icsme-review-process

ICSME Review Process

Model the pipeline before interpreting any single review. ICSME's process is **conference-style

and single-round**: papers are reviewed once, double-anonymously, and the outcome is accept or

reject — there is no journal-style Major Revision. The distinctive mechanism authors must plan

for is the early-decision cut: before the rebuttal even opens, the strongest and weakest papers

are already decided, and only the middle is asked to respond.

Process model

• Submission and review run on EasyChair with double-anonymity: author identities are

hidden from reviewers throughout.

• Each paper is read by multiple program-committee members who weigh the significance of the

maintenance/evolution contribution, soundness of method, quality and honesty of the empirical

evidence (mined data, subject systems, statistics), threats-to-validity reasoning, clarity, and

open-science support.

• At the start of the author-response period the PC issues an early decision:
• Accept — reviewers agree the paper is publishable as is; no response requested.
• Reject — reviewers judge the paper too deficient for a response to change; no response

requested.

• Response Recommended — the paper is in contention; authors may answer the PC's specific

questions.

• After responses and PC discussion, a final accept/reject is issued. Accepted papers publish

in IEEE Xplore.

Reading your early decision

| Early decision | What it means | Author move |

|---|---|---|

| Accept | Contribution and evidence hold; polish only | Camera-ready + ROSE artifact; do not reopen scope |

| Response Recommended | Genuinely in contention; specific PC questions decide it | Answer each question with existing evidence; correct misreadings |

| Reject (early) | Structural: wrong scope, no credible baseline, thin/confounded study | Reroute (SANER/SCAM/journal) or rebuild; do not resubmit unchanged |

The strategic reading: because there is no revision round, **write the initial submission so the

evidence is already complete.** An ICSME reviewer cannot ask you to add an analysis and wait — they

either believe the paper now or they do not. The rebuttal moves papers by resolving a specific

doubt, not by promising future work.

How ICSME differs from its siblings

• vs. ESEC/FSE: FSE papers are PACMSE journal articles with a real Major Revision

revise-and-resubmit round. ICSME has no such round — it is single-shot with an early-decision

cut and a rebuttal. Never plan an ICSME submission as if a revision will rescue thin evidence.

• vs. ICSE: ICSE is the general-SE flagship on a larger stage with its own (sometimes

multi-cycle) structure. ICSME is the maintenance/evolution-focused venue; a paper accepted at

either would differ in framing, not just calendar.

• vs. MSR/SCAM: its co-located siblings review mining-for-its-own-sake and source-analysis

machinery; ICSME reviewers ask what the maintenance payoff is.

Who reads you

Expect maintenance and evolution empiricists. They check whether subject systems are real and

evolving, whether the mined corpus is provenance-pinned, whether baselines are fair, whether the

threats-to-validity section argues rather than recites, and they often open the artifact. Because

ICSME spans techniques, empirical studies, comprehension, and replication, a paper is matched to

reviewers from its own subarea — vague method descriptions get caught, not skimmed.

Where author leverage actually exists

[Before submission]  topic tags + subject-system realism -> reviewer pool & credibility (largest lever)
[Early-decision cut] nothing to do once issued; it reflects the submitted paper alone
[Response Recommended] the single rebuttal: answer the PC's exact questions with existing evidence
[After reject]       no appeal; reroute to a sibling, a journal, or Registered Reports next cycle

A response moves borderline papers when it corrects a factual misreading or supplies a number a

reviewer said was missing and that already exists in the artifact; it does not move papers when it

argues taste or promises new experiments. Silence on a PC question the response was invited to

answer is read as inability to answer it.

Reading a review packet

Weight reviews before answering. A review that cites your section numbers, tables, and threats was

read closely; its author is your likely advocate if the response holds. Because there is no second

read, the PC discussion is where the decision is actually made — write the response as evidence for

that discussion, addressed to the specific questions the PC flagged.

Misreadings to avoid

• Expecting a revision round — there is none; the paper is judged as submitted.
• Treating "Response Recommended" as bad news — it means you are in contention and the rebuttal

matters; an early Accept or Reject is the terminal signal.

• Treating the response as a debate — the PC discussion decides; answer questions, do not argue.
• Projecting last year's cadence — the early-decision cut and response format are decided per

edition; confirm they are offered this cycle.

Output format

[Process stage] pre-submission / awaiting early decision / response period / final / accepted
[Decision category] early accept / response recommended / early reject / final accept / final reject
[Criterion map] each review point -> significance | soundness | evidence | threats | clarity | open-science
[Leverage plan] the response-period answer that can actually change the outcome
[Forbidden moves] identity leak / promising new experiments as if they were done