Peer Review

Abstract

A sound review process is critical in contemporary scientific communities. The current discussion on peer review in the software engineering community is centered mainly around conferences, and focuses mostly on 'implementation' issues, like blind reviews, rebuttals, deadlines, with little attention to the ultimate goal of the review process, the external conditions that bias the process, and the role of journals. In this short note, I would like to remind the community that review is a means not the goal. I overview the goals of reviews, discuss process and environment biases, highlight advantages and limitations of the current approaches, compare the review processes of conferences and journals, and present my vision about a possible healthy evolution of software engineering conferences and journals.