After two rounds of review, CHI PLAY 2021 has accepted 64 full papers to be presented at the conference. This is a larger number than our previous high (51 papers in 2019). Over two rounds, a total of 250 papers were submitted for review and our acceptance rate is 25.6%.
In the second round of review, 81 authors chose to resubmit: 25/26 papers that were given minor revisions in round 1 submitted a revision; 56/65 papers given major revisions in round 1 submitted a revised version. Of those 81 resubmitted papers, 63 were recommended for acceptance—24/25 resubmitted papers that were given minor revisions were ultimately accepted and 39/56 resubmitted papers that were given major revisions were ultimately accepted.
In terms of contribution type, of the 64 accepted papers, they were identified by authors with the following primary contribution type:
Artefact-Design: 7
Artefact-Technical: 3
Empirical-Mixed Methods: 9
Empirical-Qualitative: 15
Empirical-Quantitative: 15
Meta-Research: 4
Methodological: 2
Theoretical: 9
After the second round of submissions, committee members and external reviewers were given the opportunity to engage with the revised pieces of work, and then engaged in a discussion period during which we took a first step toward determining which papers should be accepted or rejected. For papers where there was clear agreement among committee members (i.e., 1AC and 2AC) and reviewers, there was only a brief exchange with the papers chairs. In most cases, this concerned submissions that had initially received the decision ‘minor revisions’, however, there were also a number of submissions initially marked as ‘major revisions’ that turned into clear accepts at this stage. Only lightly touching papers with clear consensus allowed us to focus our time and energy on those submissions that required more consideration. Here, we followed up with a one-week committee discussion period, during which papers chairs, 1ACs, 2ACs and in some cases also other committee members engaged with borderline papers in an effort to resolve all remaining issues. During our entire process, a little over 40 papers were subject to extensive discussion by the committee.
Papers were discussed primarily using asynchronous tools: there were over 8000 emails sent via PCS between paper authors, ACs, and reviewers, and the program committee additionally sent over 3800 slack messages to discuss paper outcomes.
Taken together, this means that the selection process for CHI PLAY 2021 was very competitive, and we look forward to seeing a range of topics presented and discussed at what is already shaping up to be an inspiring CHI PLAY conference.
Congratulations to all authors of accepted submissions. Regardless of the outcome, we would like to thank all authors for considering CHI PLAY as publication venue, and we hope that reviewer feedback will be useful for the preparation of revised and improved papers for other venues or for resubmission to CHI PLAY 2022. We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to all ACs and reviewers who contributed their time to provide constructive feedback and ensure a high-quality conference program. Between the ongoing pandemic and the many changes made to reviewing for CHI PLAY this year, we are very grateful for the agility of this community and their demonstrated commitment to the peer review process.