The CHI papers review process is based on reviewing where the identities of both the authors and reviewers are kept hidden (but 1ACs know these details). Authors are expected to remove author and institutional identities from the title and header areas of the paper, as noted in the submission instructions (n.b., changing the text color of the author information is not sufficient). Make sure that no description or information that can easily reveal authors’ identities is included in the submission (e.g., too detailed descriptions of where user studies were conducted, where authors received IRB approvals, or figures that include faces of authors). Authors should also remove any information in the acknowledgements section that reveals authors or the institution (e.g., specific supporting grant information). Also, please make sure that identifying information does not appear in the document’s meta-data (e.g., the ‘Authors’ field in your word processor’s ‘Save As’ dialog box).
Authors are expected to anonymize their identities in the body of the paper, but leave citations to their previous work unanonymized so that reviewers can ensure that all previous research has been taken into account by the authors. Authors are required to cite their own work in the third person, e.g., avoid “As described in our previous work [10], … ” and use instead “As described by Chetty et al. [10], …” In cases where anonymization in the context of prior work is especially tricky, please contact the Papers chairs and ask for advice. Note that the use of any references marked “anonymous” is grounds for desk rejection.
In order to ensure the fairness of the reviewing process, CHI uses a review process where external reviewers do not know the identity of authors, and authors do not know the identity of external reviewers. In the past few years, some authors have decided to publish their CHI submissions in public archives prior to or during the review process. These public archives have surpassed in reach and publicity of the earlier practice of tech reports published in institutional repositories. The consequence is that well-informed external reviewers may know, without searching for it, the full identity and institutional affiliation of the authors of a submission they are reviewing. While reviewers should not actively seek information about author identity, complete anonymization is difficult and can be made more so by publication and promotion of work during the CHI review process. While publication in public archives (e.g. arXiv) is becoming standard across many fields, authors should be aware that unconscious biases can affect the nature of reviews when identities are known. CHI does not discourage non-archival publication of work prior to or during the review process, but recognizes that complete anonymization becomes more difficult in that context.
