The Health of Research Conferences and the Dearth of Big Idea Papers.

This article reports that research conferences are often the most desirable venues for presenting research results. For academic computer scientists and engineers, preferring conferences over journals is so common that they even lobby administrators to ensure that conference papers can be viewed in the same light as journal papers in other fields. Hence, the health of conferences is vital to the computer science research mission. One conventional indication of health is the number of submissions and the acceptance rate at the conference. Calls for papers often include encouraging words for big idea or new direction papers. The problem is that reviewers see so many regular papers it is just too difficult to switch gears and be more understanding when evaluating bolder papers with holes in arguments or missing measurements. Program committees typically start with a ranked list of papers based on the average of numerical ratings in order to cope with the large number of submissions. Big idea papers are sure to get some poor evaluations, which cause them to drop down the list.