ASCILITE 2022 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.

 

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 from Saturday 2 July to Monday 18 July 2022
• Accept or reject your reviews by: Monday 25 July 2022
• Complete and submit your reviews by: Monday 22 August 2022

If you are unable to meet the review deadlines for any reason, please advise the conference Organising Committee (ascilite2022@sydney.edu.au) so that another reviewer can be identified.

Review system

We will be using the conference management tool Open Journal Systems (OJS) to undertake the peer reviews. Once logged into OJS, you will see the list of submissions to which you have been assigned.

We have created OJS Instructions for Reviewers to help you use 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 ascilite2022@sydney.edu.au. The Organising Committee can help you with a range of issues, including:

• Problems with OJS
• 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.

Reviewer training

This year, we are offering a training session to support reviewers who might be new to reviewing. As a reviewer you will receive an invitation to join the online session which will take place on 25 July 2022.

Reviewer 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 (ascilite2022@sydney.edu.au) so that another reviewer can be identified.

Conflicts 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 the submission is from an author who:

• belongs to the same department 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 (ascilite2022@sydney.edu.au) and reject the review in OJS so that another reviewer can be identified.

 

Overview of Review Process

The ASCILITE 2022 review process is a two-step process. Please ensure you complete both steps by the dates indicated.

Step 1: Accept the invitation to review by Monday 25 July 2022

Please log in to OJS as soon as possible after your reviews are allocated, but no later than 25 July 2022. Only required at this stage is an indication of whether you want to accept or reject the review.

You should check submissions to make sure that:

• you do not know who the author(s) is/are (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 any other 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 25 July 2022 to ensure the review process runs smoothly.

Step 2: Complete your reviews by Monday 22 August

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

 

Criteria for Evaluation

Full and concise paper submissions will be reviewed against the following criteria. Note that the criteria vary slightly for poster, workshop, extended abstract and panel sessions. You will find the specific criteria for each submission type in the OJS system and complete your review accordingly.

A note on types of submissions

Submission documents follow a set template based on submission type. The submission type will be evident as you review it but if you are not sure please refer to the templates provided or refer to the submission type selected by the author in OJS. Ensure you keep the submission type 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.

Relevance to conference theme, sub-themes and audience

When evaluating against this criterion, please consider the extent to which the submission fits with the main conference theme: Reconnecting Relationships through Technology. The theme of the conference reflects our focus on exploring how to reconnect students with educators, students with each other, students with their purpose, people with educational technologies, and the community with their future campus. The theme is intended to support exploration of a wide range of topics and to encourage authors to focus on the theme of reconnection. Please also consider the extent to which the submission fits with the conference sub-themes and intended audience. Further details on the theme can be found on the Call for Participation Page.

The paper is original, and clearly identifies broad contributions to the field

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 new, applied in a new context or in a novel way?
• Does the submission provide new insights and evidence to inform and/or change practice and contribute to the field?

Abstract

When evaluating against this criterion, please consider the extent to which the abstract clearly reflects the most salient aspects of the content. The abstract should not exceed the word count specified in the submission templates for the submission type.

Clearly situated in current literature and/or policy

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.)
• Alternatively, does the submission present a clear and precise explanation of how it is situated in relation to current policy?

Well-articulated conceptual or theoretical framework and related research questions that address a novel issue(s)

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

• Does the submission include a clear and appropriate conceptual or theoretical framework that is linked to key research questions?
• Does the submission make a clear link between theory and practice?

Adopts an appropriate research methodology for the purpose of the paper and includes a statement about ethics

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

• Are the methods used to collect and analyse data appropriate to the research problem being explored, without major flaws, and clearly described?
• Has a statement about ethics been included?

Insightful critical analysis and interpretation that leads to clear, logical findings, conclusions, and implications for theory and/or policy and/or practice

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

• Is there sufficient depth in the critical analysis and interpretation presented?
• Is there a strong alignment between the analysis presented and the overall findings, conclusions and implications?

Ease of reading, grammar, and spelling

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?
• Has the submission been adequately proofread for spelling and grammar?

Adherence to the formatting requirements

When evaluating against this criterion, please refer to the formatting requirements for the relevant session type.

APA-compliant in-text citations and reference

When evaluating against this criterion, please ensure that the author has used APA 7^th edition style for references specified in the formatting requirements. This includes presenting references in alphabetical order by first author, using Times New Roman 10 point, left aligned, hanging indent 0.5cm, with no blank lines.

Appropriateness of the session type/format for the topic

Is the session type appropriate for the nature and content of the submission? ASCILITE 2022 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 session 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 required to provide their comments within the OJS online evaluation form. While you are not required to add comments directly into the submission document, this option is available if you feel it is necessary. If you have chosen to track changes, you will be asked to upload the file (see Step 3 in OJS).

Please note that you will be asked to provide an overall evaluation and a recommendation. For the ‘Overall Evaluation’ you will be asked to select ‘Accept’, ‘Reject’ or ‘Marginal’. This is followed by a recommendation to the editors, that will allow you to express a more nuanced decision from a drop-down list. For example, you may wish to indicate that a ‘Marginal’ submission requires a ‘Resubmit for Review’.

Please contact the Organising Committee (ascilite2022@sydney.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 OJS.

 

Looking for further guidance?

This article about mistakes reviewers make covers some useful points to keep in mind as you complete your review.

Contact the Organising Committee (ascilite2022@sydney.edu.au) if you have any questions about the review process.