2015Q3 Reports: Mentoring Chair

This year we tried a new approach where accepted papers were offered mentoring if more than two out of three reviewers suggested it needed help. As it is the first time, I decided to only do it for long papers: next year we could do short papers too.

We called for volunteers and got a very good response --- 96 in all.

We ended up with 6 papers needing mentoring, of whom 5 accepted. I intend to ask them how useful it was at the conference --- a couple of people CCed me on their mentoring reports, and they looked useful.

• it would be interesting to see the correlation between acceptance rates and the reviewer saying the paper needed mentoring on style

Overall flow:

(0) call for mentors (FCB, very soon --- draft mail below)

 - note the short turn around (request to do within one week)
 - note the non-anonymity
 - mentors need not be native-English speakers, just experienced
 - ask for preferred subject areas (select tracks)
 all ACL members self-chosen --- send mail to acl list
 reply to aclmentor@gmail.com

(1) reviewers identify papers that need help

 START * new question *

(2) area chairs select papers (April 23)

(3) if 2+ reviews say it need help, offer (START)

 * authors have 3 days to reply (opt in)

(4) assign mentors (within 10 days)

(5) author sends paper (preferably revised) and comments to the mentor

   (once they have the email address (within 10 days))

(6) mentor reviews are sent directly to the authors by the mentors

   (as soon as possible), CCing mentoring email to keep a record

(7) improved papers are submitted, thanking the mentors (May 29)

(8) we encourage people to seek out and thank their mentors at the conference

In general, I think this approach was a success.