The Peer Reviews and the Programming Course

Introduction: The Cover Letter To: Associate Editor, Quarterly Journal of MIS Research From: Author 635 Re: Submission 616 Subj: Revised Submission 15 December 2005 Dear Editor: Let me begin by apologizing for the 5 years it has taken me to get back to you with this revised submission. Addressing the reviewer comments proved more time consuming than I originally anticipated. Nonetheless, I believe that the revised manuscript--which is more like a complete rewrite than a revision--represents a sizeable improvement on the original. The new manuscript is provided as a separate attachment. The present document contains a summary of my responses to the reviewer comments. Because of the time that has passed, I also felt it prudent to include the original reviewer comments as well, which precede my responses to them. Thanks again for you patience. I look forward to hearing your reaction. Respectfully, Author 635 The Review Packet To: Author 635 From: Associate Editor, Quarterly Journal of MIS Research Re: Submission 616 Subj: Reviews of your manuscript 21 May 2000 Dear Author 635: We have finally received all three reviews back for your manuscript titled "An Introductory Programming Course". As you can clearly see, the comments were highly critical of numerous aspects of the submission--with two out of the three recommending outright rejection. Rather than summarily dismissing your work, however, we have decided to offer you the opportunity to resubmit a completely revised version of the manuscript. Two factors motivate this decision. First, there seems to be quite a bit of inconsistency regarding the nature of the deficiencies in the described course identified by the reviewers. Second, as an entirely fictitious journal, we have a relatively limited number of submissions to choose from. You should be cautioned, however, that "low standards" are not the same as "no standards"--there is no guarantee that any decision you make to submit a revised manuscript will necessarily lead to a favorable outcome. Attached are the forms filled out by the three reviewers, all of whom are acknowledged experts in the field (or the students of such experts). As you will see, each reviewer brings a somewhat different perspective on your manuscript. Reviewer 1 has raised a number of critical issues relating to the rigor of your protocol. Reviewer 2, on the other hand, seems most concerned about the manuscript's lack of topical relevance. Finally, Reviewer 3--who assigned the most favorable rating and provides specific guidance regarding how to proceed with such a revision--treats design issues as central. Should you undertake a revision of the manuscript, please include a memorandum detailing how you addressed each of the substantive concerns of these reviewers. This document will be critical in evaluating whether or not the revised version will be accepted. Regards, Editor Comments to author(s): Summary: The paper presents the protocol of an introductory undergraduate programming course using the C++ programming language as a research investigation. While the relevance of such an investigation, properly conducted, would be high, it is doubtful that the present manuscript could ever achieve the level of rigor required for publication in QJMISR. It is therefore recommended that the manuscript be rejected. Detailed comments:The manuscript is strongest with respect to relevance. Employment in the MIS field should experience rapid growth over the next decade, with MIS positions holding the top 7 spots in expected job growth for occupations requiring a bachelor's degree (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2004). Since most MIS programs appear have at least one programming course (Gill and Hu, 1998), the topic should be applicable to most programs. Moreover, since members of the research community--the principal audience of QJMISR--typically teaches two or more courses a semester (Hu and Gill, 2000), there may be some peripheral interest in pedagogy-based research amongst this constituency as well. …