So, let me try to give below four incremental improvements that every serious conference should implement, for the sake of a better academic life. Two are quite easy:
- no more deadline extension. A deadline extension is the irrefutable proof that a conference is crappy. A deadline extension means indeed that either the conference does not attract enough solid submissions or the scientists who submit in this conference are unable to finish a work on time. In both cases, it would be a shame to be associated with such a conference. Furthermore deadline extensions bring at least three very negative effects.
- it creates an unfair gap between the happy fews who are in the awareness and the others. A scientist who knows in July 2011 that ICC deadline will be Sep 28 has a different schedule than the other scientist who naively thinks the deadline is Sep 6.
- it is now folklore to announce an extension a few hours before the deadline. This is highly irrespecutful for the (unaware) authors. Week-ends can be ruined to fulfill a deadline, which you discover on Monday has been extended for two weeks.
- the day before a submission is stressful. A (lately announced) deadline extension multiplies the number of deadline-stressful days by two. Deadline extensions are killing me.
- a list of accepted papers on the conference webpage the day of the notification. Why is it so hard? An ugly txt-formatted list of accepted papers is just what most scientists want for. From such a list, it is possible to find a link toward an ArXiV or a technical report on the webpages of the authors of accepted papers. Moreover, titles are inspiring, the sooner every scientist can read the titles, the more inspiring it is. And don't forget curiosity of course. Who did pass the cut this year?
Two other improvements are less incremental, but I think their impact would be worth.
- no blindness at all. The debate about single vs. double blind is a classic. But very few scientists discuss the blindness of reviewers. There is however a raise of complains about the reviews that are too harsh, scientifically wrong and impolite. It is not hard to believe that if the reviews were signed by their authors, they would be written more carefully. Some argue that this would bring potential desires of revenge among scientists. This ridiculous argument assumes that scientists are no better than kids unable to recognize argued criticisms and unable to retain their negative thoughts. If you are not optimistic about human nature, you should notice that research communities are enlarging. So, the revenge desires of a few bad scientists have really few chances to affect you because the probability that these bad guys represent a majority of reviewers for one of your paper is actually very low. Not mentioning that, academic revengers being stupid people, they are probably not in the committees of top-conferences, so you have nothing to lose. And if you face a majority of reviewers who want to unfairly reject your papers because of your previous bad reviews, well it may be time to consider writing better reviews.
- open access to papers. I have already signed this pledge about open access. I know that academic professional societies (ACM, IEEE and so) have to re-invent themselves but we will not wait them to do it. We cannot degrade the quality of the scientific activity just because a few jobs are in stake.
I think the whole modus operandi in the CS community can be questioned.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that most CS researchers only try to meet conference deadlines? Why not write well researched papers which if ready for a conference deadline are submitted there else find a journal forum. This hurry to meet deadlines means that most ideas are only half-baked.
CS students are usually poorly trained in analytical tools: see how many CS depts offer even a basic grad course in probabilistic techniques that does not try to teach the students a bag of tricks. I am often surprised by the arrogance of CS researchers whose training is superficial. Research is not about being "clever" that's only a small part. Most of research is the depth and the systematic extending of the boundaries of knowledge. Many well known CS researchers usually have a non CS background where they acquired real knowledge skills.
I have to say I thoroughly agree with your comments on [open access to papers]. Sources such as IEEE present a unforgivable barrier to dissemination, in my opinion. I have never submitted to an IEEE (or any other paid access) publisher.
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