An issue raised at the AECT convention this year is whether graduate students should be allowed to review proposals for future conventions. The concern is that if students review, the conference will no longer be seen as "peer-reviewed" for tenure boards. Most people I talked to said this issue will not pose a problem for their tenure committees, but a few said it could. Ironically, several people I talked to said graduate students are often their best reviewers of all.
I think we can find a way to compromise that will make the reviewing stringent enough for review councils but still offer graduate students the opportunity to serve as proposal reviewers.
If you have opinions on this issue, I encourage you to go to Chris Miller’s blog and express them there. The following is what I wrote on his blog this morning:
The issue was raised that AECT (because of students reviewing) is not a peer review conference. But if this is the definition of peer review, then what is AERA? Students review for AERA. They even review for DIVISIONS and not just SIGs. Yes, it’s true. I have done so, as have other students I know. No, we did not all have the requisite "5 publications" AERA asks for. In reality, AERA doesn’t have a set standard. They just ask for your CV, but they don’t make unilateral exclusions or inclusions criteria. They leave it up to each division and SIG to judge whether someone’s CV qualifies them to review.
I think that would be wise for AECT as well. Any unilateral decisions are foolish. As Michael points out, some grad students have great practical experience that qualifies them to review, or even significant research experience. Kay pointed this out in the AECT executive board meeting when she said that many "students" in the Teacher Ed division are former teachers and even school administrators. So they could be considered qualified to review, especially for practice-oriented proposals.
I think what AECT should do (or at least our own division) is create a database of reviewers (drawn from the database of members). Require an abbreviated CV of every reviewer the first time. In subsequent years, a note could be made in the database that they have already reviewed once so that they don’t have to submit a CV any more.
Then, maybe make a base standard that every proposal gets reviewed by 1 or maybe 2 people with terminal degrees. This would allow people to answer with confidence that it was a "peer" review no matter how you define "peer." If students want to be the remaining 1-2 reviewers on each proposal, then let them submit their CVs and let the program officers make the decision on a case-by-case basis based on their research or practical experience. Once approved, put the mark next to their names in the database as well so future program officers know this student is experienced enough to review.
For those students not quite qualified yet to do it on their own, kindly encourage them to do a mentored reviewing experience with their advisor this first year and to continue to work on their publication record.
I understand the need to satisfy tenure boards, and this kind of process would do it. It would also allow students who are ready to review to do so, which is good for them and necessary for AECT. Maybe some program planners like our wonderful Tony Pina will review every single proposal, but we can’t count on that every year–it’s unreasonable. So to get enough reviewers, most program planners will need to tap into the student population to some degree.
And that’s what every other organization does–including AERA.
BTW, if the database idea is impractical, much of what I have said could still be done without it, although it would duplicate work if you asked for CVs every year. But at least there could be, in the system for submitting a proposal, a simple check box for "do you want to review proposals" with a text box for your most recent publications. People could just cut and paste from their vitas.
Rick
Tags: AECT2007, students, GSA, Graduate Student Assembly
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