Reviewer Guidelines
Articles are reviewed
to ensure that they meet the criteria for publication in BACIT/C-JACIT,
meaning that they are appropriate, relevant and well researched and written. The review process is designed to give potential authors critical feedback on their
submission so that this or future ones can be improved and made ready
for publication.
As well as providing a publication for existing
researchers, a key tenet
of BACIT/C-JACIT 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 article
and the writing career of the author(s).
Assessing an article for publication
BACIT/C-JACIT aims to publish
academic articles, reports and views, industry perspectives and other work that contains new
ideas - which the target audience of the Bulletin/Journal might find useful, interesting
and beneficial. It is important to remember that BACIT/C-JACIT is aimed at IT/IS academics,
students and practitioners and that articles' content and focus must relate to this audience.
- Meet the aims of the Bulletin/Journal:
The aim of BACIT/C-JACIT is to provide a New Zealand forum for work in
progress and scholarly writings in computing, with a strong focus on the
application of information and communications technologies to our
everyday world - whether this is business, education or society in
general. BACIT/C-JACIT invites contributions from all interested
researchers, including postgraduate students. BACIT/C-JACIT is a place
where experienced contributors as well as new writers can publish and
share ideas, and learn from the experience. As some of the submissions
may be from new and emerging researchers (we were all in this position
once) BACIT/C-JACIT papers may also require some mentoring to assist
authors to get their papers to a publishable standard.
- New Zealand related content:
Have content which relates to New Zealand and/or authors with
New Zealand affiliation (this includes visitors presenting papers in New
Zealand)
- Interest to Tertiary educators:
Would be of interest to Tertiary educators (some papers from
overseas authors may be considered with no New Zealand connections)
- Length: Normally be between 3,000
and 5,000 words
- Potential value:
The usefulness to BACIT/C-JACIT readers is the single most important issue for the
reviewer to consider. Articles should be timely, relevant, clearly written
in good English, factually correct.
- APA style Referencing: Academic work demonstrates its value and originality by grounding in the
literature and the submission should include references
appropriate for the kind of work - following an accepted style (preferably APA Version 5). Whilst it is
not critical to be overly pedantic, refer to our
quick APA summary or
www.apastyle.org
for guidance.
- Originality: If based on a previous
paper/research will need to contain new information or discussion of
follow up research, and will need to have at least 25% new content.
Special reference to the prior publication is also required. Care should
be taken of any special copyright conditions imposed on the original
article.
Providing feedback to authors
Authors rely on your
feedback to improve their submission. Use the
review feedback form
provided. Please provide written suggestions for
improvement (in the form of comments for the author/authors); also, focus on global issues, such as organisation or
references that the authors might have overlooked. 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 latter case, please try and clearly identify the section that you are referring to. Where you are critical of something in
the article, try to say why in a neutral way and attempt where possible
to provide suggestions as to how this can be remedied. You might also
want to provide feedback that challenges the author to consider alternative
perspectives.
Highlight but 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 submission unacceptable. For works with particularly bad writing, you
might suggest that they consider using an external editor.
Remember that one
of the aims of BACIT/C-JACIT is to provide a publication channel for new and emerging
researchers so be supportive! However - it is important to ensure
that BACIT/C-JACIT is accessible to new writers but it is also important to maintain
the academic credibility of the material it publishes.
Working with the editors
When you accept an
article for review, you will normally be asked to commit to an agreed deadline
normally two week turnaround.
This deadline is designed to provide efficient management of the process so,
please accept to act as a reviewer 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 editors as soon as possible.
If upon the receipt of
an article you decide that it is not an area that you have sufficient knowledge
or expertise in and you do not feel able to review the contribution accurately,
please notify the editors.
Articles published in BACIT/C-JACIT are peer-reviewed, double-blind. When submissions are forwarded to reviewers, authors' details will not be revealed. However authors' details might not be hidden from a reviewer if a paper presented at a conference is extended and submitted to BACIT/C-JACIT reviewed (for example, the annual
CITRENZ/NACCQ conference) or if the article itself shows who the author(s) are. If you feel that you have a conflict of interest with the author(s) of a particular article,
return it to the editors without reviewing.
The reviewers' identities will not be made known to the author(s) of any particular contribution but reviewers' names will be acknowledged in the relevant BACIT/C-JACIT issue.
Reviewer guidelines are provided to assist in providing clear and
consistent feedback.
You will be asked
to respond to the editors by email. The editors are looking for an objective,
qualitative assessment of articles, so rather than using a formal evaluation
form, it would be appreciated if reviewers could provide the feedback described below.
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Your recommendation
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You can recommend one of the following actions to be taken by the editors:
Accept; Accept with minor changes; Accept with major changes; Not ready yet.
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Comments
for the author(s)
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These will
be sent to the author(s) so consider them carefully.
Where changes are required to the article, these need to be clearly
described in your feedback. Where the article is considered not yet ready for publication, it would
be useful if you could provide critical feedback on why and also what
the author(s) might do to be able to publish it. (This might include
suggesting an alternative publication if the article is well written but is
not appropriate for BACIT/C-JACIT.)
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Comments
for the editors
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Please provide
any additional feedback to the editors that will be useful but which will not be forwarded to the author(s).This might include more information
on problems or other comments that you feel the editors
either need to address or be aware of.
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Review process
Articles will normally
be reviewed by two reviewers. Just as BACIT/C-JACIT
is intended as a vehicle for new writers, it is also hoped to encourage new
relatively inexperienced reviewers to become involved. To achieve
this, new reviewers will be supported and guided throughout the review process by one of the BACIT/C-JACIT editors
or an assigned mentor.
Call for reviewers
Expressions of interest to become a
BACIT/C-JACIT reviewer are most welcome. If you wish to become a BACIT/C-JACIT reviewer,
please contact the Editor-in-Chief at Michael Verhaart.
Updated:
November 2010 | If you have questions, please contact
the editors.
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