Notes from the WASPAA'97 Technical program chair

Julius Smith  <jos@ccrma.stanford.edu>
CCRMA, Stanford University
17 Oct. 1998

• Recruiting: The TPC invites the session chairs, and recruits reviewers for submitted papers. The TPC may also be asked to help the general chair recruit unfilled slots in the organizing committee. In the past, the TPC also helped to recruit paper submissions in technical areas deemed especially important. Since the conference has a lot of momentum already, we tried not recruiting papers significantly in 1997. It was found that the number of submissions was more than adequate to fill the conference with quality papers. In fact, some felt the program should have been shorter, in which case more papers rated as "acceptable" would have had to be rejected. Another reason not to recruit is that it could come to pass that a recruited paper is rejected in review.

• Session Design: Take a look at previous Mohonk proceedings to generate a list of tentative session titles and session chairs. When the papers come in, new sessions will probably need to be defined, and anticipated sessions with only a couple of submissions may be combined under new, unifying session titles. In 1997, many committee members helped to identify session chairs. Being invited to chair a session is a valuable honor, especially for young researchers in the field. It can sometimes make the difference whether or not the person can attend. Finally, the whole organizing committee works together to enlist special presentations, the keynote address, and the like.

• Call for Papers: The TPC ratifies the wording of the "Call for Papers" (CFP) and provides the list of technical areas listed on the CFP. This will normally be substantially similar to that of the previous workshop, with perhaps a new "hot topic" or two added. The TPC should also pay attention to the allowed submission formats listed in the CFP.

• Submission Formats: The allowed submission formats can have a major impact on the practical details of getting the reviews done. Having all papers in electronic format greatly facilitates the review process; all reviewers in 1997 were able to download and print papers for review from a central website. We requested postscript (PS) format submissions, and this worked out ok with some work. A few were in MS Word, and the Pubs chair simply printed them from Word to disk in PS format. The few papers that were submitted only in hardcopy form were optically scanned, and the resulting TIFF files were wrapped in PS. The Pubs Chair also worked with the authors to get them to resubmit in PS form after they were accepted. There were several postscript incompatibility problems that took a few hours of work all told to resolve. In the future, PDF format should be recommended as the first choice, with PS second. Anyone can convert PS to PDF by submitting the PS to http://www.babinszki.com/distiller/. Alternatively, one can use Adobe Acrobat Distiller for this conversion.

• Reviews: At least two people should be recruited to review each paper. In 1997, the session chairs provided one reviewer for each paper tentatively assigned to their session, and each session chair was asked to recommend a second reviewer (or more). For papers submitted by reviewers, the TPC can provide the second review. For papers near the rejection threshold, it is good to obtain extra reviews, and the TPC should carefully review all papers which are ultimately rejected, perhaps requesting additional reviews if there is any doubt about the results.

• Receiving Paper Submissions: Historically, the Publications Chair receives the papers, makes sure they will print, and sends the electronic copies and one hardcopy of each to the TPC for review. All papers may be placed in a single "submissions" directory at an agreed-upon website where the TPC can pick them up or use them in-place.

• Confidentiality: Submitted papers must be treated as confidential until the first day of the workshop. Confidentiality is required because some authors may be working on patent applications to be filed immediately prior to the conference, and thereby be relying on the confidentiality of the submission and review process.

  • The URL for directories containing any papers needs to remain confidential until the workshop begins. If a directory name leaks out somehow, just rename it as soon as possible.
  • Make sure the host website does not support automatic directory listings, so that the only way to reach the directory is by knowing its entire path (as opposed to simply "browsing" to it).

• Finalize Sessions: I found it helpful to organize the hardcopies into separate piles for each session. I asked each session chair to (optionally) recommend the order of the papers in their session.

• Finalize Schedule: You will find many aesthetic dimensions interacting in your choice of final schedule.

Sample Letter to Invited Session Chairs:

Dear [???]:

In recognition of your achievements in the field, I am writing on behalf of the Mohonk organizing committee to invite you to serve as chairman for and to help review papers for the session tentatively entitled

at the upcoming 1999 Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, to be held, as always, at the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York, October ??-??.

Papers are due on April ??, and we hope to have the review committee in place by then, if possible, so that a prompt reply is requested.

Thanks for your consideration,
[TPC],
Technical Program Chair, Mohonk organizing committee

Sample Letter to Reviewers:

Dear [???]:

Thanks for agreeing to help review papers related to the Mohonk session on [???] this year. Your papers can be found at

Please remember that papers submitted for review must be treated as confidential, and that the above URL should be treated similarly.

Please give each paper a score from 1 to 5 as follows:

5 - excellent, must accept
4 - very good, should accept
3 - average, accept or not as time allows
2 - substandard, should not accept
1 - poor, cannot accept

Thanks for your help!

[TPC],
Tech. Program Chair
Mohonk Organizing Committee

To obtain simple scripts for processing received ratings and computing average ratings, send email to jos@ccrma.stanford.edu.

Sample "Please Resubmit in Proper Format" Letter to Accepted Authors:

This is NOT a form letter sent to every author. If you receive this, it is meant for YOU. I have received your paper, but I do not have it in an electronic form which can be converted to PDF and displayed on my computer screen. Since it is our intention to create a CD-ROM containing the papers from the conference, I would like you to send me electronic copies again, paying close attention to the following:

• Please send the paper as an attached file in PDF or Postscript form.
  
• DO NOT include .ps as text in a message. Send it as an ATTACHED file.
  
• DO NOT manually uuencode, tar, compress, zip, or otherwise encode the file. Just send the attached file directly. Eudora or another email program may automatically encode attached files as MIME, BINHEX, or UUENCODE. This is good.
  
  • If you generate .ps by printing to a file in MS Word remember the following:
    
  • you must print to file using a postscript printer driver.
    
  • select the postscript option "maximize for portability"
    
  • Delete the initial and trailing extra lines in the postscript file generated by MS Word. (They are quite obvious in an ordinary text editor.)
    
• CHECK YOUR POSTSCRIPT FILE using the following techniques
  
  • THE BEST CHECK is to download Ghostscript ( or better yet GSView) from the Web. Do a Web search on Ghostscript to find a valid location. Display the file in GSView and scroll through the pages using the + command. Make sure ALL THE PAGES are viewable.
    
  • verify in a text editor that, near beginning of the file, there are the words "PS Adobe". Otherwise it's certainly not postscript.
    
  • print the file on a postscript printer. This is done on PCs by copying the file to the appropriate printer port:
    copy myfile.ps lpt1:
    
• If for some reason you cannot generate AND CHECK the postscript file, you may send me an ordinary text processor file, preferably MS Word. Again send it as an ATTACHED FILE. Do not manually uuencode, etc.
  
• If you are not able to send an attached file, then send me a floppy disk by regular mail.
  

Thanks for your help,

[PC]
Publications Chair, Mohonk organizing committee

Back to Mohonk WASPAA'97 hints & tips