Course Name: pReview – Course in Reviewing Research Papers

Credits: One course point.

Examiner: the pReview responsible (currently Rikard Land).

Description: The purpose of the course is to give insight and experience in reviewing research papers. This is achieved by both submitting a paper for review and take part of these reviews, and by reviewing other papers.

To participate in the course, you are required to join the pReview group at the department (which exists independently of this course). You join the pReview group by sending an e-mail to
preview@ide.mdh.se and you will be added to the pReview list. You will also receive an acknowledgement of your participation. As a pReview member, you may submit articles (to that mailing address) at any time. The articles will be reviewed by three reviewers. You will also, from time to time, be asked to review articles written by other pReview members. The review should as a rule of thumb be completed within five working days, but the actual desired deadline should be specified by the person submitting an article. When submitting to pReview, you should also provide a link to the conference the paper will be submitted to. If you for some reason cannot review a paper when asked, you may just return the request and we will find another reviewer. The original idea is that papers submitted to pReview are in an almost-finished state, as the final step taken just before making the real submission, but it is allowed to try slightly other uses of the system, such as testing a paper not yet scheduled for any particular conference at all, or improving a rejected paper or an already-accepted paper.

As part of the course (but not an ordinary part of the pReview system) you are required to use
this template for your written review – in addition, you may have made notes on a printed version of the paper which you should also give to the author. You are also required to arrange and participate in a review meeting for the paper you have submitted or reviewed. The meeting is to be moderated by a senior researcher (the course examiner or some other senior researcher who reports this to the examiner). Note that you are responsible to arrange this meeting. Since not everyone in pReview are taking the course, it may happen that not everyone involved in one paper review has time to participate in such a meeting – or that you are unable to find a time that suits everyone. The minimum requirement is that at least the author and one reviewer meet, and that there is one senior researcher present, who could be either of these two (author, reviewer), or an external moderator.

You have earned your course point when you have processed four papers according to these instructions, at least one of which you are author and at least one review. Notify the examiner (e.g. via email to
preview@ide.mdh.se), who will give you your course point.

You may do this twice (i.e. processed eight papers in total) to earn in total two points.

Note that it is ultimately your main supervisor who approves this point as part of your PhD studies.

Please provide feedback to these instructions and the template.

2007-04-03 (slight update 2008-03-11)