Reviewer Guide

The SEFI Journal of Engineering Education Advancement is SEFI's practice based journal and a companion publication to the more research driven European Journal of Engineering Education.

Context

As a practice based journal, both the readership and authors are likely to primarily be academics working directly in engineering education but with a desire to share their experiences and innovations beyond the confines of their own institutions. 

A good paper will be one which provides sufficient inspiration and evidence to encourage others to use and adapt the techniques explored to their own context.

What this means for reviews (and reviewers !)

The nature of this practice based work means that the lens through which the reviewers examine work may be different than you may be used to.

Some specific issues you may wish to think about in reviewing the work include :

  • Be supportive of authors, for some this may be their first journal paper in education and will be something they have seen make a real difference to the students and their own practice.
  • We expect the authors to show a good awareness of current classroom practice of the topic and of initiatives published in the literature to address the issue being explored. A fully comprehensive literature review is not always going to be appropriate. 
  • As practitioners developing a new initiatives the authors will have primarily been driven by the implementation practicalities and timelines at their institution rather than by a desire to carry out formal pedagogical research. This may mean that formal classic methodologies and approaches may not have been viable.
  • All papers should be expected to critically review their work but again this must be placed in the context of a practice based implementation of the work - extensive before and after data sets may not always be possible but indicative subjective and objective appraisal should always be possible.
  • Consider how adaptable the approach and work described by the author will be to our readers. Very niche work with a focus on the technical elements of the project must not be discounted but may not be easy for practitioners to adapt to their own contexts.
  • Be encouraging of authors who wish to include eg. worksheets or questionaires where these would offer a helping hand to readers wishing to adopt the approach.

Some Practical Requests

  • If you would like papers in a particular area - project based learning, industry links, pastoral support, assessment etc. ensure you fill out your profile accordingly and we will do our best to direct the most relevant papers your way.
  • If an invite comes through to review a paper please accept or decline the offer promptly. This ensures we can promptly reallocate the review if needed.
  • If you would like to the review the paper but need a small extension please contact us.
  • Try to submit according to the timeline offered but again let us know if an extension is required.

Conflict of Interest

While editors will not send reviews to reviewers at the same institution(s) as the authors of a paper, there still is scope for inadvertent pairing of authors and reviewers. As a reviewer, the information passed to you will be anonymised. If however having read the abstract or full paper you feel you may be a close collaborator of the author we request you disclose this suspicion allowing us to investigate and reallocate as reqired.

You should also disclose any commercial interest in any of the products (eg. software, lab equipment) being examined by the paper.

Use of AI

As a reviewer, you should not use AI to review the papers offered to you or to draft the review itself. Simple proof reading and grammatical tidying is however acceptable.