Category Archives: evaluating research

RR: What kind of reviewers have you suffered?

Peer fortress: The scientific battlefield the 9 kinds of reviewers you will find in your research career (Which ones have you suffered already?). Even if it may look funny, I do believe knowing these “types” will help you to interpret … Continue reading

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RR: Recurrent Reviewing patterns

Fabiano Dalpiaz describes a list of (good and bad) recurrent reviewing patterns. I’d add that another “easy” way out for a review, just say that the paper is borderline (and then, if needed, during the discussion phase you can just … Continue reading

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Nonsense reviews are a global problem…

We have complained before about bad reviews (e.g. here and here) in the research world but clearly, this is a global problem that affects all kinds of review/recommendation sites. As an example (via @zef and @drbernhard) the best book review … Continue reading

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Do not cite bad papers (if possible)

Post inspired by this tweet: @worrydream: Citing bad papers encourages bad papers. Don’t struggle through a bad paper, ignore it Of course, I agree with the “spirit” of the idea but as usual, its practical implementation is more difficult than … Continue reading

Posted in doing research, evaluating research | 2 Comments

RR: Perverse Incentives in Academia

Today, a recommended reading, so much truth in such a few words!! : Perverse Incentives in Academia if you liked this post please consider following my thoughts on twitter and visit my other projects: the modeling languages portal, go wordpress migration … Continue reading

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Why I’m not signing the Research Without Walls pledge

I completely agree with the spirit of the Research Without Walls initiative: research funded by public institutions should be accessible to everybody and not hidden behind paywalls. To change this situation, Research Without Walls asks you to sign this pledge: … Continue reading

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The fallacy of double-blind reviews

A twitter comment from César complaining about references in supposedly-anonymous papers that clearly identified the authors, summarizes my main criticism to double-blind reviews (not awfully common but, unfortunately, still requested by some journals/conferences): they just doesn’t work! In theory, double-blind … Continue reading

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Order of authors in CS papers

My colleagues from other disciplines always explain to me the very complex rules they use to determine (or better said, guess) the importance of the contribution of each author in a collaborative work based on the position of the author … Continue reading

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Current trends for the impact factor of CS journals – SE losing its hotness

Don’t miss Diomidis D. Spinellis analysis of the impact factor of CS journals in 2010. One of the trends (more anecdotal than anything but still…) is that the impact factor of software engineeering journals is globally decreasing. Given the importance … Continue reading

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RR : Do we need an alternative to peer-reviewed journals?

Today a recommended reading:  Do we need an alternative to peer-reviewed journals? where many of the problems of the current peer-review system (like this one we commented in this blog) are discussed. Of course, there are no magical solutions but it’s … Continue reading

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