Learnings as an associate editor of ai and robotics with 100 peer reviews
Yo I will share what I have learned about the academic peer review process through a personal journey from an undecided reviewer to an associate editor of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (Impact factor 4.6).
While most traditional science and engineering publications require Previous publishing experience and academic credentials to act as reviewers, Machine learning and data science could be an exception. A major driver of the widespread adoption and use of data science has been Open source projects and repositoriesMany of the influential contributors to open source data science are not always published researchers, but they possess deep knowledge of the field through practice and experimentation. Furthermore, formal academic degrees in machine learning have only been around for a few years, and many current researchers come from diverse backgrounds. I, for example, have a background in mechanical engineering.
With the above in mind, I hope that If you are a machine learning professional who is curious about the review process and wants to get involved.This article should provide some value.
· My story
· What is peer review?
∘ Shouldn't the editorial board members be the experts?
· Peer review process
· Why you should consider peer review
· How can you participate?
∘ Peer review tracking using Web of Science
∘ Do I need to be a published researcher?
· How long does it take?
· Conclusion
· Cold Email Template
· Disclaimer
In August 2024I arrived 100 verified peer reviews for 9 different academic journals and conferencess. Although I had my first review done in 2016, it wasn't until mid-2022 that I really started to enjoy the process.
As a graduate student (2015-2020), I never really enjoyed reviewing papers. Instead, I did it primarily as an academic pursuit. obligation When my advisor asked me to do this, I had no confidence in my ability to critique the work of others, as I only had a few publications under my belt.
After graduating, I found it difficult to keep up with new research. As a student, reading articles was part of the job. However, in the industry, I only read the most popular articles. To keep up with the latest research, fulfill my academic responsibilities, and develop a stronger research profile, I started emailing the editors of various journals to express my interest in becoming a reviewer. Although I received responses from almost all As for journals, initially only two or three assigned me articles. Over time, I also started receiving review requests from journals I had not contacted.
At the end of 2023, I submitted my application for IEEE RA-L for an associate editor position and was eventually selected to serve on the human-robot interaction clue.
In the rest of this article I will explain:
- he importance peer review and that The process involves,
- because You should consider reviewing academic publications and as You can start
- Time commitment and other factors to consider
Finally, I will also share a cold email template that you can use to contact the editors.
Although there is some controversy over the effectiveness of the peer review process, No I consider myself knowledgeable enough to comment on that aspect. Instead, I will focus on sharing my experiences and learnings.
