ACM FAccT - 2025 Home

<!DOCTYPE html> <html class="no-js"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1"> <title>ACM FAccT - 2025 Home</title> <meta name="description" content=""> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/bootstrap-spacelab.min.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/main.css"> <script src="/static/js/vendor/modernizr-2.6.2.js"></script> </head> <body> <div class="navbar navbar-default navbar-fixed-top"> <div class="container"> <div class="navbar-header"> <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle" data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".navbar-collapse"> <span class="icon-bar"></span> <span class="icon-bar"></span> <span class="icon-bar"></span> </button> <a class='navbar-brand' href='/'>ACM FAccT Conference</a> </div> <div class="navbar-collapse collapse"> <ul class="nav navbar-nav"> <li class="dropdown"> <a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">2025 <b 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href='/2021/'>Home</a></li> <li class="{'% if_current_page 'https://2021.facctconference.org/ 'active' '' %}"><a href="https://2021.facctconference.org/">Online conference hub</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/welcome'>Welcome from the General Chairs</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/community'>Community Agreements</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/inclusion'>Diversity and inclusion</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/registration'>Registration</a></li> <li class="divider"></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/programschedule'>Program Schedule</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/keynotes'>Keynote Speakers</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/acceptedpapers'>Accepted Papers</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/acceptedtuts'>Accepted Tutorials</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/acceptedcraftsessions'>Accepted CRAFT Sessions</a></li> <li class="divider"></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/cfp'>Call for Papers (Closed)</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/cft'>Call for Tutorials (Closed)</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/cfw'>Call for CRAFT proposals (Closed)</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/callfordc'>Call for Doctoral Consortium (Closed)</a> <li class=""><a href='/2021/callforvolunteers'>Call for Volunteers (Closed)</a></li> <li class="divider"></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/committees'>Committees</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/sponsorship'>Sponsors and Supporters</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/sponsorship_policy'>Sponsorship Policy</a></li> <li class="divider"></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/press-release'>ACM Press release</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/racialequityjustice'>Commitment to Racial Equity + Justice</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2021/2021_online'>Covid-19 Update</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="dropdown"> <a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">2018-2020 <b class="caret"></b></a> <ul class="dropdown-menu"> <li class=""><a href='/2020/'>FAT*2020 Barcelona</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2019/'>FAT*2019 Atlanta</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/2018/'>FAT*2018 New York</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right">  <li><a href="https://facct-blog.github.io/">Blog</a></li> <li class=""><a href="/network/">Network</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/connect'>Connect</a> </li> <li class="dropdown"> <a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">Organization <b class="caret"></b></a> <ul class="dropdown-menu">  <li class="divider"></li> <li class=""><a href='/organization'>People & Committees</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/organization-sc'>Steering Committee</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/documents'>Governing Documents</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/harassment'>Anti-Discrimination & Harassment Policy</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/sponsorship'>Sponsorship Policy</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/faq'>FAQ</a></li> <li class="divider"></li> <li class=""><a href='/2023/humanrights'>EC Statement on Technology and Human Rights</a></li> <li class=""><a href='/warfare'>EC Statement on AI Warfare </a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </div>  </div> </div> <div class="container"> <div class="page-header"> <h1>Area Chair Guide</h1> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <p><strong>Last Updated: December 2024</strong></p> <p>Area Chairs (ACs) are key decision-makers and central to the quality of the reviewing process at ACM FAccT. ACs are involved in every part of the reviewing process. This guide should be read by all ACs, and provides details of the role of ACs, what decisions they are asked to make, guides on writing AC summaries, and responses to frequently asked questions. For deadlines related to the submission for any year, and the scope of the conference, please refer to the <a href='/2025/cfp'>CFP</a>. ACs will be listed on the conference website (<a href="https://facctconference.org">facctconference.org</a>) before the submission deadline.