Review Form#

Overview#

The review form is the primary way reviewers use to provide feedback about a paper to both the PC and the authors. In addition to general feedback to the paper, most review forms include specific components related to ethical considerations. These elements help structure the discussion and handling of potential ethical issues during the review process.

Ethics Rating#

Review forms typically include some sort of rating of the ethical concerns with a submission. This may take the form of a simple binary flag indicating whether concerns exist, or a more fine-grained scale that distinguishes between, for example, no concerns, minor concerns, and major concerns.

Such ratings are particularly useful for RECs, as they provide an initial overview of which papers may require closer inspection. They help prioritize attention and ensure that potentially problematic submissions are not overlooked.

Ethics Concerns#

Beyond a rating, review forms usually provide a free-text field where reviewers can describe their ethical concerns in more detail. This written details are essential for enabling both the REC and the authors to understand the concerns, respond to them, and, where possible, improve the work.

Some conferences additionally offer predefined categories of ethical concerns. These can help standardize reporting and assist REC chairs in assigning papers to members with relevant expertise.

Dataset#

A dataset of review forms and their ethical components have been collected. The publication of this dataset is currently under discussion.