Sample AE Review

Greetings and thank you for lending your expertise and experience as a journal reviewer.

Individuals serving as reviewers are performing an important and valuable job, assuring that the manuscripts they evaluate are being published with integrity and accuracy.

As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), IGI Global takes great pride in ensuring that the highest level of care is taken to administer a robust double-anonymized peer review process on each and every journal manuscript submitted to IGI Global journal publications.

Please take a moment to read through the review criteria below, and in addition you will also find a sample evaluation.

With deepest appreciation,

Lindsay Wertman
Managing Director, IGI Global

Review Criteria

As a reviewer, your comments are valuable to the advancement of your colleagues’ research, even if the manuscript is not, in your opinion, publishable.

All reviews should be conducted through the eEditorial Discovery® editorial management system by the assigned due date. Reviewers who complete high-quality reviews in a timely manner are providing an essential service to the field and to the journal.

Please carefully read each manuscript, supporting your evaluation with relevant citations and with the goal of helping the authors construct a more rigorous research work by providing constructive feedback. Provide an honest assessment of the value of the manuscript. Begin by providing your overall assessment of the work, followed by a specific list of comments. Please bear in mind that although grammatical corrections are valuable, the review must stretch beyond the use of punctuation, spelling, and language usage.

An appropriate evaluation includes an analysis of the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses, suggestions on how to make it more complete, relevant, and readable, as well as specific questions for the authors to address. Provide advice that leads to action. Vague statements and no points of action do not provide goals for the authors and will hinder any subsequent revisions.

Avoid making derogatory and unprofessional comments. If you do not find the manuscript publishable, extensive comments regarding why the paper is not acceptable and constructive directions for future submissions should still be provided. A decision to “reject” the manuscript, with no feedback to the authors, does not help them advance their skills.

• Is the manuscript in congruence with the mission of the journal?
• How useful is the material to the field?
• Does the manuscript clearly state the issue being addressed?
• Does the literature review contain relevant information in support of the manuscript?
• Does the manuscript contain a detailed explanation of research methods and procedures?
• Is the manuscript clearly organized in a logical fashion?
• Are the author's conclusions supported by the research?

• Provide the page number and explicitly state the areas of the manuscript to which you are referring.
• Consider providing relevant citations to the authors to improve the work.
• Do not forget to assess the tables, figures, and diagrams.

Sample Evaluations

In your opinion, what are the overall weaknesses of the article manuscript? Please carefully list at least three (3) specific weaknesses of this manuscript:

The main weakness is that the paper proposes an adaptation of various technology adoption/acceptance models that appear to be focused on developing and emerging couontires. Unfortunately, there is no data collected to test the model. Second, as I read the paper, I was expecting to see more on the various cultural and other variables of interest discussed by the author applicable to developing and emerging countries. In my opinion, if the model is to be applicable to a broad array of these types of countries, the author needs to present more on the cultural and other variables for these types of countries and how and why they are applicable to all generically. India is certainly different from Brazil; most African countries vary with most of the rest of the world as well as within Africa itself.

In your opinion, what are the overall strengths of the article manuscript? Please carefully list at least three (3) specific strengths of this manuscript:

The major strength is a summary of adoption and acceptance models developed over the decades. The proposed model is important, but without testing it, it does not facilitate the understanding of technology adoption in developing and emerging countries.

Please provide any additional constructive comments to the author(s) for improving and revising the manuscript (Optional):

I think the author needs to frame the model better. If it is to be applied generally to developing and emerging countries, more needs to be included to support this. Perhaps the author could shorten considerably the discussion of the earlier models, e.g., TRA, TAM, TAM2, etc. and then add more on characteristics of the countries the author is proposing the model for. I think too as I already stated, the author needs to try to test the model by collecting data.

Your overall assessment of this manuscript and the reviews obtained from the Editorial Review Board (ERB) members of this journal:

Unfortunately, the reviews are varied. One review is critical of the process used in the literature review such that the study could not be replicated by other researchers and then says to accept the paper. One review was very much in depth and provides the author with a number of directions and recommends that the paper be rejected.

Your Editorial Decision:

Reject

Overall Comments to the Editor(s)-in-Chief:

I recommend rejection of the paper for two main reasons. First, the model is a proposition at this point; it needs to be tested. Second, if the model is supposed to be appropriate for developing and emerging countries, more needs to be added to the paper to discuss these variables, what they are in greater detail, and how and why they are applicable to countries in general.

In your opinion, what are the overall weaknesses of the article manuscript? Please carefully list at least three (3) specific weaknesses of this manuscript:

• Need to identify the rationale for why this specific study is needed • Minimal research contribution • Identify and discuss the theoretical basis for the model and methodology • Limited literature review • Finding discussion needs to be expanded • The entire paper needs to be copy edited to correct some awkward sentences and grammatical errors

In your opinion, what are the overall strengths of the article manuscript? Please carefully list at least three (3) specific strengths of this manuscript:

• Direct marketing is an important topic for research and practice • Utilizing a machine learning data analysis methodology has the potential to provide new insights into the factors that impact customer direct marketing response • Sections are logically organized

Please provide any additional constructive comments to the author(s) for improving and revising the manuscript (Optional):

Introduction. Start with a real-world example that illustrates why direct marketing response prediction is important and why a new data analysis method is required to improve upon existing knowledge in this area. Some of the machine learning definitions are taken from very recently published articles. Machine learning has been used for decades in a wide variety of data analysis contexts. Literature review. The literature review needs to provide a comprehensive review of current direct marketing literature to show what is currently known and what knowledge gaps there are in this area. This will help point to why this specific study is needed to fill a current gap in our knowledge. This is important because it will show why this specific study is needed and identify the study’s research contribution. Theory. Identify and discuss the theoretical basis for this study including the choice of machine learning model parameters and what results are expected. What are the expected results from this study, and how do the actual findings compare to the predictions? Why should machine learning be a better method for data analysis than other previously used techniques? Dataset. Provide more information about the dataset including the size of the dataset, how the data was collected, etc. Methodology and findings. The model produces results, but are these results better than other models and analysis technique options? Results. The discussion of each finding is very limited. Expand this section to discuss each finding and compare it with the expected outcomes. Conclusions. The conclusions section can be rewritten to refer to all of the material added to the paper based on the suggested changes described above. The entire paper needs to be copy edited to correct awkward sentences and grammatical errors.

Your overall assessment of this manuscript and the reviews obtained from the Editorial Review Board (ERB) members of this journal:

The purpose for this study is to develop a machine learning model to predict direct marketing response. This is an important research area and new data analysis methods have the potential to provide new insights into what factors drive customer direct marketing response, but there are several weaknesses in this study that limit its research contribution. The need for this specific study is not identified, there is no theoretical basis for the study, the literature review needs to be expanded to fully describe current direct marketing research knowledge, the dataset needs to be described in more detail, discussion for each finding needs to be expanded, and the entire paper needs to be copy edited to correct some awkward sentences and grammatical errors. This study has potential, but a significant revision is required to move this initial submission toward publication. Reviewers provide additional comments and suggestions for improving this initial submission.

Your Editorial Decision:

Accept After Specified Revisions

Overall Comments to the Editor(s)-in-Chief:

This paper needs a major revision to produce a study that makes any research contribution. I've tried to identify the primary issues that need to be addressed. The only reason I recommend accept after specific revisions is that the three reviewers each made that recommendation. My first inclination was to recommend rejection since they almost have to start over with this study to produce a publishable article.