Background: Review Protocol Pages and the ETAI
This Review Protocol Page (RPP) is a part of the webpage structure
for the Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, or
ETAI. The ETAI is an electronic journal that uses the Internet
medium not merely for distributing the articles, but also for a
novel, two-stage review procedure. The first review phase is open
and allows the peer community to ask questions to the author and
to create a discussion about the contribution. The second phase -
called refereeing in the ETAI - is like conventional journal
refereeing except that the major part of the required feedback
is supposed to have occurred already in the first, review phase.
The referees make a recommendation whether the article is to be
accepted or declined, as usual. The article and the discussion
remain on-line regardless of whether the article was accepted or
not. Additional questions and discussion after the acceptance decision
are welcomed.
The Review Protocol Page is used as a working structure for the entire
reviewing process. During the first (review) phase it accumulates the
successive debate contributions. If the referees make specific
comments about the article in the refereeing phase, then those comments
are posted on the RPP as well, but without indicating the identity
of the referee. (In many cases the referees may return simply an
" accept" or " decline" recommendation, namely if sufficient feedback
has been obtained already in the review phase).
