Specific user roles and administrative rights for Chairs, Track Chairs and Conference Chairs

We would like to change the rights of our users with the roles „Chair of the Program Committee, Track Chair and / or Conference Chair”. What options do we have?

All three types of Chairs – Chair of the Programme Committee (Chair), Track Chair and Conference Chair (ConfChair) – have some administrative rights, but they differ, depending on the default and your personal settings.

Chairs of the Programme Committee (Chairs) by default have access to all submissions (including author names), all reviewers and all review results (including reviewer names), and are authorized to assign contributions to the reviewers and to decide which papers are accepted and which are not.

Track Chairs have the same rights, but their access is limited to the submissions, reviews and reviewers of their track / submission type. The Track-Chair module needs to be installed and its functions have to be enabled before you can assign Chairs to specific tracks (an extra fee applies for the module).

Conference Chairs have the same options as the Chairs / Track Chairs, but they can also always access the user management. They can create new users, send bulk e-mails and export data related to the submission process. They also can view the list of participants, but they don’t have access to payment details or the ConfTool settings.

For an overview on all user roles and options related to these role please consult documentation User Roles and Statuses in ConfTool and entry Assignment of user roles.

To add or withdraw administrative rights for Chairs and Track Chairs, please go to:

Overview => Settings => Settings for User Registration => Main Settings for User Registration and Management

… scroll to the section “Settings of Specific User Rights” and within this section to the subsection “Chair of a Conference Track or Submission Type (TrackChair)”. If the Track-Chair module is not installed or activated, settings are related to Chairs only (accordingly, the caption says “Chair of the Program Committee (Chair)” instead). The following options to define the range of administrative rights of Track Chairs (or Chairs respectively) are available (see image 1):

• Access to User Handling: e.g. creation of new user accounts, assigning status as “Member of the Program Committee” and/or “Reviewer”
• Upload and submit papers
• Assign/unassign submissions to reviewers or delete reviews
• Enter or edit reviews for reviewers / members of the program committee
• Update the acceptance status of contributions
• Get access to the bulk e-mail functions
• Gain access to the export functions
• Access the conference scheduling module

Moreover, you can disable or enable the allocable acceptance statuses for Conference Chairs and/or Chairs / Track Chairs. Find related information on this page: Disable the option to change the acceptance status for chairs or track chairs.

Using the same mechanism, it is possible to let Chairs / Track Chairs recommend a status for each contribution, which could help organizers to make their final decisions. Please consult the entry Allowing track chairs / sub-chairs to set a preliminary acceptance status.

There are no e-mails sent automatically to authors when the acceptance status is set. Usually bulk e-mails are sent after the Program Committee made its decisions, but it is possible to let Chairs / Track Chairs send the corresponding bulk e-mails themselves, as described on the page Allowing chairs to send messages to authors when setting the acceptance status.

Chairs / Track Chairs usually cannot enter recommendations for a best paper award (this is done by the reviewers), but they can use the online forum to discuss which contributions should be considered to be honoured. This option is described here: Best Paper Award - Discussion after reviewing has finished.

If you want to allow Chairs / Track Chairs to copy submissions (e.g. for a two-phase review process or for additional presentations at the event), please find detailed instructions on this page: Allow authors and/or chairs to copy/duplicate papers.

Finally, you can give Chairs / Track Chairs the option to send “Review Requests”. The Review Request Manual describes how Chairs, Track Chairs and also Meta-Reviewers and Senior Reviewers as well as members of the programme committee can use the this function in order to send out requests to other persons in which they are asked if they would like to review a specific submission.