IST 511: Information and Technology Fall 2008 Critique Assignment ____________________________________________________________ Overview -------- Through the semester, each student will have three chances to critique others' writings (i.e., Proj #1 and #2 reports and mid-term individual project report). Each critique is required to have 5-6 paragraphs (1-2 pages) consisting of: - Title - Reviewer Name (I'll remove this later for double-blind) - Summary (1 paragraph) - Pros (1-2 paragraphs) - Cons (2-3 paragraphs) - Question - Verdict (1-5 scale with 5 being the best and 1 being the worst) Here are examples critiques for the paper, "Accessibility of Information on the Web" by Steve Lawrence and C. Lee Giles. - Critique #1 - Critique #2 Double-Blind Review Model ------------------------- We use the double-blind review model such that names of authors as well as reviewers are not revealed. Score ----- I'll evaluate the quality of each student's review critiques. At the end, 15% of final score will be allocated for the critique assignment. How to evaluate the critiques? ----------------------------- In an academic world, research articles need to go through rigorous peer-review process to appear in journals or conferences. As such, being able to read others' research articles and critique them is very important. In IST 511, we adopt the review model of academic conferences. That is, each student acts on two roles: authors and PC (program committee) members. - As Authors: For Proj #1 and #2, a set of co-authors (i.e., team members) submit their project reports. Or, for mid-term individual project, individual author submit his/her report to ANGEL. All reports must be ANONYMIZED (e.g., no author names). - As PC (Program Committee) Members: For each assignment, each student will be assigned to critique about 2-3 reports by others. Within a week from the assignment, each student must turn in his/her review critiques. I, acting as another PC member, will prepare my own reviews too. Like conference reviews, each report will have at least ** THREE ** reviews - As PC Chair: I'll also act as PC chair and decide the final verdict on the report (with my reviews having higher weight). This final verdict will be reflected on the score of projects. For instance, if a team's report gets three verdicts like 5, 4, 5, then this team is likely to get A on the report.