Reviewing Guidelines
Guidance to help reviewers provide fair, constructive, and ethical feedback that strengthens research and the IDC community.
Reviewing for IDC
Reviewing is one of the most impactful ways to contribute to the IDC community. Reviewers engage with a wide range of submissions -from full research papers to emerging and creative work-helping shape high-quality, ethical research with and for children.
Not sure where to start? Explore submission types to see what you’ll be reviewing.
Why reviewing matters
Reviewing papers, while time consuming, is one of the single most important functions of the community as a whole. Quality reviews not only ensure innovative and lively academic discourse, but they are also essential for growing future scholars who will maintain the vibrancy of the field for decades to come. The tone and constructive quality of your individual reviews has a real impact on encouraging (or discouraging) people to identify their research with IDC.
Principles for reviewing at IDC
Here are a few things to keep in mind while working on your reviews for IDC.
Contribution & Fit
A submission should provide an original and robust contribution to the field of IDC. As there are many ways authors can participate to IDC you should review each contribution appropriately.
Ethics & Care for Children
By definition, IDC involves research for and with a vulnerable population. Make sure that papers include a section on the Selection and Participation of Children where authors describe in 125 words how children were selected and what consent process was adopted for their study. Beyond that, please make sure that the work as a whole respects and is appropriate for children.
One Opportunity for Impact
IDC does not have a revision or rebuttal process, so this will be your one contact with authors. With that in mind, go for constructive feedback and avoid very short reviews as these are frustrating for authors and other reviewers. Aim for the kind of feedback you would find useful to read about your own work. (e.g. instead of writing “the paper doesn’t cite essential prior research”, say “this work would be stronger if it cited papers X, Y, and Z as they are foundational for this area”).
Aligned Feedback
Make sure your written feedback agrees with and supports your numeric ranking.
Discover & Support strong work
Strive to “discover interesting work and bring it to the attention of researchers and practitioners worldwide and not to find flaws and reject work at every opportunity.” And “When in doubt, trust the literature to sort it out”. (Ken Hinckley 2015).