Associate Editor Guidelines

Important Dates for Associate Editors

  • At the latest by December 01, 2023: Receive review assignments from track chairs (TCs).
  • At the latest by December 06, 2023: Recruit three reviewers per paper and oversee the review process. Ensure that all reviewers have accepted their review assignments.
  • At the latest by January 15, 2024: Receive reviews from three reviewers.
  • At the latest by February 01, 2024: Write meta-reviews and send recommendations to TCs.

Associate Editor’s Responsibilities for Paper Reviews

The Track Chairs (TCs) will assign each paper to an associate editor (AE).

For each paper, the AE recruits three reviewers. Please inform the TCs if you are not able to recruit three reviewers. TCs usually have a rich network and can help you recruit extra reviewers.

In terms of the review team for each paper, at least one out of the three reviewers must have a PhD. In cases where two highly competent reviewers provide comments on a paper, this can be sufficient if complemented by a comprehensive AE Report—especially when the two reviewers are not in agreement.

As reviewers may decline to review or be late with their paper reviews (e.g., because of conflict-of-interest concerns), it is recommended to have backup reviewers in mind for such cases.

Before sending out a paper for review, AEs should check whether a paper is a desk-reject candidate, either for academic reasons or because of formatting issues. If you would like to desk-reject a paper, please contact the TCs who will ask you to provide a justification for your recommendation (for internal assessment) and a decision letter outlining the desk-reject decision to the authors.

The desk-reject recommendation should not be made later than December 08, 2023. As an AE, you should monitor the quality of reviews. We have told reviewers that they are expected to provide reviews of at least 500 words. You may return the review to the reviewer if you think it can be improved to be more helpful to you and/or the authors.

Ultimately, the AEs are responsible for the quality of the overall review package that the authors receive. This might involve writing a more thorough and comprehensive report/meta-review on the paper if the reviewers simply recommended rejecting the paper without much helpful explanation.

Three reviews are expected for each paper; the hard deadline for reviewers is January 15, 2024. Once all reviews are submitted, you can provide your assessment of the paper.

The standard AE meta-review is expected to be at least 200 words long. In your meta-review, you should address any inconsistencies between reviews and propose a recommendation on the paper for the TCs to act on.

As noted above, the deadline for the reviewers is January 15, 2024, and your meta-review along with your recommendation to the TCs is due by February 01, 2024.

The final decision on papers will be made by the Program Chairs in consultation with the TCs. Thus, you should be making recommendations rather than decisions. As such, please do not write in the AE report a reject or accept decision. You will be asked to provide an “overall rating of the submission.”

AEs should also make recommendations to the TCs for the different paper award categories.

AE Guidelines on PCS Use

If you have any questions or issues with the system, please contact the TCs first (before escalating the issue). The TCs tend to have rich experience with the system.

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”.

AE’s Review Page

  1. Go to Your Review Homepage.
  2. Click “Review (as a committee member)”.
  3. The full list of submissions (papers) that you need to coordinate as an AE will show.

Invite/Assign a Reviewer to a Submission

Click on the title of the submission you would like to assign reviewers to. Once you click on the submission title, PCS will show you the submission page of this paper.

To assign a reviewer, you can then search for existing reviewers by using their:

  • Name, or
  • Surname, or
  • Email address

Once you have found the person you would like to assign as reviewer for the paper, click “Continue”. The page will then be updated.

After clicking on “Invite”, the “invite a reviewer” email template will pop up.

This template is pre-defined by the PCS. You need to specify the “Track name” and “Paper type” (complete research paper or short paper). This information is important for reviewers to write a proper review.

After inputting the required text, you can click:

  • “Send email” (then a reviewer will get a notification) or
  • “Do not send email” (then a reviewer will NOT get a notification)

Once the reviewer has been assigned, the Paper Submission page will update accordingly.

If the reviewer you want to add is not registered in the system, you can add this reviewer by entering her/his email address in the “Assign Reviewer” text box.

Once you click “continue”, a form will pop up and will request you to enter data about the person you are trying to add. Make sure you complete all required fields.

After clicking on “Create”, PCS will take you to the “Assign a reviewer” email template.