1) We find the "balance" policy vague and confusing.
Answer:
Balance here means that:
One precondition to all following procedures: a reviewer cannot review his own paper,
even though he is not the first author of the paper.
a) Assign papers to the reviewers whose major research area matches papers' keyword(s).
(See the example, every reviewer has only one major research area, and papers can have
one or more keywords).
b) Check the balance of all reviewers
c) If not balance, the assignment system should find the reviewers who have more
workload. Assign some of these reviewers' papers to other reviewers whose minor
research areas match the papers' keyword(s) to achieve the balance policy.
The definition of balance is that the number of papers each reviewer review should not
exceed 2 or more papers than the average (average=papers/reviewers).
d) Check the updated balance of all reviewers
e) If still not balance, the program committee chair will adjust the workload manually. --
PC chair has no limitation for assignment except the precondition!!
2) For keywords for submission, are these provided or can they type in anything?
Answer:
If you have a GUI for submission, authors have to type in after proper login. If you want
to use a DATA file for each author to input all information for paper submissions, it can
be predefined. I think both approaches work. But I am worried about the demo time issue
of the GUI approach. You may try both approaches during demo.
3) When are papers assigned?
i. as they are submitted
ii. after a percentage of total expected papers are in
iii. after a pre-chosen number are in
iv. after a pre-chosen date set before the deadline
v. after the submission deadline
Answer:
All papers are assigned after the hard deadline pre-defined by the PC chair. (the answer is
v)
4) How are keywords determined?
i. author selects all that apply from a list
ii. author types keywords into a comment-style box
iii. are keywords nothing more than selecting from the Areas of Research provided.
Answer:
Keywords are determined by the authors. To make it simple, all keywords selected have
to be in the list (8 keywords) stated in the first paragraph of page 1. (the answer is i).
5) For paper submission, no paper can be submitted after the submission deadline. This
means that the deadline is the key point, to split the submission and assignment activities.
