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Papers Review Process

Introduction

The aim of this page is to provide authors with an overview the schedule for papers.  In sharing this we have two aims:

  1. to ensure that authors are aware of the review process for their paper.
  2. to provide an insight into how tight the timeframe is for all the required steps and enable an understanding of why shifts in dates are generally impossible.

Key:

SCs – Subcommittee Chairs
ACs – Associate Chairs
1AC – Primary AC (leading the review process)
2AC – Second AC
3AC – Third AC

Recent Changes

CHI 2018 introduced changes to the CHI paper review process. If you have not submitted to CHI in recent years, you may find it useful to read more about what changed for CHI 2018: Recent Changes to the CHI Submission and Review Process.

CHI 2019 introduced some more changes to the submission and review processes: see here for more.

Scale

We expect in the region of 3,250 titles and abstracts to be submitted on the first deadline. Approximately 2,780 will turn into complete papers. This will require the production of at least 5,560 high quality external reviews + 2,780 high quality AC reviews + 2,780 high quality meta-reviews – a process that is locked in to be finalised within a very tight 11 week turn-around period if it is to meet the (fixed) publisher deadline.

This takes:

  • 2 papers chairs
  • 35 sub-committee chairs
  • 280 associate chairs who will manage approx 8 papers each as the Primary AC with three reviews and 8 more papers each as the Second AC
  • ~5,000 reviewers

from the CHI community.

Timeline

Overview of the schedule:

Note that the timeline only reflects the tasks up until the PC meeting. There are other tasks that follow (scheduling, production, etc) which have external deadlines.

Date Task
Friday, 14 Sep
  • Title and abstract submission deadline.
  • Paper Chairs identify any subcommittees that need to downsize or upsize.
Saturday, 15 Sep Abstracts become visible to SCs.
before Monday, 24 Sep
  • SCs handle AC rebalancing issues based on feedback from Papers Chairs.
  • SCs identify any papers that should be in a different subcommittee and flag to papers chairs.
  • SCs for those committees with splits, split papers across their subcommittee splits (TBD) and email papers chairs about splits’ composition if changed for rebalancing.
  • SCs declare conflicts in PCS and pass responsibility to co-SCs.
Friday, 21 Sep Material submission deadline
Saturday, 22 Sep –Sunday, 23 Sep
  • SCs identify any obvious rejects (not actual papers) and flag to papers chairs.
  • SCs email ACs to list SC conflict papers.
  • SCs identify papers that were initially assigned to their subcommittee that should be transferred to the secondary subcommittee chosen by the authors.
Monday, 24 Sep –Tuesday, 25 Sep
  • ACs bid on papers and declare conflicts assigned to their subcommittee in PCS. ACs select at least 15 papers as “want” and 15 papers as “willing”, for a total of at least 30.
Saturday, 22 Sep –Wednesday, 26 Sep
  • SCs assign ACs (1AC and 2AC) to papers.
  • For the subcommittees with splits (TBD), the SCs will have to first provide the Papers Chairs with the AC composition of their subcommittee splits. We will need to update PCS with this information before papers can be assigned to ACs.
Wednesday, 26 Sep
  • Deadline for paper assignment to ACs.
  • AC assignments released to ACs.
Wednesday, 26 Sep –Tuesday, 2 Oct
  • ACs look for conflicts and other difficulties, optionally swap problem papers, notify SCs.
  • ACs identify papers as desk-reject candidates, notify SCs.
  • SCs track swaps and ensure all papers have a 1AC and 2AC assigned in the end.
  • ACs allocate two high-quality external reviewers to each paper (for batch release later). 1AC selects one reviewer and 2AC selects one reviewer.
Wednesday, 3 Oct Batch release of review requests to reviewers. We will release all of the review requests to reviewers at the same time, to give ACs a fair chance of getting who they want as reviewers.
Wednesday, 3 Oct –Wednesday, 31 Oct
  • ACs (and SCs) ensure that each paper gets two external high-quality reviews: track progress and find replacements for reviewers with the shortest delays as possible.
Thursday, 1 Nov
  • Reviews due back from reviewers and 2AC.
  • 1ACs (and SCs) track missing reviews & quickly resolve (possibly with replacement reviews).
  • Papers chairs assign preliminary “discuss” status based on scores, indicating which papers need a 3AC assigned.
  • ACs initiate reviewer discussion as needed.
Friday, 2 Nov
  • SCs assign 3ACs to papers that meet score criteria
Friday, 9 Nov
  • 3AC reviews, assigned based on score criteria are due
before Tuesday, 13 Nov
  • ACs write 1AC meta-reviews for all of their 1AC papers and check “discuss” box for papers that need it
  • SCs assign 3AC to papers that did not meet 3AC criteria, but where 1AC has indicated the paper needs to be discussed
  • SCs review all meta-reviews for quality
Tuesday, 13 Nov
  • Deadline for 1AC meta-reviews and “discuss” checkbox state (to indicate that a 3AC review is needed for a paper that otherwise didn’t meet the criteria).
  • Deadline for SCs to assign 3AC for all papers marked discuss
Tuesday, 13 Nov Hard deadline for all reviews (external, 1AC, 2AC, 3AC), except 3AC reviews assigned after 1AC meta-review are complete.
Thursday, 15 Nov Reviews released to authors for rebuttal.
Wednesday, 21 Nov Author rebuttals due.
Monday, 26 Nov Deadline for 3AC reviews (assigned after 1AC meta-reviews are in). 1ACs re-engage reviewers, 2AC, 3AC, in discussion of each submission, as needed, and ensure that reviewers update their reviews to acknowledge rebuttals. If rebuttal affects scores, the scores should change during the discussion period, which ends 4 Dec.
before Tuesday, 4 Dec
  • 1ACs indicate a preliminary accept or reject status for each of their papers (and ideally sooner).
before Friday, 7 Dec
  • ACs update meta-reviews, any changes in review scores, and final “discuss” status due.
  • ACs get ready to justify your choice of reviewers, provide a summary of the paper and reviews, and a recommended decision (accept/reject)
Friday, 7 Dec –Saturday, 8 Dec
  • PC meeting

Note that the timeline only reflects the tasks up until the PC meeting. There are other tasks that follow (scheduling, production, etc.) which have external deadlines.

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