Area Chair Assignment & Reports
Build your program's review hierarchy and read what your Area Chairs report. SAC-AC Assignment groups Area Chairs under Senior Area Chairs, Paper-AC Assignment assigns an Area Chair to each paper, and Area Chairs Reports collects their reports and escalations.
Purpose
The Area Chair Assignment & Reports section of the Review tab (next to Reviewer Assignment) is where you wire up your program's review hierarchy and hear back from your Area Chairs. It holds three sub-tabs of its own:
- SAC-AC Assignment: group your Area Chairs (ACs) under Senior Area Chairs (SACs).
- Paper-AC Assignment: assign an Area Chair to each paper, manually or with auto-assignment.
- Area Chairs Reports: the conflict reports, reassignment requests and escalations Area Chairs send you and, when your program has Senior Area Chairs, the escalations from Senior Area Chairs.
When you use it
- After you have recruited SACs and ACs to your committee and are ready to organize the review hierarchy.
- To distribute Area Chairs evenly under your Senior Area Chairs.
- To make sure every paper has an Area Chair responsible for its meta-review.
- During review, to act on the reports and escalations your chairs raise. A red dot on the Review tab, on this section and on Area Chairs Reports means some are unread.
If your program uses Senior Area Chairs, set up SAC-AC Assignment first so each AC sits under a SAC, then assign papers to ACs in Paper-AC Assignment. If your program has no SACs, the section opens on Paper-AC Assignment; SAC-AC Assignment is still there and says there are not enough Senior Area Chairs and Area Chairs to assign SAC to AC.
Walkthrough
- 1
Open the Program Chair Console, select your program, click the Review tab, then Area Chair Assignment & Reports.
- 2
If your program has SACs, start on SAC-AC Assignment to group ACs under SACs. Until the committee has both SACs and ACs, it shows one line saying so instead.
- 3
Switch to Paper-AC Assignment to give each paper an Area Chair.
- 4
Open Area Chairs Reports to read and resolve what Area Chairs and Senior Area Chairs send you.
Tips
When you run a two level hierarchy, finish SAC-AC grouping before paper assignment so each AC's workload sits within the right SAC group. The whole Area Chair Assignment & Reports section requires a Full-tier conference (reviewer assignments).
You can't assign reviewers or an area chair to a paper you are an author of while another chair of the program can; they do it. When you are the only one with that right, you can.