Dear Area Chairs and co-Chairs,

Now that you are in the process of securing your program committees, we want to give you additional
detail on the reviewing timeline and process. Some of this information should also be communicated to
your committee members and potential committee members now, so they can
plan their time. If you have any questions about a potential
committee member, you may send your question to us. We will try to answer it in consultation with the
appropriate area chair and co-chair from last year. 

Also, since some potential committee members
may receive invitations to join committees from more than one area, they need to be realistic in the commitments
that they make. Please be sure to advise them on the key reviewing dates of Jan. 19 - Feb. 9, and discussion
dates of Feb. 9 - Feb. 23. Also advise them that
they might be asked to review five papers for each area they have agreed to join,
so they need to be realistic if they agree to join the committee in more
than one area. No member should join more than two areas. 

In selecting the
number of committee members for your area, it is probably best to shoot for  a large enough committee so that
each member reviews fewer than five papers - this is a reduction from the five to six estimate given in
the last email.  Below is the detailed timeline and process. This is almost precisely the distribution of
times used in 2007, when ISMB and ECCB were last held together.

Thank you,

Dan Gusfield and Anna Tramontano

Detailed Paper Selection Timeline:

January 7, 2009:    Deadline for paper submissions. 

January 7 - January 13: Area chairs and co-chairs examine papers
designated by the authors to be in 
their area, to spot COIs and report any papers that do not fit in their area. 
If needed, reported papers are moved to a more appropriate
area. Papers might also be moved to related areas for load balance.

January 14 - 19: Area chairs and co-chairs make assignments of papers in their area to the members of their program committees.
Max. assignment  of five papers per committee member, but better to shoot for three or four. At this point, depending
on the load distribution, some committees may have to be expanded. Be
advised that Jan. 19 is Martin Luther King holiday in the U.S. 

January 19 - Feb 9: Committee members submit reviews. This is a total of only 3 weeks and 2 days. Emphasize this when
securing agreement of a committee member to serve.

Feb. 9 - Feb. 23: Discussion period.  Area chairs and co-chairs read reviews and encourage discussion of committee
members to resolve any disagreements.

Feb. 23 -  Feb. 26 Each area submits a ranked-ordered list of papers they believe could be accepted, 
along with any additional fine rankings (must be accepted, etc.). Generally, the top 15% of the papers from each
area are then accepted without additional discussion. The next 15% are
declared "conditional accepts" and will be
discussed further.  The papers that are not acceptable do not need to be rank-ordered.

Feb. 27 - Teleconference with Proceedings Chair and co-Chair and one Chair or co-Chair from each area. Conditional
accepts are discussed, with some accepted and some rejected during the call, and some papers designated in need of 
additional reads.

Feb. 27 - March 6 The papers in need of additional reads are read by all willing area chairs and co-chairs.

March 6 - teleconference to discuss the papers read during the prior week. Final recommendations made.

March 6 - 9  Final decisions made.

March 9 - Decisions sent to authors.