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Reviewer Guidelines for the
INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics: Regular Implementation Papers
Michael F. Gorman
The INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (IJAA) is unique in its mission to publish manuscripts focusing on the practice of operations research (OR) and management science (MS) and the impact that this practice has had on organizations throughout the world. As such, reviewers who are not familiar with the journal may inadvertently provide inaccurate or unhelpful reviews for papers that are submitted. These guidelines are provided in order to encourage consistent and high-quality article reviews for IJAA.
The IJAA editorial board seeks reviews which examine the work as a whole, in addition to detailed editorial comments. Though reviews must be a serious assessment of the work, reviews should be constructive and coaching, not critical and in search of fault. More of IJAA’s authors are practitioners (rather than academics) relative to the author constitution in most ORMS journals; hence, the norms of academic writing may be unfamiliar and patient guidance required of reviewers. IJAA strives to encourage the publication of the world’s best applications. As such, it is important to encourage improvement of the presentation of such submissions rather than to act as a gatekeeper.
Critical attributes of an IJAA article are: impact of the implemented work, novelty of the implementation, generalizability of the work to other companies or industries, and sophistication of the method. The work must differentiate itself from any other published accounts of similar implementations. The work must be described in sufficient detail that a reader could use the ideas in their own modeling work.
Note that the work must be implemented, but the methodology employed need not be novel to the literature. No “proofs” are required, no “nearness to optimality” need be determined, and no “demonstration of fast solution time” need be shown. The focus is on how much improvement in practice (where “improvement” may be defined myriad of ways) was achieved.
Reviewers should become familiar with IJAA’s submission guidelines for authors (IJAA, 2024) in order to understand expectations for submission; however, journal style enforcement and copy editing suggestions are secondary considerations in any review. Observations and suggestions are certainly welcome, but the job of the reviewer is to first evaluate the work, and then the writing style.
IJAA articles are meant to be approachable by practitioners and students. As such, there is no math in the body of the manuscript. Rather, the mathematics are described using English in the main body of the manuscript, and mathematical models relegated to the appendix.
IJAA Paper Style Overview
The most common papers in IJAA are descriptions of the practice and implementation of OR/MS in commerce, industry, government, or education, though IJAA also accepts tutorials and literature reviews. In the common case of applied analytics, the journal requires any project to be actually implemented, in use, and generating benefits (monetary or other) for the client organization. Every implementation manuscript must be accompanied by a letter of authentication from the client organization which confirms that the work is in use, and verifies the benefits accrued to the organization.
IJAA requires the use of sophisticated, advanced analytical methods, but does not require the methodology to be new or a contribution to the theoretical literature. Though authors must be familiar with and provide a literature review and should explain why they used the methods they chose, the methods can be and often are already in the literature. The chosen method need not be the most efficient or new, but a justification for why the methodology is appropriate should be provided.
IJAA Writing Style
While reiterating that editorial suggestions are secondary to evaluating the quality of the implemented work, IJAA expects authors to write in a clear and concise manner. The required IJAA writing style requires that articles use active voice and first person. Writing should be in plain English and should avoid jargon and excessive acronyms. Captions for figures and tables should be in complete sentences, interpreting the information therein for the reader and conveying its implications. The article title should also use active voice: e.g., rather than “An application of XYZ method in industry,” suggest “ABC Corp uses XYZ to improve operations.”
Suggested Reviewer Template
A suggested reviewer template follows, with questions to ask while evaluating the manuscript. Of course, a manuscript need not address all of these questions successfully. Rather these questions provide the reviewer with the types of attributes to look for in an IJAA submission.
Overview: The reviewer’s overview of the work should summarize the paper in a few sentences.- What organization and industry are covered?
- What organizational problem was addressed?
- What method(s) were deployed?
- What was the impact of the project?
- Was sufficient background given on the industry or environment for that organization?
- Was sufficient background given on the problem faced?
- Were jargon and acronyms avoided, or at least sufficiently defined or explained?
- Was the data used by the modeling effort clearly described?
- Was the method deployed clearly described?
- Did the description have enough detail that a reader could reasonably use the information in their own modeling efforts?
- Were other potential methods discussed (with appropriate citations to the literature)?
- Is this implementation significantly different than other published accounts of implemented work?
- Was the environment in which the method deployed described, including the decision-making process, system integration, and user interaction with the system?
- Was the mathematical model provided in the appendix?
- Was proper notation used, variables and parameters defined?
- Was enough modeling detail provided?
- Did the verification letter benefits align with those presented in the manuscript?
- Was the implementation of the work clearly described?
- Were the benefits clearly described, including the methodology for demonstrating those benefits?
- Were the benefits described clearly attributable to the work itself?
- Were the challenges of implementation and how they were overcome discussed?
- Were the lessons learned after conducting the project described in a way the reader would benefit?
- Is the manuscript well written, in clear, concise, direct language using active voice?
- Did the manuscript provide valuable insights for the practitioner?
- Does the manuscript provide insights for future theoretical research?
- Was the impact of the project meaningful and important for the implementing organization?
- Could this work be transferred to other organizations and industries?
- Was sufficient detailed description provided?
- Is the work unique, creative, novel or innovative?
- Is the work approachable for students and practitioners?
- Is the work interesting and useful to researchers?
References:
INFORMS IJAA (2024). INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics Submission Guidelines. /page/inte/submission-guidelines