1 ACL08 Conference Chair Report Kathleen McKeown Department of Computer Science Columbia University

2 PC Chairs  NLP Long: Johanna Moore, Edinburgh  NLP Short: Simone Teufel, Cambridge  IR: James Allan, UMass  Speech: Sadaoki Furui, Tokyo

3 Proposed Schedule  Mon Jul 23 areas determined Mon Sept 3 area chairs have been selected Wed Sept 5 Call for papers posted Mon Dec 15 all reviewers have been recruited by area chairs Thurs Jan 10 submissions due Fri Jan 11 papers assigned to primary track/area Sat-Wed Jan reviewer bidding phase Thurs Jan 17 initial assignment of reviewers to papers using START Fri Jan 18 final assignment of reviewers to papers by area chairs Sat Jan 19 reviewing stage begins Mon Feb 18 reviews due Tues-Mon, Feb /START discussion amongst reviewers and area chairs on "disagreement" papers Tues-Thurs, Feb area chair discussion/decisions on accept/reject Fri Feb 28 author notification Fri Mar 14 NL short papers due Mon Apr 14 author notification on short papers Mon April 21 camera ready due Sun-Fri Jun ACL-2008 conference

4 Issues  Management structure and efficiency  One chair for tutorials, publications and demos  One chair plus assistant chairs for workshops, student chair, publicity u Committee drawn from different communities (speech, IR)  Communication and process for workshop a focus  Flexibility in size of program  Would like to keep acceptance rate between 20-25%  Innovation in the program  As encouragement considering u Senior reviewer wildcards u Focus on conflicting reviews u Breaking the mold track u Poster/paper presentations  Quality of reviewing  Considering author feedback on reviews, conditional accepts  What concerns does the exec have?

5