Checklist for WABI Conference Program Committee Co-chairs


GENERAL NOTES

- In most cases, the PC co-chairs have authority and autonomy about decisions.

- Both co-chairs have equal responsibility and authority. It may be useful to assign tasks to co-chairs so that there is no confusion as to who is doing what.

- The SC can help the PC co-chairs, e.g., selecting responsible PC members, dealing with difficulties in PC management, etc.


NOVEMBER

- Get in contact with OC chairs: Default is ALGO in even-numbered years and ACM-BCB in odd-numbered years, in order to switch between Europe and North America asynchronously with ISMB.

- Discuss conference dates, who takes care of web pages, number of keynotes. Since WABI is not supported by any organization, the conference has no own money. All costs must be covered by the OC either through grants or conference fees. In addition to the local costs (room, coffee breaks) this includes the EasyChair license fee, article-processing charges for conference proceedings. and travel reimbursement for keynote speakers.


DECEMBER

- Identify and invite keynote speaker(s): 1 in case of ALGO or ACM-BCB, more if the conference is organised stand-alone.

- Select conference proceedings venue and reconfirm that there will again be a proceedings volume. Default is LIPICS (http://www.dagstuhl.de/en/publications/lipics) to which we are bound at least until 2024 by contract. Get their deadline for uploading the final copy, a date from which you can work various dates (submission deadline, notification, final version) backwards.

- Select journal for extended versions of proceedings papers and negotiate terms with chief editors. Default is Algorithms for Molecular Biology (AMB). Usually they offer to organize a Thematic Series and provide a number of publication fee waivers, so that - in addition to institutional waivers - ideally no author will be charged.

- Set up EasyChair account for conference paper submissions.


JANUARY

- Fix deadlines: paper submission and notification, poster submission and notification, journal version submission.

- Prepare CFP, including
  * dates of conference and deadlines
  * names of PC co-chairs
  * EasyChair address
  * statement regarding criteria
  * mention where conference proceedings will be published
  * mention the option to publish only a 2-page abstract in the proceedings instead of the full conference paper, to be decided after acceptance
  * mention that authors of selected papers published in the proceedings will be invited to submit an extended version to AMB.

- Through EasyChair invite PC with sufficiently many members to keep the load to about 5-6 papers per person, with 3-4 reviews per paper. SC members do not need to be official members of the PC. They act as "senior reviewers" with access to EasyChair but no paper assignment, in order to assist the PC co-chairs in case of borderline situations.

- Consider adding other activities (tutorials, special sessions) to WABI to increase interest and attendance.

- Find out from ALGO/ACM-BCB organizers what can be offered to the keynote speaker.


FEBRUARY

- Upload CFP to conference web page and prepare a version to be sent by email.

- Once the relevant tabs on the WABI web page are available, upload the PC list, the call for papers, and also the call for posters.

- Advertise widely (PC, OC, SC), mention it everywhere, push friends, colleagues, students, and chance acquaintances to submit. Some mailing lists are:
  * CPM-SPIRE: cpm-spire-l@lists.cs.ucr.edu
  * DMAnet: DMANET@zpr.uni-koeln.de
  * SocBiN: socbin@sbc.su.se
  * Bioinformatik.de: bioinformatik.de@lists.lrz.de
  * ISCB?
  * Recomb?

- When communicating to the PC, mention that submissions from PC members are not just allowed, but encouraged, since the PC forms a large fraction of the best researchers in the community.

- Submissions from a co-chair are also allowed and are handled "offline" by the other co-chair, using either PC members or external reviewers, as needed.


SHORT BEFORE PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE (~late April)

- Send 'heads up' message to PC, communicate expectations, in particular:
  * refer to standards about conflict of interest (see separate document 'coi-2016') - if uncertain, get in contact with PC co-chairs;
  * sub-reviewers: PC members should ideally review the papers themselves. If they call for a subreviewer, this should be limited to one of (i) students/postdocs for training and (ii) known experts that the PC member is convinced will do an excellent job. In either case the PC member must read and approve the review explicitly in EasyChair;
  * timeliness: submit on time - not after the deadline. Submit reviews as they are done rather than waiting until all are done, since you can revise reviews afterwards;
  * provide meaningful reviews and justify evaluations, make sure scores and confidence levels are accurately reflected in the written review;
  * even if very critical, be polite in the review - since it will go to the authors;
  * read the other reviews and reconsider your own score and confidence, respond to differences of opinion during the discussion period, and update your review if your opinion changes;
  * do not use information in any paper, nor discuss reviews outside the PC - this is protected information, and should not be disclosed.

