[president’s MESSAGE]
Alfred Hero, SPS President
[email protected]
Looking for Unsung Heroes
N
o one would argue that dissemination through publication is a cornerstone of modern science and engineering research. Archival publications such as IEEE Signal Processing Magazine function as vehicles for publishing scientific advances that are innovative, technically correct, and likely to have lasting impact. The decision to publish a submitted paper in one of our journals involves a painstaking and rigorous review process involving a number of expert reviewers. Indeed, you may have recently reviewed papers for IEEE Signal Processing Society’s peer reviewed publications: IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Signal Processing Letters, or IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. If so, I applaud you. You are one of the unsung heroes who anonymously work hard behind the scenes, helping the editors ensure that these publications are of the highest quality. If you have not recently been a reviewer for one of our publications, I encourage you to most seriously consid-
er the next invitation to review a paper submitted in your area of expertise. The editor and the authors depend on your feedback. We are in need of reviewers for papers submitted in all categories but we especially need reviewers for highly interdisciplinary papers. These submissions are frequently too broad for any
IF YOU HAVE NOT RECENTLY BEEN A REVIEWER FOR ONE OF OUR PUBLICATIONS, I ENCOURAGE YOU TO MOST SERIOUSLY CONSIDER THE NEXT INVITATION TO REVIEW A PAPER SUBMITTED IN YOUR AREA OF EXPERTISE.
single reviewer to understand all aspects of the methods, the application, and the data. Such a situation oftentimes dampens a potential reviewer’s enthusiasm and leads to a larger number of declined invitations. The number of declined invitations seems to be on the rise; some editors are reporting the need to send ten or more invitations to enlist three reviewers. This high overhead lengthens the review cycle, leads to delay in publica-
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [4] NOVEMBER 2006
tion, and may ultimately hurt our highly ranked publications. So, the next time you feel compelled to turn down a request for review you might ask yourself the following questions. Have I reviewed at least three papers for every paper I have submitted to this journal in previous years? Is the submitted paper in a narrowly focused area that I know a lot about but for which it might be hard to find other qualified reviewers? Does the paper address problems or introduce methods that overlap with my current activities? Does the submitted paper reference any of my own papers? If the answer to one or two of these questions is “yes,” then I will usually accept the invitation to review. In many cases, I have benefited from fresh insights after reviewing a paper that initially seemed of marginal interest. Finally, if you feel compelled to decline an invitation to review because of lack of time, think of the author’s time investment and remember the old dictum attributed to the ancient painter Xeuxis: “Criticism comes easier than [SP] craftsmanship.”
