2020Q3 Reports: PCC Co-Chairs

Membership and Communication

The Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) presently consists of 15 regular members, serving their initial three-year terms, and two co-chairs. This includes five new members who were trained at ACL 2019 in Florence. Because of the online conference format in 2020, no new members were trained, but we expect to resume in 2021.

We maintain a mailing list for communication amongst PCC members about general policies but avoid using email for discussion of any specific cases.

Confidentiality

In order for the policy to achieve its long-term goal of providing a harassment-free environment, due process and appropriate safeguards for confidentiality are essential. Accordingly, before each ACL-affiliated conference, we are contacting the organizers as well as ACL and chapter exec members who may be approached by individuals wishing to raise a complaint to remind them that if someone comes to them with a complaint, to direct them to a member of the PCC, to not try to collect any detailed information from the Complainant, and to keep any information they do learn (including the existence of the complaint) in the strictest confidence.

Anti-harassment procedures for online conferences

Online conferences bring new ways for harassing and disruptive behavior to occur. The PCC was consulted by the chairs of ACL 2020 to assist in developing procedures to deter, prevent, and respond to harassment and disruption in online sessions.

Cases

The PCC handled a small number of cases this year; confidentiality requirements preclude giving details here.

Conflict of Interest Policy

Conflicts of interest (CoI's) arise from previous collaborative or personal relationships. ACL's Conflict of Interest policy requires all reviewers, area chairs, and program chairs to determine and disclose potential CoI's in reviewing and decision making, and to not review or participate in the acceptance decision of any paper for which they have a conflict of interest.

To help prevent inadvertent or intentional violations of the policy, the PCC has worked with the ACL Reviewing Committee and Softconf, the provider of the START paper-submission system, to improve automatic detection of CoI's in the reviewing of conference and workshop papers. This includes maintaining a database of co-authors of present and past submissions, and also self-declared CoI's (e.g., two members who are married to each other).

So far, the system has worked reasonably well, but there is still room for improvement. The system is intricate, and because institutions, email addresses, and exact forms of names may change, it is not always easy to reliably identify individuals who may be in CoI. In addition, some CoI's went undetected due to software bugs; we are grateful to the members who reported them. It is not possible, however, to make any such system fully foolproof against someone who intends to maliciously subvert it.

Academic Misconduct Policy

After fielding multiple complaints which were not about harassment but rather about academic misconduct, such as misrepresentation of results, malicious reviewing, or plagiarism, the PCC asked the ACL Exec to develop a policy on academic misconduct, which is now under way. Once a draft is ready it will be released for discussion to the ACL Exec and the ACL community.