Review procedures

An important feature of CIM is the development and application of appropriate procedures to ensure and enhance the scholarly quality of conference contributions.

Instructions to abstract reviewers

Before reviewing the abstracts to which you have been assigned, please first read the instructions to authors, as well as the following instructions.

Please write your reviews in English and send them by email (either as email text or attachment).

Your reviews should be organized as follows:

1. Academic quality: the normal criterion for evaluating research abstracts and articles
(a) rating (1=poor, 2=ok, 3=good, 4=excellent)
(b) reasons for the rating
(c) suggestions for improving the abstract

2. Interdisciplinarity, i.e. suitability for CIM (rather than another conference series)
(a) rating (1=poor, 2=ok, 3=good, 4=excellent)
(b) reasons for the rating
(c) suggestions for improving the abstract

3. Relevance for MUSICAL STRUCTURE, the conference theme
(a) rating (1=poor, 2=ok, 3=good, 4=excellent)
(b) reasons for the rating
(c) suggestions for improving the abstract

If you are in a hurry, you need only to read the above information. But we hope and recommend that you also read the following paragraphs, and contact us if anything is unclear.

The following comments apply to all three of the above points:

(a) Regarding the ratings, please in every case

• try to use all four points of the rating scale
• always write both the word and the number, e.g. "2 ok" or "4 excellent". Reviewers have been known to reverse the scale!
• treat the three criteria as completely independent. Regarding the first two, an abstract may be of excellent academic quality but unidisciplinary (or interdisciplinary in a well-established, non-innovative manner) and therefore unsuitable for CIM. At the other extreme, an abstract may combine disciplines in a promising, innovative, relevant and creative way but – for other reasons – you may consider it to have little academic value and therefore recommend its rejection by rating it "poor".

(b) Regarding the reasons for your rating, please

• focus on the single main reason.
• if you rate the abstract as "3 good", please indicate in what way you consider it to be better than average. If you rate it "2 ok", indicate in what respect is it worse than average.

(c) Regarding your suggestions for improving the abstract:

• The primary aim of your comments should be to help the authors to improve the academic quality of their abstract and to prepare their talk or poster. Please therefore write in a friendly, helpful style.
• Avoid criticizing or attempting to improve the language; focus on the content.
• Please remember that all your comments will be read both by members of the organizing committee and by the authors of the corresponding abstract. We are therefore counting on you to navigate an appropriate middle path between honesty (for the organizers) and tactfulness (for the authors).

The following comments elaborate on each of the three points in turn:

1. Regarding academic quality, please as far as possible

• ignore the other two criteria (interdisciplinarity and relevance for conference theme)
• ignore linguistic imperfections, provided the meaning is clear (focus on content)

2. Regarding interdisciplinarity, please consider the extent to which the abstract realises the aims of CIM:

• the novelty, rarity, creativity and promise of the interdisciplinary combination
• the extent to which both sciences and humanities and/or both theory and practice are addressed in the paper
• the balance between the two main disciplines
• the correspondence between the main two disciplines and the background and expertise of the authors
• the degree to which the described approach has the potential to generate new insights that fundamentally depend on input from both disciplines - to go beyond mere multidisciplinarity (accumulation of knowledge from different disciplines) toward true interdisciplinarity (synergetic generation of new knowledge)

Regarding interdisciplinarity, it may be interesting to ask yourself what two main disciplines are addressed by the paper. If your assessment differs from that of the authors, do not hesitate to recommend that they change the abstract accordingly. You may also suggest how the paper could be revised to make is more interdisciplinary, e.g. by introducing a new discipline or by enhancing the role of the second-most-important discipline.

3. Regarding relevance for the conference theme (musical structure),

• please browse over the thematic possibilities listed on the theme page and perhaps suggest to us how the list could be extended. We hope and expect that abstract contributions will contribute new ideas to this list.

Further procedural information

Selection of reviewers

• Each abstract submission to CIM07 will be independently reviewed by international experts in two of the disciplines listed in our table.
• If the mean ratings of the two reviewers differ considerably, we may send the abstract to a third reviewer who may or may not be a member of the review committee.

Assignment of abstracts to talks, posters, rejects

• We plan to accept abstract submissions as talks if the mean of all ratings of all reviewers is greater than an arbitrary threshold. Between that and a lower threshold, submissions will be accepted as posters. Abstracts accepted as talks will be considered in the keynote selection process (see next point). Depending on the number of submissions and the amount of program space, we may interpret average ratings as follows: 1=reject, 2=poster, 3=paper, 4=paper/keynote.

Selection process for keynotes

• Keynotes will be selected from the submissions accepted as talks. Authors of accepted papers are expected to submit the full version of their paper by 30 April 2008 (see deadlines). Reviewers and the organising committee will select from the full papers a limited number to be presented as keynotes. Keynote talks will be given extra time for presentation and will not be placed in parallel sessions; these papers will be included in special post-conference publications. Full papers not submitted before the deadline, will not be considered in the keynote selection process.
• Further criteria for the selection of keynotes are the range of relevant disciplines covered by the invited lectures, the interest and accessibility of the material for an interdisciplinary audience, gender balance, and the representative participation of non-western participants.

Submissions by committee members

• Members of the Review Committee are also invited to submit abstracts. These will be reviewed anonymously by other members of the same committee or by other scholars contacted by organizing committee. Any abstract submitted by a member of the organizing committee will be processed confidentially by another member.

Peer review of conference presentations

Toward the end of the conference, each active participant will be asked to rate the presentation and content of the best (non-invited) papers and posters that they witnessed, using a specially prepared form. The results will help us to select authors for awards and invitations for post-conference publication.