Invitation to Review Conference Proposals: Pros and Cons? WWTFD?

[mamselle]

I've presented as often as allowed (every other year) at an international (humanities) conference for the past....hmm...20? years.

I just got an email invitation to self-nominate as a reviewer of proposals for the next two conference years, and I'm--besides flattered, a bit, and happy to serve if I can--a bit befuddled as to what's involved and what kind of time commitment is usually involved.

I'm an independent scholar, not currently adjuncting (although as soon as I get finished with this loving-octopus of a non-profit EA job, supporting a longstanding friend who's retired as its director) that might be one of the constellation of options I'd look at again; one has to be a nimble academic platypus some days--which can in fact be kinda fun....

So I'm not tied to a school at present, and not needing to show service to the field, per se (even as an adjunct, I've usually done so, anyway, to strengthen community connections and be a good scholarly citizen; I've been lucky that those schools have appreciated and supported those efforts, in a couple cases with travel or other small stipends).

But not having done so before, I don't have a clear sense of the work involved. Will I end up with hundreds of reviews to do, or some smaller, more reasonable number? (What's a reasonable number?)

I can see the benefits from a networking standpoint, but are there any downsides, like ill-will from people finding out (despite whatever security protocols are in place) who rejected them, etc?

I'm feeling a tiny bit of imposter syndrome, as well, but I do keep up on the scholarship in my fields, so I can kind-of argue myself out of the trees on that one, and I recognize this is a way to stay ahead of the lit curve even more fully.

I'm also curious how I was asked, but it could have been a random email dragnet, or one of several friends who are on conference committees that I know of (and if I turn it down, will I ever be asked again? Probably not...)

So, short question: given all the givens, any suggestions?

To do, or not to do?

M.

[ergative]

A rule of thumb I've seen is to volunteer to review as many times as you make work for reviewers. So if you submit a paper that has three reviewers, then you should say yes to three review requests.

If you've presented at this conference, then evidently you're qualified to review for it! And if you've made work for conference reviewers by submitting your own proposals, then it would be the collegial thing to do to agree to review for it.

One thing I like about conference reviewing is that it is way of volunteering your time that no one else makes money off of. Conferences (in my field) don't make a profit, and are not run by the big publishers. It's just a way for colleagues to get together and share research.

[Hibush]

One assumption of this model is that reviewers are paid by their employer for the time spent reviewing. If you would have to do it on your own time, make sure you a meaningful return your valuable contribution in another form.

One return could be that the conference has one or more sessions consisting of the people you personally want to see most. Or that puts you in a session with the preeminent people in your field (resist that impostor's voice in your head!)

[mamselle]

Thanks! Those are helpful insights.

Yes, I neglected to mention, they offer free conference registration for the next two years in recompense.

And I should have said, they want to know by April 1, so....short time frame to decision-making.

I'll ponder your ideas.

Others?

M.

[polly_mer]

What's your time worth?  Is it comparable to a free registration?  What will you not be doing if you do this service instead of something else and how much is that lost opportunity worth?

Yes, being an active member of the community is important, but is that the best use of your time this year?

I would ask the organizers about time commitment and duration of time commitment.  20 hours at one hour per week and then a whole afternoon the week after the deadline is different than a couple meetings before the deadline and then two full days of discussion the week after the deadline.

[mamselle]

Thanks.

Yes, that's one of my questions as well.

Having never done this before, I can't tell from the invitation what the time commitment expectations are like for this situation (perhaps that in itself should be a flag to pay attention to!)

I've reached out to another friend who's historically been more active in the organization (and who I think may have already done something like it in her field) to see if they can give me a sense of the time frame and other expectations as well.

I thought I'd wait to hear from them before contacting the coordinators in case I needed some parallax on the requirements (i.e., a reality check if they make it sound simpler than it really might be).

More pondering...

Others?

M

[Volhiker78]

Since you have attended the conference fairly frequently, it must be one that you find interesting. So that's a pro for self/nominating.

