CHAIR HOW-TO: Subject Areas

OVERVIEW

Subject areas can be used in both single-track and multiple-track conferences for:

• Classifying and grouping papers
• Specifying areas of expertise for Reviewers
• As a criterion for paper assignment.

Conferences can have two level hierarchical subject areas when Chairs add a child to an existing subject area. A single-parent subject area can have many child subject areas.

If subject areas are configured, authors will need to select one primary subject. Authors could optionally select multiple secondary subject areas (the limit can be configured by the Chairs). There are no separate lists for primary and secondary subject areas, i.e. authors will be selecting from the same list of subject areas configured by the Chairs.

After reviewers login, they can enter subject areas using the drop-down menu next to their name on the upper right corner. If subject areas are configured for multiple tracks, reviewers need to enter separately for each track.

‘Relevance’ represents how closely subject areas of a paper match that of a reviewer. Chairs can use ‘Relevance’ to assign papers to reviewers who have the required expertise.

‘Relevance’ can be used during automatic assignment. During bidding, Reviewers can sort papers based on ‘Relevance’ to find papers on which they would like to bid.

SUBMISSION SETTINGS TAB

• If having a secondary Subject Area is desired, click on the ‘Setting’s tab, go to ‘Features>Submission.’

• Scroll to the Subject Area section and set the secondary Subject Area (and any other settings applicable to the conference). Click ‘Save changes.’

SUBJECT AREA SETTINGS TAB

• Go to ‘Features>Subject Area,’ click ‘+ Add new subject area.’

• In the ensuing popup, enter the name of the Subject Area. This will be the primary Subject Area. Click ‘Save changes.’

• To add a secondary subject area, click the ‘+’ on the end of the row of the primary subject area.

• Enter the name of the secondary subject area and click ‘Save changes.’

• To add another secondary, click on the ‘+’ of the primary subject area again.

• Enter the secondary subject and click ‘Save changes.’

• To add another primary subject, just click the ‘+Add new subject area’ button.

REVIEW SETTINGS TAB

• Go to Features>Review, enable the ‘Require reviewers to select subject area’ checkbox. Save changes.

META-REVIEW SETTINGS TAB

• If desired, the same can be done for the Meta-Reviewers. Go to Features>Meta-Review, enable the ‘Require meta-reviewers to select subject area’ checkbox. Save changes.

REVIEWER CONSOLE

When the Reviewers log in, they will see the alert to select their subject areas.

• Reviewers use the link 'click here' to enter their Subject Areas

CSV FILE

Currently the only way to bulk upload Subject Areas is to send CMT Support a CSV file in the format below. CMT Support will import the Subject Areas for you:

1. One level of Subject Areas (one column)

Area 1
Area 2
Area 3

2. Two-levels of Subject Areas (two columns)

Parent 1 Area 1
Parent 1 Area 2
Parent 1 Area 3
Parent 2 Area 4
Parent 2 Area 5

MANAGE REVIEWERS PAGE

View Subject Areas

The Reviewers’ subject areas are viewable on the Manage Reviewer page. It is here you may see if they selected their subject areas and what they are.

Export Subject Areas

• The Reviewers’ subject areas may also be exported for offline viewing. Click ‘Actions’ then select ‘Export>Subject Areas.’

• Save the file locally

The file can be opened with either a text editor or Excel (as a tab-delimited text file).

Export Relevance Scores

Relevance scores can be exported as a text file.

• Click ‘Actions,’ then select ‘Export>Relevance Scores.’

• Save the file locally.

• The file can be opened with either a text editor or Excel (as a tab-delimited text file).

This file can be sorted by Paper ID to see the best candidates to Review a paper. In the example below, we can see the top 3 candidates for Paper ID 24.