Reviewer Guidelines
Peer review is central to AITC 2027. These guidelines describe what we expect from reviewers and how the review process will run.
Guiding Principles
A good review creates value for two groups:
- Authors — by giving them actionable, constructive feedback to improve their work.
- The community — by helping maintain a high standard of published research and fostering a healthy research culture.
Reviewers are expected to be polite, respectful, and professional throughout the entire review process. Poor reviews harm not just individual authors, but the field as a whole.
Best Practices
- Be thoughtful. The submission may be from a first-time submitter. Your words carry weight.
- Be useful. Write reviews that are helpful to authors, fellow reviewers, and area chairs alike.
- Be specific. Vague criticism is hard to act on. Back up every concern with concrete reasoning.
- Be timely. Respect deadlines. If you can’t complete a review on time, notify your area chair immediately.
- Avoid discriminatory language or anything unrelated to scientific content and clarity.
How to Write a Good Review
- Read the submission carefully — take notes, highlight key contributions, and flag sections that need a closer look.
- Evaluate the claims — check that experiments actually test the stated hypotheses, verify proofs where relevant, and assess whether conclusions follow from the results.
- Consider related work — does the submission position itself appropriately in the literature? Missing citations are fine if they wouldn’t change the submission’s conclusions; flag them if they would.
- Write constructive feedback — every weakness you raise should be substantiated and, where possible, paired with a suggestion for improvement.
Review Workflow
Reviewing for AITC 2027 takes place on OpenReview. The venue link will be published together with the call for papers.
- Reviewers receive their assignments and submit all reviews through OpenReview.
- The review form described below is completed directly in the OpenReview interface.
- Discussion with area chairs and any author response phase also take place on the platform.
The review timeline — including assignment dates, review deadlines, and the discussion period — is to be announced and will be published with the call for papers.
Ethics and Confidentiality
Submissions are shared with you in confidence, solely for the purpose of review.
- Keep submissions confidential. Do not share, distribute, or publicly discuss a submission or its ideas before publication.
- Do not use unpublished material. Ideas, data, or results from a submission must not inform your own work until they are publicly available.
- Declare conflicts of interest. If you recognize the work or have a personal, institutional, or financial conflict, tell your area chair and decline the assignment.
- Protect the submission. Do not upload submissions or review content to external services in a way that violates the AITC LLM use policy for reviewing.
Review Form
Summary
Briefly describe the submission and its contributions in your own words. This is not a critique — the authors should broadly agree with your summary. Do not simply paste the abstract.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Provide a thorough assessment across four dimensions:
- Soundness — Are the claims well-supported by theory or experiments? Are methods appropriate and results honestly reported? (Note: soundness and impact are separate — a technically sound submission can have modest contributions, and a high-impact idea still needs rigorous support.)
- Presentation — Is the submission clearly written and well-structured? Does it adequately discuss related work?
- Significance — Does the submission address an important problem? Could it influence future research or practice?
- Originality — Does it offer new insights, methods, perspectives, or novel combinations of existing ideas? Originality doesn’t require an entirely new method — new understanding or evaluation of existing approaches counts too.
Ratings
Rate each dimension on a 1–4 scale. If you give a 2 (fair) or 1 (poor), your Strengths and Weaknesses section must clearly justify why.
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 4 | Excellent |
| 3 | Good |
| 2 | Fair |
| 1 | Poor |
Dimensions: Soundness · Presentation · Significance · Originality
Limitations
Have the authors adequately discussed limitations and potential negative societal impact? If yes, simply write “Yes.” If not, offer constructive suggestions. Authors should not be penalized for being transparent about limitations.
Overall Recommendation
| Score | Verdict |
|---|---|
| 6 | Strong Accept — Technically flawless, exceptional impact, no ethical concerns |
| 5 | Accept — Technically solid, high impact in at least one area, strong evaluation |
| 4 | Weak Accept — Solid contribution others can build on, but with some limitations (use sparingly) |
| 3 | Weak Reject — Clear merits, but weaknesses outweigh them; revisions needed (use sparingly) |
| 2 | Reject — Technical flaws, weak evaluation, poor reproducibility, or unclear claims |
| 1 | Strong Reject — Well-known results, unaddressed ethical issues, or incomprehensible contribution |
Reviewer Confidence
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 5 | Absolutely certain — very familiar with related work, carefully checked details |
| 4 | Confident, but not certain — minor gaps possible |
| 3 | Fairly confident — some parts may have been unclear or unchecked |
| 2 | Uncertain — likely missed central parts or relevant prior work |
| 1 | Educated guess — outside your area or very difficult to understand |
Ethical Concerns
If you believe the submission raises ethical issues, inform an area chair. Relevant areas include:
- Discrimination, bias, or fairness
- Harmful potential applications
- Privacy and security
- Legal compliance
- Research integrity (e.g., plagiarism)
- Other
If flagging, please describe your concerns in detail.
Policy Acknowledgements
By submitting your review, you confirm that:
- You have complied with the AITC LLM use policy for reviewing, which will be shared with reviewers on OpenReview.
- You have abided by and will continue to abide by the AITC Code of Conduct.
Reviewer Recognition
We value the time and care that reviewing takes. Reviewers for AITC 2026 received reviewer certificates in recognition of their service, and reviewer recognition will continue for AITC 2027. Details will be announced with the call for papers.
Become a Reviewer
Reviewer sign-up opens together with the call for papers. Until then, interested reviewers are welcome to contact us at aitc@coairesearch.org.