26th International Conference on Medical Image
Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention

October 8-12, 2023 - Vancouver/CANADA

AREA CHAIR GUIDELINES & RESPONSIBILITIES

This document provides detailed guidelines to Area Chairs (AC) for MICCAI 2023. The role of AC entails a significant commitment involving tasks of monitoring and managing the review process for a set of papers, making recommendations for paper acceptance, recommending high-quality papers for orals and awards, and interacting with the Program Chairs (PCs) and other ACs. Important Dates for Area Chairs is available from this page.

MICCAI review process is fully blinded among the authors, reviewers, and ACs. Below is a list of the key responsibilities of the AC throughout the MICCAI review process.

1. Formal Rules

Confidentiality: You have the responsibility to protect the confidentiality of the ideas represented in the papers you review. MICCAI submissions are by their very nature not published documents. The work is considered new or proprietary by the authors. Authors are allowed to submit a novel research manuscript that has been archived for future dissemination (e.g., on the arXiv or BioRxiv platforms). Sometimes the submitted material is still considered confidential by the authors' employers. Sending a paper to MICCAI for review does not constitute a public disclosure. Therefore, it is required that you strictly follow the following recommendations:

  • Do not show the paper to anyone else including colleagues or students. These colleagues and students will also be subject to the same confidentiality.
  • Do not show any results, videos/images or any of the supplementary material to non-reviewers.
  • Do not use ideas from a paper that you review to develop new ones of your own before its publication.
  • After the review process, destroy all copies of papers and supplementary material associated with the submission.

Conflict of Interest: The blind reviewing process will help hide the authorship of papers. If you recognize the work or the author and feel it could present a conflict of interest, decline the review to the Area Chair and inform the Program Chairs. You have a conflict of interest if any of the following is true:

  • you belong to the same institution or have been at the same institution in the past five years,
  • you co-authored together in the past five years,
  • you hold or have applied for a grant together also in the past five years,
  • you currently collaborate or plan to collaborate,
  • you have a business partnership,
  • you are relatives or have a close personal relationship.

2. Responsibilities of the Area Chairs

In phase I, each AC is expected to be assigned with a maximum of 25 papers as the primary AC. In phase II, approximately additional 15 papers will be assigned to each AC as the secondary AC. Each paper will be assigned to one primary AC and two secondary ACs.

  • Paper Submission and Assignment to Area Chairs (paper submission deadline: 03/09/2023)

    • Encourage your networks, including postdocs and students from their group, to sign-up for reviewing.
    • Paper assignment to ACs will be completed automatically using CMT and the Toronto Paper Matching System (TPMS). If you have concerns about your assignment (outside areas of expertise, COI, etc), please inform the program chairs (program_chairs@miccai2023.org for manual adjustment.

  • 1st Program Committee Teleconferences (Mid-March 2023)

    • All ACs are invited and strongly encouraged to attend a first PC teleconference that will provide orientation on AC responsibilities during MICCAI 2023 review process

  • Phase I: Reviewer suggestions (March 21 to 27, 2023)

    • Suggest a ranked list of 10-15 possible reviewers for each assigned paper. This can be facilitated by sorting CMT-generated list of reviewers by subject areas [score 0-1.0, 1.0=best match] or TPMS rank [1 - 1400,1=best match].
    • If you wish to add a reviewer not in the database to review a particular paper, you must (1) ensure that the person is willing to review the particular paper, and then (2) contact submission platform manager Kitty Wong (submission@miccai2023.org and we will include the reviewer manually within CMT for that paper during Phase 2. This is a difficult process and will only be considered as a rare exception.

  • Phase I: Review process (April 6 to 27, 2023)

    • Monitor the reviews received for each assigned paper, and contact the reviewer for corrections as needed (e.g., poor quality, brevity, inappropriate language, etc).
    • If you are unsatisfied with the quality of a review, and fail to get further feedback from the reviewer, please contact the program chairs for additional reviewer(s)' input on the paper, beyond the original three reviewers.

