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===== Key Info for Area Chairs =====

CMT homepage: https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/RSS2011/

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===== Detailed Info for Area Chairs =====

Please check this schedule frequently, as the dates will change.

  * Done: <del>**October 18: Area chairs start to recruit PC members (Instructions)**</del>

Every area chair recruits eight or more highly qualified PC members (called reviewers by CMT, so we'll stick with that term; in your emails to people, however, you should invite them to be PC members). Please select people you trust will do a good job and will submit reviews on time. Given the reviewer discussion period and the author rebuttal process of RSS (see below), it is very important that all reviews are submitted on time by February 21.
Please explain to reviewers what is expected of them and how important high-quality reviews are. You can point them to [[reviewer_instructions|http://rss-board.org/doku.php?id=reviewer_instructions]] for a detailed schedule. 
  * Done: <del>**Nov 15: Reviewer recruiting completed**</del>
After recruiting the reviewers, area chairs can focus on finishing your own RSS submissions.
  * Done: <del>**Nov 15: Submission opens**</del>
  * Done: <del>**Jan 10: Abstracts due**</del>
  * Done: <del>**Jan 17: Paper deadline**</del>
  * Done: <del>**Jan 23: Papers assigned to area chairs**</del>
  * Done: <del>**Jan 30: Papers assigned to reviewers by area chairs**</del>
Area chairs find four (4) qualified reviewers from the entire pool of reviewers for each of the papers assigned to them. Please ensure that the load is balanced equally across reviewers. The expected review load for a reviewer is about five papers.
  * Done: <del>**Feb 1: Area chairs initiate the review process**</del>
During the next three weeks, the area chairs check periodically on the status of their papers and, if necessary, send reminders to reviewers. They also ensure that the quality of the reviews is adequate, in particular for poor papers. Area chairs may refer reviewers to the review guidelines, if necessary.
  * Done: <del>**Feb 28: Reviews due**</del>
Due to the response process, it is very important that all reviews are submitted on time. The area chairs ensure that all reviews are submitted by this deadline and, if necessary, find replacements for reviewers.
Many times reviewers will have divergent opinions about a paper. In that case, the area chair attempts to resolve some of the divergence, but the primary discussion period is after the responses.
  * <del>**Mar 7: Reviews released to authors**</del>
The area chairs ensure that reviews are appropriate and reasonable.
  * <del>**Mar 7: Author response begins**</del>
The authors have one week to respond to the reviews by pointing out oversights, inaccuracies, or misunderstandings. The authors will be informed of this opportunity by email. Area chairs don't have to do anything. This process starts one week after making the reviews available to authors to ensure that responses are not too emotional.
  * <del>**Mar 14: Author response ends, reviewers answer to rebuttals**</del>
At this point, the authors have submitted their responses. The reviewers update their reviews to reflect the comments made by the authors, and begin a discussion towards making a recommendation. It is not necessary to reach consensus, but an animated discussion generally improves the quality of the reviews. The area chair monitrs the discussion and ensures that reviews are updated in accordance with the outcome. The area chairs ensures that reviewers respond to the author responses after sufficient discussion and that the scores and reviews get updated accordingly.
  * <del>**Mar 28: Responses from reviewers due**</del>
Area chairs ensure that all reviews have been updated in response to the comments provided by the authors and the discussion among the reviewers that followed.
  * **Apr 7/8: Area chair meeting at UC Berkeley**
This is probably the most important part of the review process. The area chair meeting is a very intense and fun meeting in which the final acceptance decisions will be made. We will have to discuss a lot of papers, so please come prepared. For every paper you will be asked to give a 30 second summary. If a paper is a borderline paper, you should prepare a more extensive summary, including quotes from the reviews. A good familiarity with the papers themselves, the reviews, the rebuttals, and the responses to the rebuttals is essential for this process to work.
Please also think about which of your papers would be well suited for an oral presentation, and which would best be presented as a poster.
  * **Apr 15: Acceptance announced**
  * **Jun 1: Shepherded papers due**
Some of the papers will be conditionally accepted. For those papers, an area chair works with the authors to do a revision that includes all of the points that were discussed during the area chair meeting. The area chairs work with the authors to complete the shepherding process by this date.
  * **Jun 15: Proceedings for RSS 11 go online**
  * **Jun 27-30: RSS in Los Angeles**

===== Area Chair Meeting =====
  * UC Berkeley, April 7. Pieter Abbeel has graciously agreed to host us, for which I am very much in his debt. 
  * On Wednesday night, we will organize an area chair dinner.
  * The meeting will take place on Thursday, April 7 at UC Berkeley. We will start at 9am and will go probably until the early evening. Lunch will be provided.
  * On Friday, April 8, we will have an AC workshop also at Berkeley. It is by no means required to give a talk at the workshop, but I've always enjoyed it. 
  * How to make hotel reservations: 
    * The hotel is [[http://www.hotelshattuckplaza.com/ | Hotel Shattuck Plaza]] and Pieter has arranged an RSS rate. 
    * Call: (510) 845-7300 or (866) 466-9199 and ask for the "RSS Conference" rate or
    * Book Online: Go to www.hotelshattuckplaza.com, enter the dates, click "Book Now", click on "Corporate Rates" and enter the code: rss11.
    * Cancellation  Policy: 24 hours prior to arrival"
    * They were not willing to block out rooms and it is probable they will fill up closer to the date, but given the 24hr cancellation policy, that should not be an issue. We suggest that you book now -- there are still plenty of rooms at this point.

  * Please mark your calendars!

===== Area Chairs =====

The area chair mailing list is <rss11-ac@csail.mit.edu>. 

  - Alin Albu-Schäffer, DLR, <Alin.Albu-Schaeffer@dlr.de>
  - J. Andrew Bagnell, Carnegie Mellon University, <dbagnell@ri.cmu.edu>
  - Han-Lim Choi, KAIST, <hanlimc@kaist.ac.kr>
  - Andrew Davison, Imperial College London, <a.davison@imperial.ac.uk>
  - Frank Dellaert, Georgia Tech, <dellaert@gmail.com>
  - Giorgio Grisetti, University of Freiburg, <grisetti@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>
  - David Hsu, National University of Singapore, <dyhsu@comp.nus.edu.sg>
  - Takayuki Kanda, ATR, <kanda@atr.jp>
  - George Kantor, Carnegie Mellon University, <kantor@ri.cmu.edu>
  - Jun Morimoto, ATR, <xmorimo@atr.jp>
  - Joelle Pineau, McGill University, <jpineau@cs.mcgill.ca>
  - Ingmar Posner, Oxford University, <ingmar@robots.ox.ac.uk>
  - Uluç Saranlı, Bilkent University, <saranli@cs.bilkent.edu.tr>
  - Siddhartha Srinivasa, Intel Labs Pittsburgh, <siddhartha.srinivasa@intel.com>
  - Andrea Thomaz, Georgia Tech, <athomaz@cc.gatech.edu>
  - Stefan Williams, University of Sydney, <stefanw@acfr.usyd.edu.au>

===== Signing up Reviewers =====
  - The conference management system we are using is the same as last year, CMT. The URL is here: https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/RSS2011.
  - You should contact your reviewers directly, i.e., oustide of CMT. We need about 15 reviewers for each of us. This should have an expected per-paper load of at most 5 papers per reviewer. 
  - An example recruiting email is here: [[recruiting_reviewers|Recruiting email]]
  - As you recruit reviewers, please email me their first and last name and email. I will then enter them into CMT and generate a login email for them. 
  - Reviewer recruiting needs to be completed by 11/15.