</p> <h2>Area Chair Roles and Responsibilities</h2> <p>One way to think of ACs is as acting editors for a journal. They play several key roles in the conference reviewing process. For an overview of how reviews lead to outcomes, see the <a href='/2025/rguide'>Reviewer Guide</a> and <a href='/2025/aguide'>Author Guide</a>.</p> <h3>Reviewer Recruiter</h3> <p>The interdisciplinary nature of FAccT means that reliable Reviewers are needed from across the broad range of fields that are within the scope of FAccT. ACs are key to helping to ensure a broad Reviewer pool is available, using their networks and visibility of suitable candidates within the fields they work in. This recruitment is done early in the conference planning cycle. Each year, the Program Chairs (PC) will provide a target for the number of Reviewers that are needed across the various disciplines to meet the expected demands of the conference.</p> <h3>Reviewing Process Manager</h3> <p>ACs support the PCs to manage the reviewing process for the large number of submissions that are received. ACs are assigned a set of papers at the beginning of the review process and it is their role to ensure that these papers receive a full set of reviews, the reviews are fair, and that the overall review workflow is on track to meet the planned key dates. PCs will share detailed dates with ACs.</p> <p>Managing this reviewing process means having full oversight of the state of papers at each stage of the reviewing process. As the reviewing period progresses, the management tasks change, and these tasks include:</p> <ul> <li><strong>AC Bidding and Initial Review.</strong> Once the reviewing process begins, ACs can bid on papers. ACs will be asked to select their own <a href='/2025/focusareas'>focus areas</a> and may bid on any paper that lists at least one of the focus areas they select. Following bidding, ACs are assigned an initial set of papers. These papers should be reviewed to ensure there are no obvious issues, like fake papers, papers that are blank, papers that blatantly fail to meet the formatting guidelines, and papers that are clearly out of scope for the conference. These papers should be flagged to the Program Chairs for potential desk rejection.</li> <li><strong>Reviewer assignment.</strong> ACs are also given an initial assignment of papers to Reviewers. ACs check that they are satisfied with these assignments, and can adjust assignments if needed. ACs also check that there aren鈥檛 any conflicts of interest that have not been declared and accounted for in the allocation of papers.</li> <li><strong>Progress Tracking.</strong> ACs need to be proactive to ensure that Reviewers log in to the system and are aware of their assignment, and send reminders to ensure that reviews are submitted on time. If ACs find that Reviewers are not on time or delinquent, they should be proactive to assign additional Reviewers to ensure that there are at least 3 high-quality reviews per paper. (PCs will share details on how this can be done each year.)</li> <li><strong>Review Quality Assessment.</strong> Once reviews are provided, ACs check that reviews have a consistent quality and are ready to share with authors. Reviews should not be too short, should not use inappropriate language, should be polite and constructive, and should be fair in the type of feedback and considerations requested. ACs should ensure that reviews are based on scholarly quality and not unfairly influenced by geographical or cultural biases. ACs also ensure that there is consistency in the ways Reviewers understand and provide rating and recommendations, and that reviews follow what is included in the <a href='/2025/rguide'>Reviewer Guide</a>. ACs can request adjustment to reviews by Reviewers. If there are ethical concerns related to a paper, these are flagged to the PCs as soon as possible.</li> <li><strong>Facilitating Reviewer Discussion.</strong> ACs ensure that Reviewers engage in respectful discussions with each other, particularly when there are significant discrepancies in their evaluations and ratings or when certain concerns remain unclear to the AC. ACs should encourage Reviewers to communicate directly in the review system to resolve those disagreements, when possible, or clarify points of concern. If these discussions lead to a change in a Reviewer鈥檚 opinion, ACs should request that Reviewers adjust their reviews and ratings accordingly to reflect this change. ACs drive forward Reviewer discussion to calibrate judgments so that they can make consistent recommendations within and across papers.