Last Updated: December 2024
Area Chairs (ACs) are key decision-makers and central to the quality of the reviewing process at ACM FAccT. ACs are involved in every part of the reviewing process. This guide should be read by all ACs, and provides details of the role of ACs, what decisions they are asked to make, guides on writing AC summaries, and responses to frequently asked questions. For deadlines related to the submission for any year, and the scope of the conference, please refer to the CFP. ACs will be listed on the conference website (facctconference.org) before the submission deadline.
One way to think of ACs is as acting editors for a journal. They play several key roles in the conference reviewing process. For an overview of how reviews lead to outcomes, see the Reviewer Guide and Author Guide.
The interdisciplinary nature of FAccT means that reliable Reviewers are needed from across the broad range of fields that are within the scope of FAccT. ACs are key to helping to ensure a broad Reviewer pool is available, using their networks and visibility of suitable candidates within the fields they work in. This recruitment is done early in the conference planning cycle. Each year, the Program Chairs (PC) will provide a target for the number of Reviewers that are needed across the various disciplines to meet the expected demands of the conference.
ACs support the PCs to manage the reviewing process for the large number of submissions that are received. ACs are assigned a set of papers at the beginning of the review process and it is their role to ensure that these papers receive a full set of reviews, the reviews are fair, and that the overall review workflow is on track to meet the planned key dates. PCs will share detailed dates with ACs.
Managing this reviewing process means having full oversight of the state of papers at each stage of the reviewing process. As the reviewing period progresses, the management tasks change, and these tasks include:
The principal responsibility of ACs is to provide recommendations of acceptance or rejection of papers. All final recommendations are accompanied by a meta-review that summarizes the reviews and the reasoning. As a top-tier venue, FAccT has a high standard for accepted papers, and ACs are essential to ensuring the high quality of papers that are accepted for inclusion into the proceedings.
Decisions that ACs make include:
In the final stages of the conference, ACs can request further information from Reviewers and request adjustment to reviews. This can be done over email. ACs can also host virtual discussion meetings with Reviewers for borderline papers to help provide clearer decision signals. In the final stages, PCs may also request calibration meetings with ACs to discuss borderline and outlier papers to ensure there is consistency and to discuss merits of accepting or rejecting individual submissions.
Papers are reviewed in alignment with the ACM ethics guidelines. ACs should give thought to whether papers might be in contravention of these guidelines and report those concerns to the Program Chairs.
ACs should refer to the April 2023 ACM Policy on Authorship and use of large language models (LLMs), and the associated SIGCHI blog post, which also apply to reviews and meta-reviews.
When using third-party or software (local or cloud) to check fluency, formatting, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and language translation, ACs should maintain the confidentiality of the paper submissions they review at all times including by not uploading the submissions or text fragments to any third-party website, in accordance with the ACM Peer Review Policy.
You can see the Review Form that Reviewers will be asked to fill out and the AC Review Form you will be asked to fill out. Both contain detailed guidance on completing each field.
When inviting Reviewers, do I need to invite only those with expertise in my focus area(s)?
No, you are welcome to invite any Reviewers with expertise relevant to FAccT. Reviewers will be able to select their own focus area(s) when they fill out the Reviewer response form.
How does paper assignment work? Will the Reviewers that I invite be assigned to the papers that I oversee?
Not necessarily. Initial assignments of ACs and Reviewers to papers are made centrally after a "bidding" process during which Reviewers and ACs can see the abstracts of all papers relevant to their selected focus areas and mark those they are eager (or not eager) to review. The paper assignment automatically takes these preferences into consideration. ACs will have the opportunity to see an initial assignment of papers to Reviewers, check that they are satisfied with these assignments, and adjust assignments if needed. But it is most likely that Reviewers you invite will be assigned to a selection of papers that are overseen by different ACs.
What is the policy on preprints (such as ArXiv, SSRN, or others)?
Use of preprints is allowed. Hence, a paper appearing on a preprint server does not automatically fail the new work submission requirement. See the section on Self-Archiving and Posting Rights in the ACM Publication Rights & Licensing Policy.
What is considered contemporaneous work?
It is not uncommon for different groups to be working on the same idea (referred to as contemporaneous work), and for these to appear on preprint repositories. For FAccT, contemporaneous work are papers released 4 months prior to the conference deadline. Hence, lack of awareness, citations, or comparisons to such works is not a basis for rejection of a paper.
Can I overrule the recommendations of Reviewers?
ACs are chosen because they are also experts in their area, and will at times have a view that disagrees with the Reviewers. It is possible for ACs to override the recommendation of Reviewers (and many strong papers have been included in proceedings by diligent ACs who have advocated for papers where Reviewers judged otherwise). But ACs should exercise this option with caution. ACs should seek to add additional Reviewers to gather more evidence, read the paper in detail and provide their own review, discuss the divergence with other Reviewers, and ensure that there is an extremely strong case put forward in the meta-review and discussions with PCs.
For what reasons might a paper be desk rejected?
The decision to desk-reject a paper (i.e., to reject without review) can be made by the Program Chairs (PCs) at any stage of the reviewing process, but is more likely to happen at two times. A first round of desk rejections is undertaken following a review of submissions by the PCs. A second round is conducted when ACs and Reviewers flag papers to the PCs for possible desk-rejection. This second phase helps ensure that we capture any papers that do not warrant reviewing time.
There are several reasons for papers to be desk-rejected, and a non-exhaustive list of reasons include:
If you believe a paper hits any of the criteria above, please contact the Program Chairs at program-chairs@facctconference.org.
The PCs reserve the right to desk-reject papers whenever they are identified in the reviewing process, allowing ACs and PCs to highlight concerns throughout the reviewing process.
What should I do if I have a concern about potential plagiarism or other severe research integrity issues?
In such cases, please contact the Program Chairs immediately at program-chairs@facctconference.org.
Are ACs allowed to submit their own work to FAccT?
Yes! Reviewers and ACs may submit their own papers to FAccT. Conflicts of interest will be handled within the review platform.