Reviewers Guide

Reviewer Guidelines

Thank you for agreeing to be a reviewer for ECIS 2024. In this document, we outline the community expectations around being a reviewer. One of the most important points concerns the deadlines for the review process (see below).

Important Dates for Reviewers

  • At the latest by December 06, 2023: Receive Assignment of reviews from AEs
  • At the latest by January 15, 2024: Review deadline (strict deadline)

Who Can Serve as a Reviewer?

You have been invited to be a reviewer because you are a member of the academic information systems community. Normally, you have a Ph.D. in Information Systems or a related field of relevance for the paper(s) you are reviewing.

Occasionally, you may be a ‘researcher-in-training’ and have not yet been awarded your Ph.D. In such cases, you would typically be in the last year of your Ph.D. program and have substantial expertise in the domain of the paper, so that you are able to provide detailed feedback to the authors on their research.

If you have any questions about your suitability as a reviewer, please reach out to the Associate Editor (AE), or Track Chairs (TC), who invited you.

How to Write a Review?

Reviewing for ECIS is a serious matter. Reviews determine whether a research paper should be published, which in the long term has an impact on authors’ professional advancement in the field.

Conflict of interest

You should not review a paper if you have any conflict of interest with this paper (and/or its authors). Please check the papers that have been assigned to you within 2 days of the assignment and let the AE know if you have a potential conflict of interest with the paper(s) assigned to you.

While the review process is double-blind, and papers will not be assigned to reviewers from the same institution, you may recognize the work of a close colleague or a prior collaborator (someone you have worked with in the last 5 years). Again, you should bring the discovery of any potential conflict of interest to the attention of the AE who assigned the paper to you. The AE will then determine how best to proceed.

Confidentiality

It is expected that all participants involved in the review process support the confidentiality of the submitted papers and their authors, the reviewers’ identities, and the entire review process. This also means that you cannot use any insights from the paper(s) you have reviewed until the (accepted) paper has been presented/published in the proceedings.

Compliance with formatting requirements

Although author details should not appear in the paper, occasionally this does happen. In such cases, let your AE know and they will determine how to proceed.

Review accountability

To ensure the integrity of the review process, please do not ‘reallocate’ the paper to a colleague. Instead, any such requests should be handled through the AE for the paper. They will be able to add the new person to the paper through the PCS system. This is also the process to be followed if you feel someone else would be a more appropriate reviewer for a paper you have been asked to review.

Timely reviewing

Please submit your reviews on time. The conference organization process is operating on a very tight schedule, and we require (all of) your review(s) by January 15, 2024, the latest. Thank you in advance for submitting your review(s) by this date.

Review content

Each review should start with a short summary of the paper. Subsequently, the review should present the paper’s strengths (i.e., the positive aspects). However, the review should also provide constructive feedback that aids in improving the paper. The review should explain the identified issues of the paper (i.e., what the issues are and WHY they are an issue) and should make clear and constructive recommendations for improvement.

Please remember: reviewers make recommendations (e.g., “I recommend that this paper is accepted for the conference”) rather than the final decision, which is made by the program chairs in consultation with the track chairs.

When making your recommendation, please bear in mind the timelines involved: authors will receive notice of (conditional) acceptance of their papers by February 28, 2024, and will need to submit their final papers by March 31, 2024. Therefore, papers that need more substantial changes should not be recommended for acceptance.

Short paper (SP) papers may not have data to report on at the point of submission (as data collection is still in progress). As the research is in an earlier stage, you may wish to provide more developmental and constructive comments to SP papers.

Review purpose

Remember, the review you write serves two purposes. First, it will help AEs and Track Chairs make decisions on which papers to include in the conference program; and second, it will provide feedback to the authors about what is good about the paper and areas where it might be improved.

As a consequence, we would expect reviews to be at least 500 words in length and written constructively. (If in doubt, think about how you would feel if you received your review). The review(s) you write will be read by the AEs, track chairs, and conference chairs; consequently, a hastily written review will send signals to the community you are a part of.

Review style & tone

Please be developmental, constructive, and positive in your review(s). Keep in mind that we are reviewing papers, not authors, which you might want to reflect in the language you use (rather than “the authors do/are…”, why not say “the paper does/is…”). Also, remember that many Ph.D. candidates and other early-career scholars submit to ECIS. For some of them, your review may be the first feedback they receive on their work.

Originality and plagiarism

All papers submitted to ECIS need to contain original work and must not be published in or submitted to other conferences, workshops, books, or journals. Thus, neither plagiarism nor self-plagiarism is acceptable. All papers need to provide a substantial, novel contribution to the existing body of knowledge. Any signs of (self-)plagiarism need to be reported to the AEs who in turn should inform both the Track Chairs and the Program Chairs. Reports of potential (self-)plagiarism will be investigated.

Use of Generative AI

While reviewers may use Generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT) for certain aspects of their work, for example, as a text editor, proofreader, search engine, or idea generator, the review must represent the reviewers’ critical and highly subjective appraisal of an article. Reviewers need to disclose the use of Generative AI for any aspect of the work. In any case, given the confidential and proprietary nature of the submissions, reviewers should not use as input entire papers or large sections thereof when prompting such tools.

Reviewer Guidelines on PCS Use

If you have any questions or issues with the system, please reach out to the AE, or the Track Chairs, for help.

Log in at PCS with your personal credentials.

  • After the first login, you need to actively choose “Society-[AIS]”, “Conference/Journal-[ECIS 2024]” and “Track-[ECIS 2024 Papers]“, then click [Go] to continue to your “Reviewer page”.
  • If you forgot your password, click “Reset my password”.
  • If you do not have an account, click “Create an account”.

Reviewer’s Review Page

  1. Select “Reviews” from the top page menu.
  2. Go to Your Review Homepage.
  3. Click on the title of the submission you have been assigned to review. Once you click on the submission title, PCS will show you the paper submission page. Follow the PCS pre-defined Reviewer’s Review Form to complete your review.
  4. If needed, declare a conflict of interest for a paper that was assigned to you.