</li> <li><strong>Meta-reviews.</strong> ACs are also experts in their area, so can bring their own expertise to the assessment of the papers. ACs will be asked to provide an assessment of the paper at two stages. The preliminary AC summary covers the submission鈥檚 main content, including its strengths and weaknesses. The preliminary summary can relate to points raised by Reviewers and key points to which authors should respond in their rebuttal. After the author rebuttal, ACs are asked to write a final meta-review that summarizes the discussion and makes an outcome recommendation. Meta-reviews are reviewed by the PCs, who can request adjustments. Meta-reviews are shared with authors (and there are separate fields for private comments that are not shared). See the section on writing meta-reviews for further guidance.</li> <li><strong>Decision-making.</strong> ACs provide recommendations on whether the paper should be accepted using the evidence from reviews and their own judgment. ACs also provide nominations for best paper awards, and raise concerns of misconduct of other suspicious activity. See next section on role as a decision-maker.</li> <li><strong>Recognizing Service.</strong> ACs recognize the exceptional work of their Reviewers who have provided significant value to the reviewing process by nominating them for recognition for exceptional service (Best Reviewer lists). Significant contributions are made by Reviewers who provide detailed reviews that strengthen the work under review, are on time and proactive in reviews, incorporate Reviewer discussion and author responses in their assessments, are measured in their judgments, and support the overall decision-making process. We expect that approximately 15% of Reviewers should be recognized in this way. ACs have a box with which to nominate Reviewers.</li> </ul> <h3>Decision Recommender</h3> <p>The principal responsibility of ACs is to provide recommendations of acceptance or rejection of papers. All final recommendations are accompanied by a meta-review that summarizes the reviews and the reasoning. As a top-tier venue, FAccT has a high standard for accepted papers, and ACs are essential to ensuring the high quality of papers that are accepted for inclusion into the proceedings.</p> <p>Decisions that ACs make include:</p> <ul> <li>Flag papers for desk rejection (see FAQ below for more details).</li> <li>Assess violations of the Code of Ethics. When a paper is flagged, information should be collected, an informed recommendation should be made, and any evidence obtained should be provided (e.g., from the paper, discussion with author and/or Reviewers). Please note the AC recommendation will be non-binding, and any of the flagged papers may be passed to an additional ethics review process for further assessment. Refer to the Raising Ethical Concerns section of the <a href='/2025/rguide'>Reviewer Guide</a> for more discussion.</li> <li>Make final recommendations on acceptance or rejection.</li> </ul> <p>In the final stages of the conference, ACs can request further information from Reviewers and request adjustment to reviews. This can be done over email. ACs can also host virtual discussion meetings with Reviewers for borderline papers to help provide clearer decision signals. In the final stages, PCs may also request calibration meetings with ACs to discuss borderline and outlier papers to ensure there is consistency and to discuss merits of accepting or rejecting individual submissions.</p> <h2>Applicable Policies</h2> <h3>Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct</h3> <p>Papers are reviewed in alignment with the <a href="https://ethics.acm.org/">ACM ethics guidelines</a>. ACs should give thought to whether papers might be in contravention of these guidelines and report those concerns to the Program Chairs.</p> <h3>Authorship and AI Writing Tools</h3> <p>ACs should refer to the April 2023 <a href="https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship">ACM Policy on Authorship</a> and use of large language models (LLMs), and the associated <a href="https://medium.com/sigchi/acm-publications-policy-guidance-for-sigchi-venues-87332173aad1">SIGCHI blog post</a>, which also apply to reviews and meta-reviews.</p> <p>When using third-party or software (local or cloud) to check fluency, formatting, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and language translation, ACs should maintain the confidentiality of the paper submissions they review at all times including by not uploading the submissions or text fragments to any third-party website, in accordance with the <a href="https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/peer-review">ACM Peer Review Policy</a>.</p> <h3>Review Forms</h3> <p>You can see the <a href="#">Review Form</a> that Reviewers will be asked to fill out and the <a href='/2025/acform'>AC Review Form</a> you will be asked to fill out. Both contain detailed guidance on completing each field.