Peer Review Policy and Guidelines

DRPM UI recognizes and understands the nature and purpose of conference proceedings and their essential role within the landscape of scientific communication. DRPM UI strongly desires that its proceedings contain work that is of long-term interest and benefit to the scientific community; articles which can be read, and cited, with confidence. To achieve this, we have strengthened our requirements for proceedings editors to commit to undertaking an appropriate peer review procedure. Conference organizers and editors are free to select reviewers of their choice, but all reviewers must be suitably qualified experts in the field. Although DRPM UI does not prescribe the number of reviewers (per paper) for the proceedings, all reviews must be conducted according to the standard norms and expectations of an ethical review process. A robust peer review process will be reflected in the quality of the published proceedings, providing recognition of the work of the editors and enhancing the value of your proceedings to abstracting and indexing services.

Guidelines

In comparison to journals, proceedings have freedom to publish a much wider range of articles, providing scope and opportunity to create comprehensive proceedings volumes. In addition to original research papers, UI Proceedings Series welcome review or tutorial articles and other works which provide useful summaries, background information or introductions to specific fields of research. Articles which provide an historical perspective, or review, are also welcome. DRPM UI understands that the specifics of the review process undertaken by the editors will, of course, need to be in accordance with their community and conference traditions/expectations. However, the ability of proceedings to include a broader range of article types must not extend to the inclusion of poor quality or inferior work which is fundamentally unworthy of publication.

We ask all editors and associated referees to evaluate each paper according to the following minimum criteria.

Contribution: Would publication of the article make a positive contribution to the scientific literature—What would you gain by taking the time to read it? An article’s contribution does not need to be new or unpublished results; for example:

    • novel explanations of familiar topics
    • excellent descriptions or explanations of complex subjects
    • tutorials or review articles
    • useful or interesting background information
    • an enjoyable and informed historical/perspective or overview
    • No abstract-only papers: We regret that single-page (abstract-only) “articles” are not considered suitable for UI Proceedings Series so we ask editors to reject them. If submitted to DRPM Publishing they will be excluded from the proceedings.
    • Merit: Does the work demonstrate merit through its rigor, accuracy, and correctness?
    • Originality: Is the article previously unpublished and solely the work of the author(s)?
    • Abstract: Does the abstract provide a sufficient summary of the paper: outline its goals, results and conclusion?
      • Would it convey sufficient understanding when read in isolation from the paper (e.g., within an external abstracting database)?
    • Title: Does the title correctly and adequately reflect/describe the article? If you were to read the title alone, would it convey the nature and content of the paper?
    • Conclusions: Are the conclusions reasonable and based on the results presented, or ideas/concepts discussed within the paper?
    • Clarity: Is there clarity in the writing; are ideas well expressed and likely to be readable and understandable by its intended readership?
    • English: Is the English used a sufficient standard to convey the science and intent/meaning or purpose of the work?
      • Poorly written papers must be returned to the authors for re-writing or considered for rejection if they are unable, or unwilling, to make the recommended improvements.

References

These will, of course, depend on the type of article but here are some general questions you may like to consider.

  • Do the references look appropriate for the topic under discussion? Are there any key papers missing that you would expect to see?
  • Is the distribution of journals/publications cited, and age of the citations, appropriate for the article content and the field of research?
  • Do the references imply that the author is aware of current/key research in their field?