CLEER-ACCURATE Study at SEFI 2026

Information for authors submitting to SEFI 2026

Context

In the context of SEFI 2026, authors submitting a paper are invited to participate in the CLEER-ACCURATE research study. Participation is voluntary and has no impact on the peer-review process or acceptance decisions. The reviewers will have no insight into participation or the individual outcomes of the study.

The study is conducted alongside the standard conference workflow and complies with all applicable ethical and data-protection requirements.

Note on the use of AI
The CLEER-ACCURATE study does not influence the peer-review process, reviewer judgments, or acceptance or rejection decisions at SEFI 2026. All submissions are reviewed exclusively by human reviewers following the standard SEFI procedures. CLEER and any AI-supported analysis are used only for research purposes after final decisions have been made.

What is CLEER?

CLEER (Clearinghouse of Engineering Education Resources) is a curated database of peer-reviewed engineering education research. Its aim is to improve access to high-quality work by applying expert-defined quality criteria in a transparent and responsible way.

CLEER explores how locally deployed large language models (LLMs) can support research curation while respecting established academic practices. As such, these tools do not aim to replace peer review and are not used in conference decision-making.

Learn more about CLEER: https://cleer.euroteq.eu

Purpose of the CLEER-ACCURATE study

The CLEER-ACCURATE study examines how the outputs of the CLEER curation model align with outcomes from the SEFI 2026 peer-review process.

The study:

is conducted after final acceptance decisions,
uses anonymised submission and review data only, and
does not provide any CLEER outputs to reviewers or decision-makers.

The goal is to assess realistic and responsible future uses of curated research services for the engineering education community. At no stage do CLEER or AI-based tools influence reviewer assessments, scores, or acceptance or rejection decisions.

What participation involves

Participation does not change how authors interact with the conference. No additional tasks, questionnaires, or actions are required.

Authors who opt in during the submission process allow anonymised versions of their submission and associated review metadata to be included in the study. Authors who do not opt in will not have their data used for research purposes. In all cases, participation has no effect on review outcomes or presentation eligibility.

Authors and co-authors can opt-out of the study up until the decision on the submission has been made. Once the decision has been made, the anonymised submissions will be sent for analysis. You can opt out by contacting the SEFI 2026 conference organizers directly.

Ethics, data protection, and participant rights
The CLEER-ACCURATE study has been reviewed by the EPFL Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), which is also responsible for data-protection compliance reviews. The review concluded that the study does not require an ethics approval as it raises no ethical concerns, and that the planned data processing complies with Swiss and European data-protection regulations, including GDPR. Key safeguards include: identifiable personal data remain within the conference management system and are not transferred to the research dataset, only anonymised submissions and non-identifiable review metadata are analysed, all data are processed on secure, encrypted EPFL servers, data are not used to train language models and are not shared externally, participation may be withdrawn up until the point of data anonymisation. Participant information sheet (PDF)

Ethics, data protection, and participant rights

The CLEER-ACCURATE study has been reviewed by the EPFL Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), which is also responsible for data-protection compliance reviews. The review concluded that the study does not require an ethics approval as it raises no ethical concerns, and that the planned data processing complies with Swiss and European data-protection regulations, including GDPR.

Key safeguards include:

identifiable personal data remain within the conference management system and are not transferred to the research dataset,
only anonymised submissions and non-identifiable review metadata are analysed,
all data are processed on secure, encrypted EPFL servers,
data are not used to train language models and are not shared externally,
participation may be withdrawn up until the point of data anonymisation.

Participant information sheet (PDF)

Value for the SEFI community

By participating, authors contribute to evaluating tools that may help improve the visibility and accessibility of high-quality engineering education research. The study supports responsible innovation while keeping academic judgment firmly grounded in established peer-review practices.

Dissemination of results

Study results will be disseminated only in aggregated and anonymised form through academic publications, presentations at future SEFI conferences, and summaries published on the CLEER website. Individual submissions and authors will not be identifiable in any outputs.

Further information

Further information about CLEER is available at https://cleer.euroteq.eu.
For questions regarding CLEER and the study, please consult Anja Kranjc Horvat.