</p> <h2>Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)</h2> <p><strong>When inviting Reviewers, do I need to invite only those with expertise in my focus area(s)?</strong></p> <p>No, you are welcome to invite any Reviewers with expertise relevant to FAccT. Reviewers will be able to select their own focus area(s) when they fill out the Reviewer response form.</p> <p><strong>How does paper assignment work? Will the Reviewers that I invite be assigned to the papers that I oversee?</strong></p> <p>Not necessarily. Initial assignments of ACs and Reviewers to papers are made centrally after a "bidding" process during which Reviewers and ACs can see the abstracts of all papers relevant to their selected focus areas and mark those they are eager (or not eager) to review. The paper assignment automatically takes these preferences into consideration. ACs will have the opportunity to see an initial assignment of papers to Reviewers, check that they are satisfied with these assignments, and adjust assignments if needed. But it is most likely that Reviewers you invite will be assigned to a selection of papers that are overseen by different ACs. </p> <p><strong>What is the policy on preprints (such as ArXiv, SSRN, or others)?</strong></p> <p>Use of preprints is allowed. Hence, a paper appearing on a preprint server does not automatically fail the new work submission requirement. See the section on Self-Archiving and Posting Rights in the <a href="https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/publication-rights-and-licensing-policy#:~:text=All%20ACM%20published%20authors%20of,Author%27s%20Institutional%20Repository">ACM Publication Rights & Licensing Policy</a>.</p> <p><strong>What is considered contemporaneous work?</strong></p> <p>It is not uncommon for different groups to be working on the same idea (referred to as contemporaneous work), and for these to appear on preprint repositories. For FAccT, contemporaneous work are papers released 4 months prior to the conference deadline. Hence, lack of awareness, citations, or comparisons to such works is not a basis for rejection of a paper.</p> <p><strong>Can I overrule the recommendations of Reviewers?</strong></p> <p>ACs are chosen because they are also experts in their area, and will at times have a view that disagrees with the Reviewers. It is possible for ACs to override the recommendation of Reviewers (and many strong papers have been included in proceedings by diligent ACs who have advocated for papers where Reviewers judged otherwise). But ACs should exercise this option with caution. ACs should seek to add additional Reviewers to gather more evidence, read the paper in detail and provide their own review, discuss the divergence with other Reviewers, and ensure that there is an extremely strong case put forward in the meta-review and discussions with PCs.</p> <p><strong>For what reasons might a paper be desk rejected?</strong></p> <p>The decision to desk-reject a paper (i.e., to reject without review) can be made by the Program Chairs (PCs) at any stage of the reviewing process, but is more likely to happen at two times. A first round of desk rejections is undertaken following a review of submissions by the PCs. A second round is conducted when ACs and Reviewers flag papers to the PCs for possible desk-rejection. This second phase helps ensure that we capture any papers that do not warrant reviewing time.</p> <p>There are several reasons for papers to be desk-rejected, and a non-exhaustive list of reasons include:</p> <ul> <li>Violations of the submission policies, including non-compliance with the anonymity guidelines, paper formatting instructions, page length guidelines, or general failures to follow the author guidance.</li> <li>Papers that are out of scope for the conference, as described in the CFP, or have poor regard for the conventions and standards expected for FAccT submissions (e.g., whitepapers, advertorials).</li> <li>Papers that are too similar to pre-existing work, or where there are questions of plagiarism, misconduct, computer-generated text, or other academic integrity concerns.</li> <li>Duplicate submissions.</li> </ul> <p>If you believe a paper hits any of the criteria above, please contact the Program Chairs at <a href="mailto:program-chairs@facctconference.org">program-chairs@facctconference.org</a>.</p> <p>The PCs reserve the right to desk-reject papers whenever they are identified in the reviewing process, allowing ACs and PCs to highlight concerns throughout the reviewing process.</p> <p><strong>What should I do if I have a concern about potential plagiarism or other severe research integrity issues?</strong></p> <p>In such cases, please contact the Program Chairs immediately at <a href="mailto:program-chairs@facctconference.org">program-chairs@facctconference.org</a>.</p> <p><strong>Are ACs allowed to submit their own work to FAccT?</strong></p> <p>Yes! 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