08 à 13:35, Anas TAWILEH a écrit :

> Dear all,
>
>
>
> I would vote for the extended abstracts, as this usually leaves  
> some room for the development of the research, and would invite  
> more researchers to submit their work.
>
I agree
>
>
> As for the discussion around the open vs. closed review process, I  
> would like to see an open review, but not sure what is a possible  
> mechanism that would facilitate this without the drawbacks  
> mentioned by Giorgos.
>
> Could we, for example, have an open voting process, where the  
> number of votes given to each paper is made available online, while  
> reviews and critics are sent to each author individually?
>
Anas, do you mean having both process in parallel:
- a closed review by the programme committee,
- and an open voting process on icommons website, which may designate  
the 1, 2 or 3 favorite abstracts by the public community?

It could be interesting to compare both results.

Best,
Melanie
>
>
> What do you think?
>
> Anas
>
>
>
> From: commons-research-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:commons- 
> research-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Giorgos Cheliotis
> Sent: 24 February 2008 16:58
> To: commons-research at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [Commons-research] Reviews
>
>
>
> Hi to all again,
>
>
>
> some of us (mostly Philipp and myself) have been discussing how to  
> best organize the reviews for the academic program of the workshop  
> being planned for the iSummit.
>
>
>
> Fist of all, what I have proposed on the draft CFP is to ask for  
> the submission of only extended abstracts, not full papers.  
> Naturally it's better to have full papers than just abstracts, but  
> requesting for abstracts only would help focus the workshop on the  
> presentation and critique of work in progress and would leave the  
> presenters more room with respect to how they wish to present their  
> work.
>
>
>
> If we stick with the above plan, then it follows that reviews will  
> not be as thorough as they would be when reviewing full papers.  
> Reviews would have to be based on whether the topic and method of  
> investigation are original and relevant, and whether the work looks  
> promising sand is likely to instigate fruitful discussions at the  
> summit. These are to some extent subjective criteria (let's not  
> forget that all academic reviews are relatively subjective), but I  
> feel that this is not a bad thing. We will need to use some  
> judgment in order to ensure a good mix of presentations.
>
>
>
> Is everyone on this list fine with the above, or do you feel that  
> we should request for full papers (even if these are "working"  
> papers)?
>
>
>
> Also, the review process I have suggested would be closed, like all  
> academic reviews that I am aware of. The purpose of keeping reviews  
> closed is to allow reviewers total freedom to express their views,  
> without the risk of damaging the author's public reputation in case  
> these reviews are negative. In the case of reviewing abstracts,  
> reviews will likely be quite short anyhow and they will be  
> communicated to each respective author individually, but they could  
> still range from very positive to very negative.
>
>
>
> Philipp has been suggesting an open review process. This can be  
> understood in two ways:
>
>
>
> (a) The general public can vote for favorite abstracts. This is  
> reminiscent of reality tv shows and might be an interesting  
> experiment, but I understand that this is not what Philipp has in  
> mind).
>
>
>
> (b) The reviews are made by the program committee, but are  
> published online along with the abstracts. This might be doable,  
> but I wonder what would be the benefit of such an approach. I see  
> the potential danger of either reviewers holding back on their  
> comments because they would not want to embarrass anyone, or of  
> authors being publicly humiliated by the publication of potentially  
> very negative reviews.
>
>
>
> I would now join Philipp in inviting others to join in and  
> participate in the discussion.
>
>
>
> Giorgos
>
>
>
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