Pains and Gains of Peer Reviewing in Software Engineering

Abstract

A young software engineering researcher is invited to be an associate editor (AE) of a major journal in our field. The researcher is very excited. By this point, she has amassed a nice career track-record. She has also been recognized via a number of invitations to serve on our conferences' program committees. But this somehow feels different and more important: there are multiple conferences each year, and all of them have PCs staffed with dozens of members (not uncommonly over 100 in recent years), while there are comparatively fewer journals and, at any point in time, the sizes of their editorial boards are a fraction of a typical conference PC. This is a major additional sign of recognition of the young researcher's expertise and stature in the community. So, the researcher quickly and enthusiastically accepts the invitation.