As usual, Ken has done a great job in describing the blind review
process from his viewpoint, and for Common Ground I would differ
only in a couple of details. The substance of what he says
accords entirely with my perspective. We can probably all agree
about the papers that demonstrate excellence. It may be more
difficult to agree about the rest. We did not purposely
introduce what Ken terms 'mediocre papers' to fill any gaps -
there were a number of papers accepted that showed promise, that
we thought would be interesting in stimulating debate, and were
more risky. Some were distinctly not in the mainstream. All
showed early promise, though finally some were more successful
than others. I think that the risk was worthwhile.
Amongst all this talk of theme(s), and whether papers might have
been rejected because they were marginal, or did not fit the
conference in some way, or possibly that the reviewers were
fossilized and totally unable to recognise emerging paradigms
even if they leapt out and bit them, there is another possibility
- that the papers were not up to standard, that the work was
lacking in some way, that it was at too early a stage, that it
made assertions without evidence, that it was too opiniated, or
that it simply wasn't research at all...
It remains a possibility that some abstracts rejected in the
first round exhibited some or all of these faults - I will try to
back this opinion with evidence at some later stage ;-)
One of the encouraging things that I must mention about common
ground, was the number of PhD students in the audience who had
come to listen, to discuss, and to reflect. I had some excellent
discussions with thoughtful and thought provoking students. They
came to the impromptu PhD+Supervision session that we laid on,
and several said afterwards that they found it helpful
(unfortunately our overflowing room rather depleted the audience
for other presentations, as Nicola pointed out...)
But even more encouraging was the small number of PhD students
who were presenting. They had come through the blind review
process successfully, with some good work. This gives me
confidence that some doctoral programmes are succeeding very well
in research training, in solid inquiry, and perhaps in knowing
how to write papers to convince reviewers of their worth.
Kind regards,
David
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Dr David Durling / \ | | )
Advanced Research Institute ____ \ __ /
School of Art & Design / \ | \ |
Staffordshire University _/ _\ _| _\ _|
Stoke on Trent, ST4 2XN, UK
voice: +44 (0) 1782 294556 email: [log in to unmask]
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