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Submission and Review

This page was last updated on Dec, 2023.

The purpose of the SIGCHI Submissions and Reviewing Policy is to provide a framework within which the conference Venue Chair(s) will design their submissions and reviewing processes for submissions that appear in the conference proceedings. This document is intended to be a policy document, not a process document, and it supplements the list of over 14 policies that govern ACM Publications.

Some of the key policies to note include

  1. Policy on Roles and Responsibilities in ACM Publishing
  2. Policy on ACM Author Rights and Publishing Agreements (Version 9)

Outside this policy, we encourage all chairs to regularly revisit the review process, identifying opportunities for improvement, and using an experimental approach that includes gathering data to evaluate the effects of any changes based on this policy.

SIGCHI Policy for Submission and Review at SIGCHI Conferences

The purpose of the SIGCHI Submissions and Reviewing Policy is to provide a framework within which the conference Venue Chair(s) will design their submissions and reviewing processes. It is intended to be a policy document, not a process document, and it supplements the ACM Rights and Responsibility Policy (http://www.acm.org/publications/policies). Proceedings for SIGCHI conferences are published by the ACM, so all SIGCHI authors are responsible for those policies. In addition:

Submission

All submitters must accept the following agreement:

Making a submission to a SIGCHI conference is a serious matter. Submissions require time and effort by SIGCHI volunteers to organize and manage the reviewing process, and, if the submission is accepted, the publication and presentation process. Thus, we expect anyone submitting to a SIGCHI conference to confirm the following:

  1. I confirm that this submission is the work of myself and my co-authors.

  2. I confirm that any research reported in this submission involving human subjects has gone through the appropriate approval process at my institution.

  3. I confirm that if my submission is accepted, I or one of my co-authors will attend the conference. (This can be specifically waived by individual conferences in their call for submissions)

  4. I confirm that I have read the conference policies for publication and agree to abide by them.

  5. I confirm that I will treat the intellectual property and contributions of my fellow contributors and the reviewers of my work with respect.

SIGCHI is committed to promoting fair review processes in our conferences, and to working to improve the review process over time. We recognize that authors may sometimes feel a review is unfair, inappropriate, or problematic in other ways. SIGCHI reviewing processes include a number of mechanisms for addressing this situation. Conferences may differ in the mechanisms they include, but where they are included, this is the order in which they should be pursued.
  1. Appeal to the Associate Chair handling the paper.
  2. Appeal to the Subcommittee Chair(s) handling the paper. (For example: Design Subcommittee)
  3. Appeal to the Track Chair(s) (Venue Chairs) the paper submitted in. (For example: Full Papers, or Work-in-Progress)
  4. Appeal to the Program Chair(s) (Technical Program Chair(s) – TPC) or the Editor-in-Chief.
  5. Appeal to the ACM: https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/appeals
No conference has every mechanism, but all have many of them. Conferences may have individual policies concerning other relevant issues particular to that conference.

Reviewing

Reviewing is vital to the success of SIGCHI conferences. It is critical to the production of high quality publications, and it provides valuable feedback that assists authors in developing their skills as researchers and writers. Reviewing also represents a vast amount of volunteer time, and it is important that SIGCHI make effective use of this resource.

These reviewing guidelines apply to archival publications, as defined by the ACM here http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/prepub_eval/

The SIGCHI approach to reviewing has three aims:

  1. Quality in accepted archival submissions. SIGCHI is committed to strengthening the discipline of HCI and its constituent sub-disciplines by maintaining a high standard of quality in the submissions it accepts. Therefore SIGCHI looks for submissions each of which makes its own significant and potentially valuable contribution to the relevant sub-discipline’s body of published work The quality of execution of the reported work must be sufficient to gain the trust of readers and ensure that they can extract from the paper the value and benefits it claims to offer.

  2. Fairness in reviewing. SIGCHI has a policy of reviewing submissions on a fair and even-handed basis across all sub-disciplines, and takes this into account in recruiting and instructing reviewers. Individual conference review processes should take into account the following principles for reviewing archival publications:

  • Each reviewer is an independent actor who should be free to offer a fair, critical review of the work.
  • Reviews should be high quality, and program committees should retain the right to return or reject low-quality reviews.
  • Reviewing criteria should be equally applied to all archival submissions.
  • Reviewing criteria for each venue should be described specifically in the relevant section of the Call for Participation.
  1. Continuity and evaluation in the review process. SIGCHI is committed to maintaining an appropriate level of continuity across conferences and to ensuring that process changes are adequately evaluated. The introduction of process changes should be viewed as part of the long-term, incremental development of the review process, and steps should be taken to minimize undesired outcomes. These efforts could include:

    • Discussion of proposed changes with the leadership of the conference, and the steering committee of the conference.

    • Verification and quantification of the problem being addressed by the proposed reviewing change.

    • A plan for the assessment of the effectiveness of the process change.

    • An inclusion of any community feedback that has been associated with the process change.

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