---------------------------------------------------- PLEASE READ THIS FILE CAREFULLY; IT CONTAINS REVIEWING INSTRUCTIONS FOR TOPIC COMMITTEE MEMBERS ---------------------------------------------------- Table of contents: ------------------ THE "READ ME" FILE SUBMISSION STATISTICS DEADLINES TYPES OF PAPERS PAPER ASSIGNMENTS DELIBERATIONS WITHIN EACH TOPIC COMMITTEE - THE FOUR LISTS PAPERS SUBMITTED BY PROGRAMME COMMITTEE MEMBERS ETHICAL ISSUES PROGRAMME COMMITTEE MEETING THE "READ ME" FILE In the file "README", you will find all the technical instructions for the electronic reviewing. SUBMISSION STATISTICS The total number of submitted papers is about 300. The average number of submitted papers per topic is hence about 14, although there is a rather high variance. You may have a look at the distribution at http://atbode25.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/cgi-bin/count.cgi DEADLINES Each topic committee member must have returned her/his reports electronically to ep2kadm@in.tum.de by March 21. They will be compiled and will be sent back to the committee members in a uniform format by March 31. The members of each topic will have more than one week to discuss the papers submitted to their topic, and to compose the four lists (distinguished papers, regular papers, research notes, and rejected papers) that must be sent to Munich by the local chair by April 7 (remember that the program committee meeting is to be held in Munich on April 14). Summary of deadlines : ---------------------- - March 21 : reviews returned by topic committee members to ep2kadm@in.tum.de - March 31 : reviews are compiled and returned back to topic committee members - April 7 : local chairs send back the four lists of papers to ep2kadm@in.tum.de - April 14 : programme committee meeting in Munich TYPES OF PAPERS The Euro-Par 2000 proceedings will contain three different types of papers: - distinguished papers (12 pages) - regular papers ( 8 pages) - research notes ( 4 pages) DISTINGUISHED PAPERS represent the very best of Euro-Par. These papers must be truly excellent. Twelve pages should be enough to present short but deep results, or sketch the proofs of fundamental results that would require more space. THERE IS NO OBLIGATION TO RATE ANY PAPERS AS DISTINGUISHED! REGULAR PAPERS should reflect the high standard of Euro-Par. These papers must present good, solid research and results of high interest. Eight pages should be enough to present an extended abstract containing the main results with enough detail and motivation. Distinguished papers and regular papers are the "normal" papers accepted for Euro-Par. In order to allow more people to participate in Euro-Par and to help them get funding from their institution for their expenses, we will also consider results that can be presented during a short oral presentation (or even during a poster session, but this issue may be discussed during the program committee meeting). Corresponding papers will also be published in the proceedings as RESEARCH NOTES, that is a short note briefly presenting the result on four pages. These papers present correct, though possibly minor results which could be grounds for interesting discussions and exchanges between the participants. WARNING: A submission which is seriously unclear on eight or twelve pages will likely be even less clear on four pages! PAPER ASSIGNMENTS All papers submitted to your topic are stored in this FTP directory. We made sure that every paper has been assigned to exactly one topic. You can and should request the help of external reviewers. In this case, they must return their reports to YOU. We must NOT have any contact with these external referees. Please keep a list of the external readers who helped with the refereeing; we will acknowledge their help in the preface of the Proceedings. It may also be prudent to clear your choice of external reviews with that of the other members of your topic committee in order to avoid an inadvertent overlap. Please make sure that the external reviewers agree on the ethical issues (see below). Each committee member is supposed to read all papers submitted to her/his topic, or at least to have a clear idea of its content in case of the use of an external referee. That is, we expect four reviews per paper, each review coming from a different committee member. Please follow this rule if at all possible, even if you do not consider yourself an expert on some papers. Being on your topic committee makes you expert enough - probably you can still identify an appropriate external reviewer. In very few cases, papers will be traded between topics - before or after the reviewing process, depending on the point in time at which the topic committee realizes that the paper has been placed inappropriately. DELIBERATIONS WITHIN EACH TOPIC COMMITTEE - THE FOUR LISTS The discussion on the rating of the papers within each topic committee should be easy to conduct via email. About a week before the programme committee meeting, each local topic chair must have prepared four lists of papers: Distinguished, Regular, Research Note, and Rejected. During the programme committee meeting in Munich, these lists will be adjusted within each topic. This means that these lists MUST BE TOTALLY ORDERED. PAPERS SUBMITTED BY TOPIC COMMITTEE MEMBERS REVIEWING: Papers by members of a topic committee are refereed like other papers (but they are not allowed to submit to their own topic). Of course, the submitting member will be completely excluded from the discussion of her/his paper during the programme committee meeting. ETHICAL ISSUES Submitted papers are confidential (both their contents and the fact that they were submitted.) You should not distribute them (except to external reviewers), or use them for your research. The grades and topic committee deliberations must also be kept confidential. We strongly require you to destroy all files containing such confidential information as soon as you have used it. Do not keep backup copies (or crypt them). A backup copy of all mail traffic is kept in Munich, and you are welcome to request a copy of some deleted file if needed. PROGRAMME COMMITTEE MEETING The programme committee meeting will take place in Munich on Friday, 14 April 2000, 09:00-12:30 and 14:00-17:00 One member per topic committee is expected to attend the meeting and represent his topic. Usually, this will be the local chair. We will contact the prospective participants. All topic committees must have agreed on the four lists whose boundaries will be adjusted during the meeting. The representative at the meeting must have a VERY good idea about how the decision on every paper of his topic was made. We would like to avoid having to contact non-present committee members during the meeting. With thanks for your help and best regards, The Euro-Par 2000 Local Committee.