CHI Conference papers review policy
The purpose of the CHI Papers Review Policy is to provide a
framework within which the CHI Papers (Co-)Chairs will design their
review process. It is intended to be a policy document, not a process
document. The SIGCHI Publications Board is responsible for policy,
while the Papers (Co-)Chairs are responsible for the review
process.
- Quality in published papers. CHI is committed to
strengthening the discipline of HCI and its constituent
sub-disciplines by maintaining a high standard of quality in the
papers it publishes. Therefore CHI looks for papers 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. CHI sets these standards of quality in
the belief that they are similar to, and therefore consistent with,
the quality measures applied by other HCI conferences and
journals.
- Fairness in reviewing. CHI has a policy of reviewing papers
on a fair and even-handed basis across all sub-disciplines, and takes
this into account in recruiting and instructing reviewers. Each
reviewer prepares his or her review of a paper independently of other
reviewers. A committee member may then organize an anonymous
discussion of the paper, but only between reviewers who have already
submitted a full review in draft. The review criteria applied are
derived from CHI's policy on quality and therefore emphasize
significance of contribution and benefit to be gained by readers.
Reviewers are expected to assess significance in terms of relevant
past work. The criteria also ask that work be carried out to
sufficient standards of validity that readers can place trust in the
results and apply them with confidence. A high standard of written
presentation is also expected. These criteria apply equally to all
submitted papers. They are spelled out in the CHI Call for
Participation and in the review form used by CHI reviewers. They
provide the basis on which the papers committee selects the papers to
be included in the program.
- Continuity and evaluation in the review process. CHI 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. Thus every
effort should be made to verify perceived problems before addressing
them with process changes. Equally, effort should be devoted to
identifying process problems that might go undetected and therefore
unaddressed. All proposed solutions should be tested before their
introduction, as thoroughly and as early as possible. The outcome of
those changes that are introduced to the process should be evaluated
and the results delivered in time to inform those responsible for the
next conference. Detection, verification, testing and evaluation must
be based on review process data, and will involve storing these data,
making them accessible and addressing related security and privacy
issues.