- Do not extend the submission deadline without first discussing this with the SC; this discussion should be initiated at least 72 hours before the deadline.


IMMEDIATELY AFTER SUBMISSION DEADLINE (~early May)

- Start bidding, remind PC members of expectations (see above), in particular that they have to indicate any COI.

- Allow resubmission of already submitted papers during bidding phase. EasyChair supports this.

- Set EasyChair permissions so that PC members are always able to read and submit reviews for any paper on which they do not have a conflict.


DURING PAPER REVIEW PERIOD (~May)

- Send assignment email to PC members. Mention that, if a PC member lacks expertise on an assigned paper, they should get in contact with PC co-chairs to get the paper re-assigned to someone else on the PC. Asking an expert sub-reviewer is not a good option here, since the PC member needs to be able to approve and later defend/revise the review in person.

- Keep an eye on the reviewers, make sure they have downloaded papers, submitted
reviews, etc.

- Start discussion period immediately after the reviews are in.

- Organize reviewing, including a lively PC discussion of borderline submissions.

- Note: PC submissions, and even more so co-chair submissions, need to be clearly above the line to get accepted. The PC chairs can decide to accept borderline submissions from outside these two groups at their discretion, but there cannot be any doubt about submissions from these two groups.


RIGHT AFTER PAPER REVIEW PERIOD COMPLETES (~late May)

- Announce acceptances/rejections on or before the stated deadline. Do not release scores to authors.

- Communicate details of journal invitation: deadline and criteria about new content. Even if the CFP says "selected" papers will be invited, invite all papers that appear in the proceedings (not 2-page abstracts). The selection will happen automatically by no-show.

- If the number of accepted papers is low for the amount of time available at the conference (usually 2 1/2 days), consider again adding activities to WABI to increase interest and attendance (highlight talks, tutorials, special sessions).


AFTER DEADLINE FOR FINAL VERSIONS (~late June)

- Make sure that the papers sent to the conference proceedings match or improve on the papers submitted to the conference, i.e., no content has been removed. Note that the supplementary materials are not required to be part of the conference proceedings, but could be included in the journal versions.

- Send final versions to proceedings publisher, including a Preface that should include some information about the conference, some statistics (number of submissions), the name of the keynote speaker and the usual thanks.

- Post list of accepted papers on the webpage.

- Set up poster submission (via EasyChair or by email) and advertise widely (see CFP above). In addition, send it to all authors of submitted papers. Invite authors of accepted papers to also bring a poster about their work, to encourage further discussion after the talk.


APPROXIMATELY FOUR WEEKS BEFORE CONFERENCE (~end of July)

- After poster submission deadline organize reviewing, usually by PC co-chairs only.

- Consider if some (not more than 2 or 3) of the participants who registered for the conference by now may be suitable speakers of highlight talks, without reimbursement and fee waiver. This may be a cheap way to enhance the program at no additional cost.


APPROXIMATELY TWO WEEKS BEFORE CONFERENCE (~early August)

- Set up program: Organize accepted papers into sessions and select session chairs from the list of registered PC members or other senior conference attendees (available from the OC); communicate responsibilities to these people.

- In the program leave space for a "Business Meeting", potentially under a less scary name, e.g. "WABI Community meeting" or "Future WABIs - Your inputs". Encourage SC members to attend and run the meeting. If not, PC chairs should also be able to do it and send feedback to the SC by email afterwards.

- Post the schedule online.


DURING CONFERENCE (~late August)

- Run WABI. At least one PC co-chair must be present to deal with problems on site, e.g., if no one shows up to chair a session.

- Run poster session.


WITHIN ONE WEEK AFTER WABI (~early September)

- Send report to SC, with recommendations about what to do differently next time, including suggestions how to improve this checklist.


TWO MONTHS AFTER CONFERENCE (~late October)

- Collect extended journal versions, send out reminders if necessary.

- Make sure that there is additional content to meet the requirement of extra material.

- Organise reviewing of journal versions. There is a good chance to recruit the conference reviewers again, but it may also be necessary to add new ones.


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For additional information, visit https://gi.cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de/wabi