Peer review is an integral part of an academic journal. Without it, papers aren’t vetted for fit for the journal, completeness, evidence, in fact, nothing is checked.
A good example of the usefulness of peer review is Fermat’s last theorem.
Until Andrew Wiles proved it in 1994, many proofs had been offered. Including Wiles’ own first proof. Reviewers found problems with all of them and until Wiles offered his improved proof, no one had proved it.
Without reviewers, we could have accepted that proof as being true and correct… when it wasn’t.
This is a blog about DTRAP, so why am I using a math example? Well, it’s a very old math example. Fermat’s Last theorem was first proposed in 1637. Years and years of proofs were attempted before one was found to actually be correct. Cybersecurity isn’t quite that old.
The point is though, that reviewers are an integral part to a journal. They’re the experts in the field who can look over the evidence presented in a paper and judge if it’s correct. Is this paper reasonable? Novel? Does it use good practices in creating the result? A reviewer is there to judge all of that and are the gatekeepers for a journal.
As a reviewer, you can be on the forefront of Cybersecurity, examining the claims of researchers and their evidence. Without them, the journal is nothing more than a collection of papers. With them, they’re a collection of papers that have meaning because experts like you said ‘this is a good paper and this should be read’.
DTRAP can always use good reviewers. Sign up at https://dtrap.acm.org/ as a reviewer and be the experts we need.