[Air-L] SPIR and IR and internet research and submission policies (was Re: AoIR 14 Announcement. Extended Deadline and More)

[David J. Phillips]

OK. So the new submission policies are not for reviewers, but for the editors of SPIR.  That makes more sense. And I see how the additional requirements of the content of the submissions (word length, lit review, presentation and discussion of "findings") will elicit papers more amenable to publication.

Still, I question (in all good faith and even good cheer) the practice of requiring all *conference* submissions to be in the form best suited for *journal* publications.

In my experience, AoIR is a great conference, in part because I never know quite what to expect. Regardless of my expectations, what I've consistently found is a ratio of worthwhile to useless presentations that exceeds that of more conservative, "rigorous" conferences. I'm thinking ICA in particular. I would hate to see the generosity of spirit that animates the IR conference bartered for greater ease and better outcome in the production of SPIR.

SPIR selects for publication (as far as I can tell) a small percentage of the papers presented at the conference.  I believe it should recognize that it is publishing not "the best of IR," but "the best of IR suitable to the published scholarly paper format."

I understand that there may also be a wish to raise the overall quality of submissions. This seems a fine goal. But I question (again with respect and bon homie) whether requiring the lit review, method, findings, discussion format is the way to do this.  There's got to be a way of saying to potential submitters "There's got to be a there there" without retreating so fully to a very conservative definition of what research is.

Finally, thank you, organizers, for making these decisions and offering us the opportunity to engage, resist, and/or appropriate.

djp


On 24 Feb 2013, at    22:2727, Alexander Halavais wrote:

> I don't think our aim is to be a pain in the ass. At least not solely.
> 
> You're right: consistency in submission does not necessarily aid the
> review process. There are certainly difficulties in reviewing for an
> interdisciplinary conference, as each of our reviews over the years
> makes clear. But picking the same typeface won't help with that.
> 
> What it will help with is providing a consistent article style for
> SPIR. I think you will agree that a mishmash of styles makes reading
> such a collection difficult, and this is why collected volumes,
> journals, and proceedings try to provide some consistency among
> contributions. Given that the editorial committee for SPIR is entirely
> volunteer, we are asking for your help in this process.
> 
> The pain happens somewhere, and I guarantee that those brave souls who
> are taking the helm of SPIR for a second year will get more than their
> share. We recognize that asking contributors to conform to a
> consistent style adds work on your end, but it allows us to--for the
> first time in several years--provide the work of our membership in a
> way that the broader community can easily access. I think it's
> important that our work have a life beyond the conference, and I hope
> this will help provide it.
> 
> - Alex
> 
> 
> On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 5:53 PM, David J. Phillips
> <davidj.phillips at utoronto.ca> wrote:
>> I would like to strongly object to this:
>> 
>>> 3. In the interests of providing reviewers with consistency in submitted papers, all paper submissions must adhere to the SPIR template.  That template is now linked on the CfP page of the AoIR 14 site.  See it at http://ir14.aoir.org/cfp/
>> 
>> 
>> What is the point?
>> 
>> Does any reviewer really have a problem reading papers in formats other than this? Can they not compare the content of papers if those papers have different margins or font sizes or long quote conventions?  Do our reviewers read only one journal? Are they desperately confused by varying citation styles?  If any of these are the case, they are perhaps not qualified to review.
>> 
>> AoIR is interdisciplinary. Style templates are associated (for reasons I've never fully understood) with certain disciplines.  Why are we forcing our authors into one particular disciplinary form?
>> 
>> And simply in terms of efficiency, it is a much bigger pain in the ass (for me anyway) to write in a different template than it is to read in a different template.
>> 
>> What am I missing here? What's the point?
>> 
>> djp
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> David J. Phillips, Associate Professor
>> Faculty of Information
>> University of Toronto
>> 
>> 140 St. George Street
>> Toronto, ON  M5S 3G6
>> CANADA
>> (+1) 416-978-7098 / 416-978-8942 (fax)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>> 
>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> http://www.aoir.org/
> 
> 
> 
> --
> --
> //
> // This email is
> // [ ] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded.
> // [x] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing.
> //
> // Alexander C. Halavais, ciberflâneur
> // http://alex.halavais.net
> //
> // Please attribute any stupid errors above to autocorrect on my phone.
> // (But I probably was typing on a keyboard.)

David J. Phillips, Associate Professor 
Faculty of Information
University of Toronto

140 St. George Street
Toronto, ON  M5S 3G6
CANADA
(+1) 416-978-7098 / 416-978-8942 (fax)