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ONR Reviewer & Moderator Guide

A reference for ONR reviewers detailing the QA workflow, verifying open-source compliance, and moderating community-generated research summaries before publication.

This document serves as a reference for ONR Reviewers. In the Open Neuromorphic Research program, a “Reviewer” acts as a quality assurance (QA) moderator. Rather than conducting scientific peer review, your role is to verify open-source compliance and ensure our automated pipelines accurately reflect community sentiment before an entry is published to the website.

1. The Moderation Workflow

When a paper reaches the required engagement threshold (🔥) in the #onr-research Discord channel, our bot automatically generates a draft certificate page, including an AI-synthesized summary of the community’s discussion.

Before this draft goes live on the website, it enters a staging queue for human review.

  1. Notification: Reviewers are notified (via GitHub Pull Request or Discord DM) that a new ONR entry is staged for publication.
  2. Verification Check: You will review the staged Markdown file against the official ONR Review Criteria.
  3. Approval / Action:
  • Approve: If the links work, the license is genuinely open, and the summary is accurate, approve the Pull Request to publish the entry.
  • Edit: If the AI summary hallucinated a detail or missed a key point from the Discord chat, edit the Markdown file directly.
  • Reject / Reach Out: If the code repository is missing, private, or contains a restrictive license (like Non-Commercial or No-Derivatives), reject the draft. You may reach out to the authors to encourage them to adopt a fully open license so their work can be featured.

2. Guidelines for Summary Editing

The AI-generated summary of the Discord discussion should be factual and objective. When reviewing the draft:

  • No Editorializing: Ensure the summary does not inject opinions that weren’t present in the Discord chat.
  • Accurate Reflection: Check the #onr-research channel to confirm the summary captures the actual tone and highlights of the community’s conversation.
  • Clear Corrections: If the bot misidentified an author’s name or a framework, correct it in the frontmatter so the site’s taxonomy functions correctly.

3. Review Criteria

Your primary responsibility is enforcing ONM’s standards for openness. All staged submissions must be evaluated against the ONR Review Criteria.

Please familiarize yourself with this checklist—your review is the final gatekeeping step that ensures the “ONR Openness Verified” badge remains a trusted signal in the neuromorphic community.