PODS and ICDT A Call to Roll-Back All Recent Changes Phokion G. - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

PODS and ICDT A Call to Roll-Back All Recent Changes

Phokion G. Kolaitis University of California Santa Cruz & IBM Research - Almaden

Background

A few years ago, VLDB introduced changes in the

submission process that led to the “journalification” of the VLDB proceedings.

This development blurred the distinction between

conference proceedings and archival journals, and also put pressure on other conferences to follow suit.

“Journalification” makes no sense for theoretically-

• riented conferences, such as PODS and ICDT.

Moreover, it stretches our small community too thin.

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The Current State of Affairs – Part I

As of 2016, PODS has two submission cycles.

The first cycle allows for revisions and resubmissions;

the second cycle does not.

A PC member of PODS 2017 has to serve on the

committee for 8 ½ months.

ICDT 2016 had one submission cycle with rebuttals. ICDT 2017 has two submission cycles with no rebuttals

A PC member of ICDT 2017 has to serve on the

committee for 8 ½ months.

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The Current State of Affairs – Part II

As of 2015, PODS has three categories of papers:

“Deep theoretical explorations" “New formal frameworks" “Validation of theoretical approaches“.

“Deep theoretical explorations” is ill-defined and

pompous (if not “ridiculous”).

“New theoretical frameworks” is very ill-defined.

• “Validation of theoretical approaches” may transform

PODS to a second-rate systems conference (fortunately, it has attracted very few papers so far).

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What is to be done?

Roll-back all recent changes of PODS and ICDT. Single submission cycle.

No rebuttals. No revisions.

Shorter service on PCs, but also fewer sub-reviewers. Publish full versions in archival journals. More people available to review journal submissions. Drop the three categories of PODS papers.

Instead, encourage submissions of both technical and

conceptual papers.

Personal wish: Hold ICDT every other year (in January).

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