Knowledge and Information Systems An International Journal ISSN: 0219-1377 (printed version) ISSN: 0219-3116 (electronic version) by Springer

Guidelines for Reviewers

1. Reviewers should see themselves as protectors of the quality of the KAIS journal, as well as of the reputation of the authors who submit papers. It is the reviewer's responsibility to make sure that

   • only high quality papers are accepted,

   • no plagiarism exists, and

   • the author(s) are protected from putting poor work into print.

   From this perspective, the reviewer should not only read the papers thoroughly to find flaws, but should also make recommendations to the author(s) as to how the paper might be improved.

2. Before reviewing a paper, the reviewer should make sure that there is no conflict of interest in his/her reviewing the paper.

   If a reviewer feels that his/her decision will be affected, he/she should return the paper to the handling editor, stating the conflict of interest. Examples of cases which could cause conflict of interest include:

   • papers by an author with whom the reviewer has co-authored a paper recently.

   • papers by an author in the same department or in a closely related discipline of the same university as the reviewer.

   • papers by an author who was a recent student or thesis advisor of the reviewer.

   Also, if a reviewer feels that his/her confidence in the review is not high (e.g. the technical content of the paper is not in his/her main research area), he/she should return the paper to the handling editor and suggest a more suitable person.

3. A review consists of 6 parts: (1) originality of the paper, (2) technical soundness, (3) significance, (4) clarity of presentation, including the style and English, (5) relevance to the KAIS journal, and (6) length (relative to the useful contents of the paper).

   KAIS publishes regular and short papers. A regular paper is either a critical review, discussing the state of the art in an emerging topic area related to KAIS, or a state-of-the-art research report, presenting the results of original research. The title, abstract, introduction, and conclusion of a regular paper should all be informative and coherent. A short paper usually reports on-going research that is original and significant.

   Regular papers are normally limited to 15,000 words and short papers should have a maximum of 5,000 words. Short papers have the same acceptance standard but present results that can be stated more concisely. If a long submission is accepted as a short paper, the results must be presentable in a concise form.

4. Associated with each of the above parts should be a rating from -3 to 3 with 0 being the average as follows.

   3:	Strong Accept (As good as any top paper in reputable journals)
   2:	Accept (Comparable to good papers in reputable journals)
   1:	Weak Accept (I vote acceptance, but won't argue for it)
   0:	Neutral (I don't like it, but I won't object if others like it)
   -1:	Weak Reject (I would rather not see this paper accepted)
   -2:	Reject (I would argue to reject this paper)
   -3:	Strong Reject (Definitely detrimental to the journal quality if accepted)

5. The reviewer should make a recommendation to the handling editor, stating whether he/she thinks that the paper is acceptable, or what could be done to make it acceptable.

   The overall recommendation might be:

   • Reject. The paper is regarded not suitable for publication in the KAIS Journal. The author(s) may be encouraged to incorporate the changes suggested by the reviewers and resubmit the paper as a new paper.

   • Resubmit after a major revision and a second round of review is necessary. Author(s) should prepare a revision and resubmit it for a second round of review by the same set of reviewers. A letter explaining the changes made in the revised paper will be required from the author(s) if they choose to send in a revised paper. This letter will accompany the revised paper and be sent to the same set of reviewers.

   • The paper requires minor changes. Author(s) will be asked to revise the paper and resubmit with a letter to the handling editor, explaining changes made to address the reviewers' comments. The revised paper will not go through another round of review. The handling editor will make the recommendation for publication to the Editor-in-Chief.

   • Accept. The paper is accepted as it is. Or the paper should be accepted but there are some potential improvements that the author(s) have the option to make.

6. Reviews should be completed and returned to the handling editor within six weeks (three weeks for short papers). In case of delay, the reviewer should contact the handling editor with a date on which the review can be returned.