Debate Procedure
Each received research article is up for questions and debate during the first three months after it has been posted. This is intended to be like the question period after a conference presentation: an opportunity to ask questions to the author, to obtain clarifications and to give feedback. For particularly controversial and/or significant papers, this dialogue may well develop into an extended discussion about a research issue that the paper has brought up.In order to contribute to the discussion, please send an E-mail message to the area editor (click [moderator] in the menue bar to the left on the review protocolpage).
The following procedure is applied for the contributions:
- A separate debate is organized for each received article.
(One may imagine having cross-links between debates, but we'll
deal with that when the need arises).
- Questions, answers, and debate contributions (in short:
interactions) are sent by E-mail to the area editor.
- Interactions are post-edited and accumulated to the
Newsletter that is sent out to all members of
the colloquium. This Newsletter is sent out as soon as possible,
and usually on the same day as the contribution arrived or the
following day. Multiple contributions during the same day go
into the same Newsletter.
- Contributions are also added to the monthly News Journal,
where all contributions concerning a given article during the
month in question are represented together.
- All active researchers in the area are welcome to send in debate contributions (questions, comments).
Normally, the area chair moderates the discussion and also coordinates the refereeing. An alternative moderator may be designated if the area chair so wishes, and in any case the review protocol page indicates who moderated the open discussion for the article in question.
For articles authored by the area chair, he or she may still moderate the open discussion. However in such cases, and in other cases of possible conflict of interest, an alternative person - the "referee chair" - is always designated for coordinating the confidential refereeing and communicating with the referees.
Please click here to see an example of an article interaction page.