PLoP/Allerton Park 1997 Program Committee

Program Committee Members:

Program Committee Goals

The most significant is the sense that shepherding was very uneven. Everyone contacted has at least one paper that they thought need a lot more work before going to PLoP. Many shepherds knew of an excellent paper that was rejected for some reason.

Another criticism is that the previous process made the shepherd both an advocate and a judge at the same time. In one instance they are trying to help an author improve their work, and in the next telling the Program Chair to accept or reject a paper.

It should not be the responsibility of the shepherds to select the optimal number of papers for the site (Allerton Park), purely by accepting all the appropriate papers.

Responsibilities of Committee Members

• Nominate and participate in the selection of shepherds
• Oversee shepherding
  • Monitor email between shepherds and authors to get a sense for whether the author is getting good feedback (to help uniformity of shepherding) as well as to get a sense for willingness of authors to receive suggestions for improvement.
  • Offer suggestions to the shepherds to help or direct the process.
  • Be a resource to the shepherds to help with the process, goals of PLoP, etc.
• Evaluate individual pattern papers
  • Participate in prescreening papers to decide if they should be passed along to a shepherd or rejected immediately.
  • Understand and evaluate paper as a suitable paper for PLoP
  • Present recommendations to the program committee for the final choice
• Participate in final decision making process as to which pattern papers will be accepted to PLoP.

When the Program Committee will be Active

• Before PLoP Submission Deadline
  • Nominate Shepherds
  • Review and offer suggestions for improving shepherding guidelines
  • Help program chair to pre-screen papers to eliminate the ones that no shepherding will be able to turn into pattern papers.
• Shepherding period (June 1 - early August)
  • Observe the interaction between each of several shepherds and their authors.
  • Decide on appropriateness and merit of papers for workshoping at PLoP.
• Decision period (late July - early August)
  • Offer suggestions for improvement to the shepherd to improve their shepherding and/or a specific paper.
  • Participate in telephone conference call(s) and/or email dialog to accept/reject papers for PLoP.
• At the Conference (September 3-5)
  • Have fun
  • Have your patterns workshoped
  • Be creative

Ethics

PLoP is a conference for pattern authors to come together to contribute to each others work, network and be creative together. It would be unfair to everyone if members of the program committee were unable to submit papers to the conference. To avoid improper appearances or events, the following guidelines will be used.

Guidelines for Program Committee members submitting their own papers to PLoP.

• Program committee members may submit their own pattern papers to PLoP-97, and be subject to the ordinary shepherding and selection processes.
• No program committee member will observe the shepherding of their own paper.
• No program committee member will vote on whether their own paper will be accepted/rejected.
• Program committee members should not advocate that their work be accepted in ways that non-committee members cannot.

Shepherding Guidelines

For the shepherds

• The shepherds job is to help the pattern author(s) to improve their work. This includes things like pointing out where you are confused, suggesting refinements, suggesting references, suggesting alternative formats that might be more effective, helping with spelling/grammar, etc. It does not include coercing/bullying authors to make changes. The works being shepherded are the author's , not the shepherds!
• recommend which track to submit the paper for (based upon the topics that the author specified on their submission)
• raise any exceptional circumstances that suggest that a given paper should (or should not be accepted) out-of-process
• For long papers (>15 pages?) suggest that the author concentrate on a specific part that they would like feedback on. Too long a paper can't receive thorough comments in the time allowed, so set that expectation and get the author thinking about where they want the most help.
• Others...

For the Program Committee

• Evaluate appropriateness for the conference (refer to preferences stated in the Call for Papers ).
• Evaluate willingness of the author to incorporate changes suggested by their shepherds. Unwillingness might indicate that the author will be unwilling to enter a writer's workshop with an open mind to receive suggestions for improvement.
• Others...