The 34th Annual Conference of the Japan Society for Educational Technology (JSET) was held at Tohoku University from September 28th to 30th. Between flight delays in the morning, rushing to the board meeting, coordinating and presenting at Tutorial Session 2, participating in the SIG04 “Informatization of Education” session, serving as a coordinator and moderator for the symposium, and participating in the management of SIG-03… it has been a while since I participated in a full conference like this, and while it was hectic, it was enjoyable.

Now, for the first time at JSET, we held a tutorial session (primarily) for reviewers. There are two types of tutorial sessions: one for those attending the JSET annual conference for the first time, and one organized by the Editorial Committee. I served as the coordinator for the latter. Until last year, we held a tutorial session on how to write a paper, but this time, we focused on review policies and points to keep in mind during the review process, targeting those who are currently serving as reviewers and those who might potentially do so in the future (though it could also be considered a session on how to write a paper). I brainstormed various ideas with Prof. Kato and Prof. Yamauchi, and we decided to do something a bit different from the usual paper-writing session.

Prof. Kato from the Open University of Japan, the Editor-in-Chief, spoke about the status and trends of paper acceptance and rejection. Prof. Yamauchi from the University of Tokyo, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief, spoke about points to keep in mind during the review process (such as expressions used in review conditions, the importance of creating opportunities when there is a possibility of revision, and the need to deal strictly with ethical issues). Finally, I took the liberty of speaking about how to respond to conditions to ensure the paper is read by reviewers (for the 2nd round). There were many questions, and as an editorial committee member, there were many things I had to think about. It was more successful than I expected; by my count, there were 113 participants, and some were even standing (Prof. Morishita from Shinshu University counted 131). Thank you very much for attending.

And now for the main topic…
I have served as a member of the organizing committee for special issues four times in total. The third time was for Learning Analytics last year, and the fourth is for Active Learning, which is currently ongoing as of 2018. How many papers have I reviewed? I don’t remember. I believe it is because I have done so much that I have been invited to be an editorial committee member and a member of the organizing committee for special issues. I am very grateful for this (perhaps it is time for me to graduate from special issues). Even with that experience, as someone who is both in a position to request reviews and in a position to perform them, I have been thinking a lot about “reviewing” recently.

Educational Technology is an interdisciplinary field. Each researcher has different strengths. I request reviews (and perform them myself) while taking those strengths into account as much as possible, but I believe it is important to share the basic idea of “let’s improve the submitted paper and make it widely accessible to readers.” After all, the accumulation of research findings in Educational Technology leads to the development of the research field, human resource development, and the subsequent development of society, so I believe that awareness is very important. That said, given the quality of submitted papers and the limit on the number of reviews in the case of JSET, it is often the case that things do not go as planned even when trying to improve research through reviews, and it is a difficult situation for reviewers and editors (I feel that many reviewers are troubled by this as well). Even so, educationally, I want to provide feedback on how to improve the paper (including changing the submission category), or if it reaches the limit and a decision is unfortunately made to return it, I want to provide feedback on things like research design if they intend to resubmit and aim for publication.

Another thing I feel is that while reviewing is a form of Paper-Mediated Communication between the reviewer and the author, there is also miscommunication. I see points where mutual misunderstandings arise. I think it is also important to reduce this miscommunication. As a reviewer, it is important to give clear revision instructions to the author (e.g., “please do X”) so as not to be misunderstood, and the author should also receive that message, avoid expressions that could be misunderstood, and do their utmost to ensure the reviewer clearly understands their intentions (I was taught by my mentor, Prof. Akahori, that “it is important to show sincerity. Sincerity is conveyed,” and I believe that is true).

Doing good research and writing a good paper are not necessarily synonymous. Paper writing requires technical skills that are separate from research design and execution capabilities. Research design/execution capabilities, paper writing, and reviewing are closely related. As long as I am an editorial committee member, I hope to continue contributing to the development of researchers. During the Q&A from the floor at Tutorial Session 2, I was asked, “Does the society not provide training for reviewers?” and after the session, I talked with Prof. Kato and Prof. Yamauchi, saying, “We should definitely continue this project in the future (30 minutes is too short, we need about an hour).”

I would be happy if we could continue this in the future.