Instructions for Area Chairs

The CoRL review process is three months long, submission-to-notification, including the response and revision period and will be more similar to journal processes -- in that the preliminary meta-reviews, emergency reviews, and corrections of the reviews will happen before the authors’ response period! 

We count on you, the Area Chairs, to make the process smooth and ensure high quality of the accepted submission, and constructive feedback to the authors. Most notable change, we want to ensure three high-quality reviews by the time the reviews are released to the authors on Aug 16.  

Blue Sky submissions: is a separate track. It will not have a revision period, and the submission deadline is now July 12. Those papers will be shorter, and will require senior reviewers, so we will ask you, Area Chairs, to serve as the reviewers. The program committee will make the final decisions.  

Timeline: Below is the overall timeline of your responsibilities in the next three months. All times are 11:59 PT, unless otherwise stated. Please adhere to the schedule, and if there are problems, do let us know as soon as possible. 

Phase 1: Prepare for the review period

• • 19-21 Jun - AC and Reviewer bidding period

  • 22-24 June - ACs review the assignments for the expertise and conflict of interest, recommend desk rejects, and assign the reviewers

  • 25-27 June -- PC and AC discuss desk reject candidates. PC’s finalize the desk reject decisions

  • 25-29 June - ACs finalize the reviewer assignment

Phase 2: Initial decisions due. Prepare for a response period.

• 13-19 Jul - ACs bid on Blue Sky papers

• 24-30 Jul - AC's check the quality of the reviews, ask for updates, and recruit emergency reviews. For papers that do not need emergency reviews, ACs write initial meta-reviews. Flag for secondary ACs 

• 31 Jul – 23 Aug - Blue Sky review period

• 8-13 Aug - Finalize meta reviews

Phase 3: Finalize the decisions.

• 31 Aug - 6 Sep  AC / Reviewer discussion

• 7-13 Sep - Finalize meta-reviews

Contact:

corl2021-pc@googlegroups.com for the program committee.

corl2021-ac@googlegroups.com is the private group for the area chairs and the program chair. Only members of the group can post.

Thank you so much for your service and helping make CoRL a high-quality and successful conference.