1. Fred Douglis IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Best Practices for the Care and Feeding of a Program Committee, and Other Thoughts on Conference Organization
Fred Douglis
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
To replace the title / subtitle with your own:
Click on the title block -> select all the text by pressing Ctrl+A -> press Delete key -> type your own text
Best Practices
4/9/2019

2. WOW … It’s WOWCS First reaction: what a great idea!
Second reaction: will anyone actually submit?
Immediate fear: spend time writing something up, only to find out it’s been canceled
Final reaction: duty
I’ve chaired USENIX’98, USITS’99, and a few other conferences
Most went well but there were some issues
End goal: guidebook (wiki) for program/general chairs
A pot file is a Design Template file, which provides you the “look” of the presentation
You apply a pot file by opening the Task Pane with View > Task Pane and select Slide Design – Design Templates.
Click on the word Browse… at bottom of Task Pane and navigate to where you stored BlueOnyx Deluxe.pot (black background) or BluePearl Deluxe.pot (white background) and click on Apply.
You can switch between black and white background by navigating to that pot file and click on Apply.
Another easier way to switch background is by changing color scheme. Opening the Task Pane, select Slide Design – Color Schemes and click on one of the two schemes. All your existing content (including Business Unit or Product Names) will be switched without any modification to color or wording.
Start with Blank Presentation, then switch to the desired Design Template
Start a new presentation as Blank Presentation
You can switch to Blue Onyx Deluxe.pot by opening the Task Pane with View > Task Pane and select Slide Design – Design Templates.
Click on the word Browse… at bottom of Task Pane and navigate to where you stored BlueOnyx Deluxe.pot (black background) and click on Apply.
Your existing content will take on Blue Onyx’s black background, and previous black text will turn to white.
You should add your Business Unit or Product Name by modifying it on the Slide Master
You switch to the Slide Master view by View > Master > Slide Master.
Click on the Title Page thumbnail icon on the left, and click on the Business Unit or Product Name field to modify it.
Click on the Bullet List Page thumbnail icon on the left, and click on the Business Unit or Product Name field to modify it.
Click on Close Master View button on the floating Master View Toolbar
You can turn on the optional date and footer fields by View > Header and Footer
Suggested footer on all pages including Title Page: Presentation Title | Confidential
Date and time field can be fixed, or Update automatically. It appears to the right of the footer.
Slide number field can be turned on as well. It appears to the left of the footer.
Best Practices
4/9/2019

3. Wiki Goals Two types of info eventually Living document
Allow discussion
Two types of info eventually
Guide for new program chairs or conference organizers
Review management software
Best practices
Ideas for new ways to do things
How well do rebuttals work? Ratings? Bidding?
Best Practices
4/9/2019

4. Problem 1: Bad Reviewers
Not everyone is a good PC member
Some never do anything
Some do really crummy reviews
Some are too argumentative, dominate the rest of the PC, or have other personality issues
How to find who is a known bad reviewer?
Past experience
Word of mouth… but people tend not to know to ask
How to expand word of mouth?
Reviewer database?
Best Practices
4/9/2019

5. Problem 2: Inexperienced Reviewers
Always want to bring some “new blood” into a PC
Search for repeat authors who haven’t served (need a script to scour Google Scholar for this)
Caveat: not everyone knows what to expect and may not be cut out for it. Don’t take too many people you don’t know if you can help it
Tips for ensuring the best PC
Set expectations early (# reviews, timing, … no surprises!)
Have multiple deadlines: force people to miss early rather than all at once just before the decisions
Help with calibration (average scores of reviewers compared to the scores of their peers on same papers)
Best Practices
4/9/2019

6. Problem 3: PC Composition
Avoid inbreeding, or the appearance of it
Overlap from year to year
Institutional overlap
There are enough people who will have published at an established conference that a chair should draw on them rather than outside the conference community
Best fit
Reward participation
Avoid problems with calibration
Best Practices
4/9/2019

7. PC Bells and Whistles Options for running a PC
Rebuttals (Seem to be a nice idea, but add lead time)
Reviewer ratings (hard to calibrate; don’t want to insult)
Best Practices
4/9/2019

8. Running a Conference Sponsorship Setting expectations Scheduling
Some institutions make it a pleasure to run a conference, and some make it much harder
Doing it alone has risks (e.g., liability): who “owns” the conference risks?
Setting expectations
It’s hard to know just how many submissions a new conference will get: better to be swamped (and add PC members) than miss all your targets
Publicity is amazingly critical (who knew?)
Scheduling
Watch for conflicts and hope the others watch too
Consider the impact of rejected papers from one conference being routed to another. (Feed reviews?)
Best Practices
4/9/2019

9. Backup
Best Practices
4/9/2019

10. Problem 4: (Self)plagiarism
Simultaneous submission seems to be a big problem
Least publishable units
True plagiarism
We need a better mechanism for detecting
Serendipity doesn’t cut it
Best Practices
4/9/2019

11. Concrete Proposals/Challenges
Plagiarism
Neutral agent to collect papers and analyze for overlap
Get multiple organizations to buy in
Reviewer database
Neutral agent to collect feedback, and if someone gets multiple negative reports, somehow blacklist
See Internet Computing columns Sept-Oct/Nov-Dec 2007
Best Practices
4/9/2019