  • Phase I: ACs Meta-reviewing and preliminary recommendations (deadline: April 27 to May 18, 2023)

    • Rank the quality of the papers in their batch and score each paper as an early accept/ rebuttal / early reject. Guidance on the proportion of papers to place in each category will be sent out in a later stage.
    • Provide meta reviews which summarize the key strengths and weaknesses of the paper identified by reviewers, add the evaluation of the AC as needed, and justify the ACs preliminary recommendation.
    • Identify a concrete list of questions/points that need to be specifically addressed by the authors for papers that will be sent for rebuttal
    • Select appropriate keywords and categories for each paper, which will be used to help in planning poster and oral sessions.

  • Rebuttal and author response (May 25 to 31, 2023)

    • An additional 15-20 papers will be assigned to each AC as the secondary AC

  • Phase II: Post-rebuttal discussion, metareviewing, and final recommendations (June 1 to 15, 2023)

    • Rank the quality of the papers in their batch and score each paper as an early accept/ rebuttal / early reject. Guidance on the proportion of papers to place in each category will be sent out in a later stage.
    • Provide meta reviews which summarize the key strengths and weaknesses of the paper identified by reviewers, add the evaluation of the AC as needed, and justify the ACs preliminary recommendation.
    • Identify a concrete list of questions/points that need to be specifically addressed by the authors for papers that will be sent for rebuttal
    • Select appropriate keywords and categories for each paper, which will be used to help in planning poster and oral sessions.

  • Rebuttal and author response (May 25 to 31, 2023)

    • An additional 15-20 papers will be assigned to each AC as the secondary AC

  • Phase II: Post-rebuttal discussion, metareviewing, and final recommendations (June 1 to 15, 2023)

    • Encourage and facilitate discussion among reviewers in light of authors' rebuttals
    • Engage other ACs assigned to the same paper in discussion of manuscripts and reviews
    • Update metareviews for papers assigned as the primary AC in light of the rebuttal
    • Provide metareviews for papers assigned as the secondary AC based on the reviews, primary AC's metareviews, and authors' rebuttals.
    • Rank the papers in the batch and make a binary accept/reject recommendation. Guidance on the expected acceptance rate will be provided prior to this stage.

  • 2nd Program Committee Teleconferences (Mid to Late June)

    • ACs are invited and strongly encouraged to participate in a 2nd PC teleconference, where the MICCAI 2022 PCs will communicate the overall results and statistics of the review process and present any arising issues to the ACs. In these teleconferences, ACs also will be asked to provide feedback on the overall review process and formulate recommendations on any need for adjustments or improvements.

3. Best Practices of Being an Area Chair

  • Written reports (metareviews): One of the most crucial duties of ACs is the preparation of metareviews on each paper. This is where the ACs justify their recommendation to accept/reject a paper. If all reviewers agree on a paper, the metareview can be simple, while trying to encourage authors and provide constructive feedback. If there is even a slight disagreement on the reviews, the metareview should reconcile the reviews and make a well-founded justification for the final recommendation. If an AC disagrees with certain reviewer comments, it must be clarified. In case of an invitation for rebuttal, provide a concrete list of points that are important to address and could have direct impact on whether to accept or reject the paper. For the second report (after rebuttal phase), clarify whether a rebuttal removed the concerns. Please be aware that we intend to make the report (of both primary and secondary ACs) of accepted papers publicly available (without disclosing the ACs names).
  • Conflicts of interest: If you identify any paper with which you might have a conflict of interest, please notify the PCs immediately so the paper can be re-assigned. DO NOT talk to any other AC about papers assigned to you without prior approval from the PCs, as there may be several other ACs conflicted with the paper. DO NOT talk to any other AC about your own paper(s) (the paper(s) on which you are an author) or a paper with which you have a conflict, during this whole process. Please remember that it is unacceptable to include anyone as a co-author who has been directly or indirectly involved with the manuscript at any stage during the decision process either as a Reviewer, Area Chair or as part of the PCs; this includes any direct follow- on publications (e.g. MICCAI special journal issues).
  • Attitude: Be aware that you have a strong influence on the decision for a paper. Take your job very seriously and be fair. Be professional and willing to listen to other reviewers and ACs. Do not give in to undue influence from anyone.
  • At the conference: Please keep track of your accepted papers; for talks, have a question or two prepared for the speakers to stimulate discussion. For posters, go see the poster and ask questions.