UIST Committee Responsibilities
Program Chair
A Timeline for the UIST PC Chair
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Contributors: Rob Jacob, Joe Marks, others?
In what follows, PCM is the Saturday of the PC meeting, and
PSD is the paper submission deadline.
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PSD - 60
Work with the conference chairs to revise the CFP, reviewing
instructions, and reviewing form to take into account the
comments from the CHI Letters review.
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PSD + 1: PROCESS PAPERS TO SEND OUT
The last four years the late policy has been to accept late
submissions up to the time when the PC chair is ready to send
them out to the PC committee, whenever that is (typically three
or four days later).
Very important: make sure the papers get to the PC members
before they leave for CHI, so that they can track down
reviewers the old-fashioned way!
On receipt of paper:
Assign number chronologically
Will send -1, -2, -3, -4, -5; Keep -6
Enter into db. Typical choices for db software: Excel, AWK.
Send ack message to author from db
Assign first and 2nd reviewers, remembering to check for conflicts.
This is worth spending a lot of time on; it makes the decision
process much simpler down the road!
Figure out if all topics are covered adequately; if not, consider
adding one or two more people to the PC.
Enter reviewers into DB
Send out
5 copies of paper and supporting materials:
Send -1, -2, -3, -4 to primary PC member
Send -5 to secondary
Keep -6
Could also enclose:
List of papers submitted to UIST'98
UIST Guide for Authors
Email to PC
Review form (email)
Explain confidentiality (email and/or letter)
Suggest sources of reviewers to PC:
Be sure to impress upon new members the need to find
expert reviewers, and not fall back on colleagues down
the hall or students.
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PCM - 7: PC MEETING SITE/ARRANGEMENTS
Arrange:
Fri dinner out
Continental breakfast provided at MERL
Lunch delivered at MERL
Dinner out
Send nag to PC members
Tell PC members format for reviews and scores.
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PCM - 3: REVIEWS DUE; PROCESS REVIEWS FOR MEETING
You need to expect that reviews will be last minute, no
matter when you ask for them.
Stuff needed for meeting:
Copies of spreadsheet, with primary/secondary reviewers removed.
Include master paper number and line numbers in spreadsheet,
to make it easy to find and refer to papers.
Complete spreadsheet, with confidential information, stays on
your PC. Ability to print out revised versions of the secure
spreadsheet will be useful. Include authors and affiliations
in master spreadsheet to facilitate identificaton of conflicts.
One file box, 1 folder for each paper, mainly has paper itself in it
All the videos
Old CHI, UIST, IUI, SIGGRAPH proceedings
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PCM - 1: THE FRIDAY EVENING MEETING
Start with:
Summary of submission statistics
Explanation of spreadsheet
*1. Each person checks their spreadsheet data
verify all database entries
*2. Announce corrections, everybody writes in
*3. Look at high variance papers, assign extra reviewers as necessary to
get overnight reads.
*4. Hear from technotes, demos, panels and conference chairs.
*5. Start discussing papers, from bottom upward
Could set cutoff for obvious rejects
Aim to reject most of the bottom third, and to accept
the top half dozen papers before breaking up for the night.
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PCM: SATURDAY MEETING
General:
Every paper gets at least cursory discussion
No unilateral demote to technote or demo
Start from top
Start at top, revieweing each of first 15 or so papers
Or could get started by doing ones with missing reviews,
then ones with high variance
Go to bottom, and quickly review each low ranked paper
Go back to where we left off
For each paper:
Chair announces author, conflictees on PC leave room
NSF rules apply for conflicts.
1st PC member summarizes paper and reviews
Decision:
Decide Accept/Reject/Defer+/Defer-
Use "Defer+" and "Defer-" so can capture more
information while we're deferring. And facilitates go
back and just accept all the "Defer+" en masse.
Focus on Defer's
Could need another committee member to read it (in afternoon)
Accept the good papers, but keep track of borderline papers
We may adjust the boundary, depending on number of technotes,
panels, keynote speakers
Defer for:
Need to calibrate (esp. applies to high-rated papers
that people don't like)
For specific action (somebody reads it)
But try not to defer just "in general"
Stuck:
If problems on high-rated papers, DEFER,
cause will be easy to DECIDE later, after calibrated
When discussion rambling but looks like average is clear:
"Is there anyone who wants to {accept,reject} this paper"
If no other solution, can vote
Committee people read maybe's (and write reviews)
Go through panels (presentation by panels chair)
(probably before revisit deferred papers)
Accept/reject
Number
Final decisions on technotes if nec, before revisit deferred papers
Ditto demos
Ditto panels
Do last of deferred papers
Can use topic balance and other "extraneous" criteria
For all high mean score rejected papers,
make sure get paragraph or additional bad review from committee
Could have "conditionally accept" = assign angel (PC member) to help
with advice, and to have final decision accept/reject revised version
But need revision fast enough to go into advance program
Organize by categories, incl Technotes
into sessions
session time slots, session titles
Some marginal papers may be accepted/rejected here to fill out
sessions or balance topics
3 days x 4 sessions x 3 [30-minute] papers/session
2 [15-minute] technotes = 1 [30-minute] paper
Session chairs (could do later)
Schedule other time slots (panels, technotes, keynotes, etc.)
prescheduled
reception
demos
banquet
other
Technotes (in paper sessions)
Panels
Keynotes
Invited Surveys
decisions
9 start each day
long luch breaks
30 min coffee breaks
how late on friday
Discuss keynote speakers, invited surveys
Optional: brainstorming and/or policy decisions for next UIST
Tell them to thank their reviewers, can send stripped reviews to them
Any info I need for form letter to accepted authors, tell when/where
to send final paper, also video (directly to Steve?)
Want from meeting:
Decision to authors
For all high mean score rejected papers, paragraph or
additional bad review from committee to justify to authors
Any PC special comments, extra reviews, special treatment to authors
Complete program (Beth's responsibility/I provide papers+sessions)
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PCM + 1:
Msg PC members:
thank their reviewers, can send stripped reviews to them,
also send me list of reviewers and their affiliations (as they want them
to appear in the proceedings)
Joe Schmoe Schmoe Research Center
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PCM + 5: ACCEPTED AUTHORS NOTIFIED
The five days may be necessary to get all reviews, all
committee comments, etc. It will probably be quicker
if everything is on-line.
Work with conference chairs on the preliminary program
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PCM + 10: REJECTED AUTHORS NOTIFIED
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Early August: CAMERA-READY TO PROCEEDINGS CHAIR:
Re-check titles, authors, and affiliations if
changed in final copy of paper
If I do proceedings, could start
title pages
skeleton of contents
pgm generate index, could take input from db
My outline of proceedings
Spine
i. cover page and title page (same): varies some from year to year
need to design
ii. ACM: need ISBN, order number
iii. corporate sponsors: need list + logos
iv. intro: varies, add '98
v. committees
vii. contents
Generate most of it from DB?
Technotes are in line with (TechNote) next to title
Panels and plenaries are in TOC
1. papers begin
Scott pasted page numbers with scotch tape
Need: panels, invited speakers (or just in TOC), Technotes,
Refereed demos
Reviewers
Author index: all coauthors, panel organizer and members, keynotes
Generate index (could add <page> field to DB)