EdMedia + Innovate Learning Online Reviewer Guidelines

Conference Reviewer Guidelines & Instructions

E-Learn conference submissions are subject to a double-blind peer review process by a minimum of three reviewers. Reviewers are members of the conference’s international Program Committee of experts in fields specifically matching the conference topics.

Program Committee members provide the vital link with the profession that makes the conference a success. The reviews help the Executive Committee select which papers to accept and reject. Additionally, your reviews help the authors of papers make their papers and presentations stronger. Finally, your suggestions help the Program Chairs select the outstanding papers.

The Reviewing Process

E-Learn receives a large number of papers, typically 500 full paper submissions and 500 short paper submissions.

When you volunteer to review for E-Learn, you select areas of specialization. Whenever possible, you will be assigned papers within that area of specialization. These reviews are assigned a week or so after the conference deadline. Each paper is assigned to a minimum of three reviewers. Each reviewer is assigned approximately ten papers.

You will have a month to turn in your reviews. Please turn in all of your reviews by the deadline! You must complete your reviews using the EDIL Review System.

The Executive Committee meets approximately one week after the reviewing deadline to make final decisions.

At the Executive Committee meeting, the members scan the ratings and pick an appropriate cut-off value for average rating (usually between 3.5 and 4.0). Most papers above that value are accepted; most papers below that value are rejected. Papers near that value may be re-reviewed. The Executive Committee members also identify papers with inconsistent reviews for re-review.

Over the next week or so, the Executive Committee members re-review appropriate papers to make final decisions.

Once the final decisions have been made, AACE notifies the authors, who also receive copies of your reviews. AACE also notifies the Program Committee members that decisions have been made so that you may check the final disposition of papers using the AACE Online Reviewing System.

Authors whose papers are rejected have the opportunity to submit short papers for the second call for papers. In some cases, you may find it appropriate to recommend to authors that they consider revising their full or short papers and resubmit short versions for the second call.

Reviewing Criteria

To put concisely: We want you to help us select papers that provide new ideas that others can both understand and benefit from. To that effect, we ask you to review papers on six (6) basic criteria.

To help the authors improve their proposal it is essential that every review includes some written comments too. Please give a written feedback to the authors (with a minimum of ten sentences).

For quality assurance, it is possible that the EC chair will contact you to elaborate on your review.

• Relevance to conference– E-Learn’s sole focus is the integration of instructional technologies into teacher education programs. E-Learn promotes the development and dissemination of theoretical knowledge, conceptual research, and professional practice knowledge. While there are many related issues, papers on those issues should really only be included if they have some relevance to educational technology. Please review the conference Scope & Topics.
• Originality– Too often people simply redo work that has been done elsewhere, at times because they are not aware of previous work. We place an emphasis on new work (although a good survey paper is certainly acceptable).
• Clarity/Quality of English– Even the best ideas provide little benefit if no one can understand them because of the way in which they are presented. We look for papers that are well organized and well written.
• References– Papers show their value and their originality by grounding themselves in the literature. Ensure that the paper includes references appropriate for the kind of work. Major theoretical studies should have larger reference lists. Small case studies might only need references to their theoretical underpinnings and one or two related studies.
• Length of Paper– Conference papers have particular limits and benefits. You should consider whether the ideas are appropriate for the length.
• Potential Value– We hope that others will benefit from the ideas they hear about or read about at E-Learn. Hence, we make that benefit one of the key evaluation criteria.