Towards A Sustainable Future for Peer Review in Software Engineering

TL;DR

This paper envisions a sustainable, scalable, and inclusive future for peer review in software engineering by proposing mechanisms to attract, train, and incentivize reviewers, and cautiously integrating AI tools to enhance review quality.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive vision for improving peer review in software engineering through new mechanisms and AI integration to address reviewer scarcity and quality.

Findings

Proposes attracting and training newcomers as reviewers.

Suggests incentivizing community participation in peer review.

Recommends cautious integration of AI tools to support review quality.

Abstract

Peer review is the main mechanism by which the software engineering community assesses the quality of scientific results. However, the rapid growth of paper submissions in software engineering venues has outpaced the availability of qualified reviewers, creating a growing imbalance that risks constraining and negatively impacting the long-term growth of the Software Engineering (SE) research community. Our vision of the Future of the SE research landscape involves a more scalable, inclusive, and resilient peer review process that incorporates additional mechanisms for: 1) attracting and training newcomers to serve as high-quality reviewers, 2) incentivizing more community members to serve as peer reviewers, and 3) cautiously integrating AI tools to support a high-quality review process.