Call for Reviewers
If you still have not applied and would like to help in reviewing submissions, you can find our reviewer form here!
Your Role
As a reviewer you are central to the program creation process for AI4NA. Your Area Chairs (ACs) and the Program Chairs (PCs) will rely greatly on your expertise and your diligent and thorough reviews to make decisions on each paper. Therefore, your role as a reviewer is critical to ensuring a strong program for AI4NA.
High-quality reviews are also very valuable for helping authors improve their work, whether it is eventually accepted by AI4NA, or not. Therefore it is important to treat each valid submission with equal care.
Important Dates
Submissions close: Monday, 10 Feb 2025, 11:59PM UTC-12
Area chairs and reviewers bidding begin: Tuesday, 11 Feb 2025
Area chairs and reviewers bidding end: Thursday, 13 Feb 2025, 11:59PM UTC-12
Review period begin: Friday, 14 Feb 2025
Review period end: Thursday, 27 Feb 2025, 11:59PM UTC-12
Area chairs meta-review begin: Friday, 28 Feb 2025
Area chairs meta-review end: Monday, 3 Mar 2025, 11:59PM UTC-12
Notification of acceptance: Wednesday, 5 Mar 2025
Instructions
Blind Reviews
Authors were asked to take reasonable efforts to hide their identities, including not listing their names or affiliations and omitting acknowledgments. This information will of course be included in the final version. Reviewers should also make all efforts to keep their identity invisible to the authors. ArXiv papers are not considered prior work since they have not been peer reviewed. Therefore, you should review your papers independently as if the arXiv papers didn't exist. Citations to these papers are not required and failing to cite or beat performance of arXiv papers are not grounds for rejection. An important general guideline is to make every effort to treat papers fairly whether or not they know (or suspect) who wrote them. Reviewers should not search for the authors of a paper, and complain that the paper is not anonymous if they happen to find them.
Check Your Papers
As soon as you get your reviewing assignment, please go through all the assigned papers to make sure that (a) there is no obvious conflict with you (e.g., a paper authored by your recent collaborator from a different institution) and (b) you feel comfortable to review the paper assigned. If either of these issues arise, please let us know right away by contacting your the Area Chair using OpenReview.
What to Look For
Minor flaws can be corrected and shouldn't be a reason to reject a paper. Acceptance and rejection decisions should not be determined solely by the method's raw performance. Rather, it is important to weigh both the novelty and potential impact of the work on the society alongside the reported performance. Impact can be on the research community, but also on the specific problem being addressed.
Each short paper that is accepted should be technically sound and make a contribution to the field.
It is important to note that the potential impact of a proposition is one of the most important criteria. Some problems do not require technical novelty, but instead thoughtful application of existing methods. Papers in that category (i.e. impactful but not necessarily novel) should not be rejected for this reason only.
Writing Technical Reviews
Here are some specific issues to keep in mind as you write your reviews:
- Extremely short reviews are unhelpful to authors, other reviewers, and Area Chairs. If you have agreed to review a paper, you should take enough time to write a thoughtful and detailed review.
- Be specific when you suggest that the writing needs to be improved. If there is a particular section that is unclear, point it out and give suggestions for how it can be clarified.
- Be specific about novelty. Claims in a review that the submitted work "has been done before" MUST be backed up with specific references and an explanation of how closely they are related. At the same time, for a positive review, be sure to summarize what novel aspects are most interesting in the strengths.
- Citations to papers that have only been published without review (e.g. ArXiv or Technical reports) are not required. Therefore, missing these citations is not grounds for rejecting a paper.
- If you think the paper is out of scope for the workshop subject areas, clearly explain why in the review.
First Time Reviewers
If you’re reviewing for the first time, you can additionally refer to ICLR’s official guidelines for insights and examples here.
The Use of Large Language Models (LLMs)
The use of LLMs to write full reviews is not allowed. LLM written reviews are easy to spot and the program committee will be rejecting such reviews. You may use LLMs as a writing assistance tool, for example to correct grammar. Reviewers should understand that they take full responsibility for the contents written under their name, including content generated by LLMs that could be construed as plagiarism or scientific misconduct (e.g., fabrication of facts).
Collaboration with Nature Methods
AI4NA is proud to partner with Nature Methods to offer authors of high-quality, novel submissions with strong biological validation the opportunity for their work to be considered for publication in the journal.
To facilitate this process, we will kindly ask for your consent upon registration to share your reviews and identity with the Editors at Nature Methods for selected submissions. This collaboration ensures a rigorous and transparent evaluation process, maintaining the highest standards of peer review.
Key Points Regarding Consent:
- Voluntary Consent: Sharing your reviews and identity with Nature Methods is entirely voluntary. If you prefer not to participate, this will not affect your role as a reviewer for AI4NA.
- Scope of Sharing: Only reviews for selected submissions invited for consideration by Nature Methods will be shared.
- Editorial Oversight: The Nature Methods Editors will collaborate with AI4NA reviewers and additional expert reviewers to ensure a fair and comprehensive evaluation of selected submissions.
Thank you for your contribution to AI4NA and for supporting our collaboration with Nature Methods to advance research at the intersection of AI and nucleic acids.