Bulletin of Applied Computing and Information Technology

Reviewer Guidelines

Papers are reviewed to ensure that they meet the criteria for publication in BACIT, meaning that they are appropriate, relevant and well researched and written. The review process is designed to give potential authors with critical feedback on their paper so that this or future submissions can be improved and made ready for publication.

Because a key tenet of BACIT is to provide an opportunity for new and emerging researchers to publish, the reviewer can consider their role to be one of offering peer support and even assistance in the development of both the paper and the writing career of the author(s).

Assessing a paper for publication

BACIT aims to publish academic papers and views,industry perspectives and other essays that contain new ideas - which the target audience of the Bulletin might find useful, interesting and beneficial. It is important to remember that BACIT is aimed at IT/IS academics, students and practitioners and that articles must reflect this audience.

• Relevance: For an article to be relevant it must be related to computing and information and communications technology (ICT); the article should preferably relate to the application of computing and ICT rather than being purely academic and theoretical.
• 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: 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. You should make sure 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. Referencing should follwo an accepted style, preferably APA Version 5. Whilst it is not critical to be overly pedantic, refer to www.apastyle.org for guidance.
• Length: Papers for BACIT are normally between 3,000 and 5,000 words. However it is also important to consider whether the ideas presented are appropriate for the length.
• Potential Value: The usefulness to BACIT readers is the single most important issue for the reviewer to consider. Articles should be timely, relevant, clearly written in good English, factually correctt.

Please do not score or weight each of the above (or other) criteria, rather consider the paper as a whole.

Providing feedback to authors

Authors rely on your feedback to improve their papers. Please provide written suggestions for improvement and address global issues, such as paper organisation or suggested references that the authors might have overlooked. Please try and provide a few paragraphs of comments for each paper. Part of the review process is to identify weaknesses that the author(s) can address prior to publication.

You can (and should) provide overall comments but also address specific issues in the paper. In the latter case, please try and clearly identify the section of the paper that you are referring to. Where you are critical of something in the paper, try and say why in a neutral way and attempt where possible to provide suggestions as to how this can be addressed. You might also want to provide feedback that challenges the author to consider alternative perspectives.

Please do not correct spelling or grammatical errors, however do note that this needs attention in the final submission. A serious number of grammatical or spelling errors might render a paper unacceptable. For papers with particularly bad writing, you might suggest that they consider using an external editor.

Remember that one of the aims of BACIT is to provide a publication channel for new and emerging researchers. Please be supportive and do take the experience of the author(s) into account. Allowances can be made for a weaker paper if the author is new, allowing the reviewer to recommend acceptance where they would have rejected a more experienced author's work. In other words, it is anticipated that you will be more lenient of new writers, and it is acceptable to apply a higher standard to experienced authors. Clearly , it is important to ensure that BACIT is accessible to new writers but it is also important to maintain the academic credibility of the material it publishes.

Working with the editor

When you accept a paper for review, you will normally be asked to commit to an agreed deadline. This deadline is likely to be based around a publication deadline so, please accept a paper for review only if you feel that you can meet the deadline. If later you discover that you are unable to meet the deadline, please notify the editor as soon as possible.

If upon the receipt of a paper you decide that it is not an area that you have sufficient knowledge or expertise in and yuo do not feel able to review the paper accurately, please notify the editor.

BACIT is editorially reviewed. When new submissions are considered, authors' details will not be known to the reviewer(s). However author details might not be hidden from a reviewr if a paper presented at a conference is reviewed (for example, the annual NACCQ conference). If you feel that you have a conflict of interest with the author(s) of a particular paper, return it to the editor without reviewing. The reviewers' identities will not be made known to the author(s) of a particular paper but all reviewers' names will be published within the relevant BACIT issue.

You will be asked to respond to the editor by email. The editors are looking for an objective, qualitative assessment of papers, so rather than using a formal evaluation form, it would be appreciated if reviewers could provide the feedback described below.

Review process

Papers will normally be reviewed by two reviewers. They will be members of the extended editorial panel of BACIT or invited subject matter experts. Just as BACIT is intended as a vehicle for new writers, it is also hoped to encourage new and relatively inexperienced reviewers to become involved. To achieve this, new reviewers will be "paired" with a more experienced reviewer, who will support and guide them throughout the review process.

Updated: November 2004 | If you have any questions, please contact the editors.