The STACS Electronic Submission Service

Abstract

One very popular software used to handle electronic conference submissions was written by the SIGACT Electronic Publishing Board. It was first used for the FOCS ’95 conference, and later for a range of conferences including COCOON, FOCS, PODC, SODA, SPAA, STOC, and WDAG, staying basically unchanged.

Another conference in computer science that uses electronic submission mechanisms is the Symposium on Theoretical Aspects in Computer Science. STACS is an international conference covering all aspects of Theoretical Computer Science. It has proven to be - together with ICALP - the main European exchange place for ideas in this area. The program committee is internationally of top rank, the number of submissions is high (typically 100 to 140 papers), and the acceptance rate is low. Researchers come from all over the world to attend.

Our experience is that the problems in the design of conference submission services can be grouped into the following categories:

• User Interface Problems — First and foremost, selection of (a) portable file format(s) for submitted papers would be desirable; Failing that (e.g., PostScript), portability problems should be reported to the submitter in an intellegible error message. Next, steps have to be taken to ensure reliable and unaltered delivery of submissions. Finally, the whole workflow needs to be intuitive and “familiar” to the submitter.

• Security Related Problems — Conference announcements nowadays are put onto the WWW and, thus, can be found with search engines, so submission services may be accessed by more people than the attendees.