CHI PLAY Full Papers: Results After Round 1

  • Post category:reviews

This year, CHI PLAY received 169 submissions to the papers track. Out of these papers, one was withdrawn, and four were desk-rejected without entering the full reviewing process.

In terms of primary contribution, we received the following number of submission types.

Artefact-Design: 24
Artefact-Technical: 14
Empirical-Mixed Methods: 32
Empirical-Qualitative: 30
Empirical-Quantitative: 36
Meta-Research: 12
Methodological: 5 
Theoretical: 17

We received no author requests for alternative contribution types.

For the remaining 164 papers that went into full review, the current outcome under the new process that allows authors to revise and resubmit their papers is as follows. 72 papers were rejected after the first round of reviews, meaning that they will not be considered for inclusion in CHI PLAY 2021. Out of the remaining 92 papers, only one paper was recommended for conditional acceptance, and 26 papers received minor revisions. 65 papers will need to undergo major revisions, and will – just like all other papers still in the process – only be accepted to CHI PLAY 2021 if all changes that were summarized by the ACs are made in a satisfactory way. For papers that are conditionally accepted and those with minor revisions, the second round of reviews will be a light-touch process, while papers that received major revisions will be subject to another round of reviews. 

We would also like to be transparent about the implications of revisions: although the move to a journal-based publication model allows for more flexibility in terms of revising submissions, we are still constrained by how many papers can realistically be presented at the (virtual) conference. Therefore, we do not expect that all papers that will undergo revisions now will be included in the conference after the second round of reviews. 

For papers receiving major revisions in particular, we have asked committee members to give clear indications where borderline decisions were made, in the hope that authors will be able to decide whether they wish to pursue the second round of reviews, or submit their work to another venue that would allow more time to make changes.

We hope that the first round of feedback will provide authors with constructive feedback on how to improve their submissions, and that the move to a revise & resubmit process will help us further strengthen our field. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all committee members for volunteering their time to support this new-for-us reviewing model, as well as all reviewers who contributed their expertise at a time where many of us experience high workloads.

We are happy to accept feedback on the new review process from authors, reviewers, or committee members so that we can improve or clarify the process next year. Please email the paper chairs with any feedback.