Papers and Notes Review Process

After you submit your Paper or Note, it will undergo a rigorous review process. This is managed by the two Papers chairs and eight subcommittees, each comprising between two and six Subcommittee Chairs (SCs) and a panel of Associate Chairs (ACs). The review process is as follows:

  • Most Papers and Notes are assigned to the subcommittee chosen by the author (see: Selecting a Subcommittee). The SCs will then assign the submission to two ACs – a primary AC (1AC) and a secondary AC (2AC), based on their expertise. When the Papers chairs or SCs believe that a paper will get a more thorough review in a subcommittee other than the one selected by the author, it will be re-assigned to another subcommittee prior to its assignment to ACs.
  • The 1AC assigns each Paper or Note to two carefully selected external reviewers (topical experts who are not part of the CHI Program Committee). The 2AC assigns each Paper or Note to a third external reviewer.
  • Reviewers review the Paper or Note according to the review criteria specified in the Guide to Reviewing CHI Papers and Notes.
  • The AC completes a meta-review based on the reviews.  Based on numeric criteria that indicate disagreement among reviewers, the 2AC may also be required to write a meta-review.
  • Authors see preliminary reviews and can respond with a rebuttal. The rebuttal offers authors an opportunity to rebut factual errors in reviews, or to answer questions asked by reviewers.
  • The AC and 2AC compose recommendations to the committee based on all the reviews and the author’s rebuttal.
  • The committee discusses and finalizes decisions at a two-day committee meeting.  During the meeting, ACs on other subcommittees may be asked to read and review the paper when the topic area spans multiple subcommittees.
  • Confidentiality of submissions is maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. All submitted materials for accepted submissions will be kept confidential until the start of the conference.
These stages in the review process are consistent from year to year; for the specific dates each stage will occur for CHI 2016, see the Papers and Notes Call for Participation.
New for CHI2016, one subcommittee with be held virtually. This Virtual Subcommittee is still being planned, but papers submitted to this track will be reviewed in the same process, but without the subcommittee participating in the physical program committee meeting.