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So, you have been asked to be the program chair of an important conference or workshop. Congratulations!
Of course you're honored the organization asked you. However, you know that the submission and review process will consume a lot of your precious time, especially if you expect a large number of submissions, to be reviewed by a large number of reviewers.
You can reduce the time you need to spend by using a system that can deal with electronic submissions of abstracts, (camera-ready) papers and reviews, using the Internet. One of the many systems around is CyberChair, which was developed from 1996-2000 (freely available). A new (non free) version was created, in order to easily cope with requests for changes to the base version, to suit each organizer's needs in a timely manner. Both systems seem to be appreciated, considering the number of installations).
Although you can get CyberChair for free, and installation isn't that difficult, you'll still have to get (and keep) things running. If you're an experienced webmaster and cgi-script writer (or have these persons among your staff) this may be no problem. However, if you really would like to save as much of your (staff's) time as possible, and get things running fast, using a more developed system, you may want to consider hiring our expertise, services and support, and then use CyberChairPRO. Many chairs already did so.
Using our experience with electronic submission of papers and reviews, gained since 1996, we provide support for the program committees of conferences and take care of the administrative tasks that would otherwise take so much of your precious time.
Our service includes the following (see also the list of actions):
- Fast installation of the latest version of CyberChairPRO, as our rewritten and extended version is called, for the submission of abstracts and papers, and for the submission and comparison of reviews;
- Customization and creation of tools to support your specific needs. More on the review process...
- Hosting on a RAID server; A synchronized backup server is available. This backup server is at a different location.
- Monitoring, support and maintenance during the submission and review process;
- Conversion of documents or contacting authors for new versions of their submission (there are always reviewers who cannot deal with certain formats);
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Providing a paper assignment proposal, using the PC members' expertise and
preferences. The assignment of papers to reviewers is a difficult and time-consuming
task, especially when done by hand. We can provide help. CyberChairPRO includes a
paper assignment script. However, it requires tuning, because it depends on the
number of submitted papers, conference topics and PC members, as well as on the expertise and preferences of the PC members.
We help you by tuning and/or customizing this script, according to your requirements, and provide you with a paper assignment proposal; - Generation of review overviews (both in print and for off-line use on a laptop), to be used during the PC meeting. For conferences with restrictions (e.g. conflicts of interest), we can provide a customized review overview for each PC member.
- We provide an online tool called PC Meeting Mate. This tool shows the status of all papers (accepted, conditionally accepted, postponed, rejected) and provides you with all information about the paper that is under discussion (authors, abstract, reviews), to keep the PC members focused.
- For Program Chairs using spreadsheets during PC meeting, we can provide tailored overviews, as well as input for Excel sheets.
- Optionally: Generation/preparation of the proceedings, using LaTeX. You deliver the preface, we take care of the rest, including the contacts with the publisher. Currently, we have templates for ACM SIGPLAN proceedings, and can also use the instructions for volume editors (Springer-Verlag). Other styles can be used if you supply us with an example and/or the LaTeX class file. More on this...
- Support is also available during the weekends.
- Support for the submission and review processes of other conference tracks, such as tutorials, workshops, posters, demonstrations, etc., with customized submission forms to suit your needs. (See for example 16 different tracks of OOPSLA.)
A full list of all conferences that used CyberChair or CyberChairPRO can be found in this list.
The conferences Borbala organized/organizes and guided/guides the submission and review process of are listed to the right.
Please contact us for more information. If you'd like to get a quote for your conference or workshop, please include a URL of your conference and/or include how many reviewers will be on your committee and how many submissions you expect.