I can only give my experience in my discipline. I reviewed proposals for Invited Sessions at a meeting that had about 30 invited sessions. So it is was a smaller meeting - at the time I volunteered, maybe 500 attendees?  I only reviewed proposals for my sub-discipline so I didn't review all of the proposals.  Other reviewers might have reviewed more, I can't remember.  So for about 10 slots, I reviewed about 20-30 proposals.  Each proposal was about 2 pages with an overall abstract and a list of intended speakers. Some of the speakers also had abstracts but they were usually very brief. I didn't find ranking the proposals very difficult or time consuming. An overall group of reviewers met twice over conference calls.  The first meeting was just process discussion and the second longer meeting discussed everyone's rank order. 

The whole thing was not very time consuming for me and I found the conversation with other reviewers interesting.  If asked,  I would do it again.

[ab_grp]

The professional orgs I belong to seem happy to accept any reviewers due to the number of submissions they receive.  I have reviewed for many over the years, and they are all different, so I'm glad you are trying to get more details about the process and what is required.  Some have been fairly low workload, such as being asked to review five proposals that are each limited to 1000 words or so.  Others were much more time-intensive, such as having to review almost 30 of varying types (independent paper session contribution, coordinated paper session, roundtables, poster presentations) under a tight timeline in a really terrible review system.  I would say most proposal limits have ranged between 800 and 3000 words.  But sometimes you can review within a subset of the proposals (e.g., special interest group).  It would also be good to know if you can indicate your interests and expertise in the system or to the program chairs so that the proposals you receive are more comfortably in your wheelhouse.  Even if you aren't an expert on all of the topics, it's usually important for the program chairs to know whether these topics fit in with the conference theme and are of broader interest to attendees.  As for compensation, there are a few conferences I've attended for which free registration would be a great deal, especially if you don't have an affiliation to pay for it for you.  Every org and conference is different, so I hope your friend can provide some insight.

[Morden]

I often review for conferences I'm interested in. Usually, I'm given a subset of anonymized proposals (anywhere from 3-15) and a rubric with space for a few comments to authors or organizers. The rubric usually has categories like "Situates project within current literature" and "Will be of interest to conference attendees." So it's pretty fast to fill in. And it's a chance to help make the conference more interesting (from my perspective, of course). There's usually multiple reviewers for each proposal, which helps even things out.

[rxprof]

I am in a different discipline, but I regularly review conference proposals. For the conferences I attend, I typically spend no more than 2 hours reviewing the 5-10 abstracts that I am assigned. I am careful to indicate my areas of expertise, if options are provided.

[Hegemony]

I'd say try it out, and if it turns out to be too much of a time commitment, you can say No next time around. Meanwhile it will be a way of keeping your name as a "helpful person and colleague" in people's minds. That probably will have only a modest payoff, but you never know. You'll also get a look at the work your colleagues and fellow conference-attenders are doing. So it seems like a Go to me.

[mamselle]

Thanks, all!

I've felt encouraged enough to reply saying I might be interested and would like to know more about the expected workload and likely time commitments.

I'll update when I hear back.

I'm mostly inclined to do it, if it's not too onerous, since I have fewer opportunities to connect with other scholars on a regular basis, and I'm not worried about the length--the limit is 300 words per abstract, so they shouldn't be long or hard to read.

M.
   

[spork]

Money talks, everything else walks. How much will you be compensated? Cash in hand? Waiver of conference registration fee? Complimentary hotel accommodations?

A few months ago I got paid $150 by the government of Singapore to review a grant proposal. I'm willing to work for Singapore again.

[Parasaurolophus]

FWIW, I've served on the program committee for my subfield's big annual conference twice now. We have ~700 members, and usually get ~140 or so papers sent for the conference. We split them between us so that everyone reads and evaluates 20-30 of them.

Conversely, for the divisional conferences, we send papers out to referees directly, and never more than 2 per referee (usually just one).

[Harlow2]

The 2 national conferences I have reviewed for send packets of a couple of sessions with clear scoring rubrics. Not time consuming.  No compensation.