At the LAK 2025 conference in Dublin, Ireland, Hendrik Drachsler was honored with the Best Senior Reviewer Award. We congratulate Hendrik for this high level of recognition for his outstanding contributions to the scientific peer-reviewing process!
The Best Senior Reviewer award is not just a statement of appreciation, it represents a commitment to academic integrity, knowledge exchange and high-quality research. At a time when the peer review process is under increasing pressure, recognizing and valuing reviewers is a crucial step in maintaining the credibility and advance of Learning Analytics as a discipline.
Especially in fast-moving fields like Learning Analytics and AI in education there has been a rapid increase of academic publications, which has created a large bottleneck in the peer review process. Many journals and conferences struggle to find competent and committed reviewers. This lack of reviewers can lead to delays, inconsistent feedback, and sometimes even to qualitatively lower evaluations. This award therefore identifies and acknowledges senior researchers who provide high-quality peer reviews despite the increasing academic pressures.
The LAK community has established itself as a collaborative research community, and a high-quality review culture strengthens this foundation. Giving peer reviews is not just about “gatekeeping”; it helps to shape the discourse by ensuring accuracy and promoting the academic discussions and mentorship of young researchers. With this award LAK also acknowledges engaged reviewers, such as Hendrik, who provide constructive feedback and help authors refine their arguments, methods and contributions to the field.
Learning Analytics is an interdisciplinary field and peer reviews require a great deal of expertise, as they must weigh up technical, pedagogical and ethical considerations. LAK has been proactive in providing guidelines and structured feedback templates to improve the quality and consistency of reviews. Recognizing senior reviewers encourages best practices in scientific evaluation, ensuring that accepted papers contribute meaningfully to the field. This recognition and celebration of review excellence is a positive example for other research communities to encourage broader adoption of reviewer recognition programs, improving the overall health of the peer-review system.
Unlike authorship, high-quality reviewing remains a largely unseen and undervalued contribution to the academic world. The Best Senior Reviewer Award aims to change this and shines a spotlight on this essential work to promote reviewing as a scholarly contribution and not an administrative burden.
Spotlight on you Hendrik – and thanks for your valuable contributions to LA.