Represented data

2 Represented data

Since this part is the best specified, we start the description here. This is not intended as concrete data model (let alone SQL-code), but describes in general terms, what is in the range of the tool and what not. There are, of course, links with the data model.

2.1 Users

By users, we mean people interacting with the service. More precisely, users are those people which are represented and modelled in one form or the other inside the tool, which is to say, some accidental surfer is not user. Users interact in various roles. The role can change over the time and the role may differ in differente conferences.

The roles supported by Coma are

administrator:: The administrator is not part of the scientific organization of the conference, i.e., he does not take part in semantical decisions concerning the content.
chair:: program committee chair (chair for short). There might be more than one chair. He or she is chairing the program committee and is therefore part of the committee. A chair is in some sense the ``dictator'' concerning semantical issues which means he is granted more privileges than the others.² Basically he can change all data all the time, for instance, he can remove or add people from the committee, throw out papers, etc. Again, whether it's smart to do so excessively is another question, but sometimes his intervention is necessary. A simple example: one of the reviewers does not do his work (for instance does not read the assigned papers), the chairman must be able to throw him out, which means for the tool: remove him from the data-base etc.³
reviewer:: = program committee member
author:: each paper must have at least one author, but there might be more. For the software, one author plays are more important role than the others, namely the one who interacts with the organizers. This is the corresponding author.
participant: of the conference, i.e., a person who attend the conference and listens to the presentations etc.

Each user should be identified uniquely, which means, identities are shared (or at least are shareable) between conferences.

2.2 Restrictions and side conditions

The groups of people are not disjoint, in other words, an individual can interact with the service in different roles (at different times). Crucial is to obey certain rules concerning who (respectively who in which role) is allowed to do what or to see what. This also changes during time.

Here is a number of informal restrictions.

a not-yet-accepted paper may only be seen by the author who submitted it.
the identities of submitting authors must be unknown to the outside and also among the authors themselves
a reviewer must not review his own paper, i.e., he must of course not influence the decision
an author never sees the discussion on his paper
an author never sees the identity of his reviewers
an author sees the verdict once all decisions are taken
a reviewer does not see the reviews of his colleagues, until he has sent his own review
a chair can see everything all the time.
it is expected that at least one author of an accepted paper participates at the conference, i.e., each accepted paper must be presented by an author
optional: a reviewer must not know the identity of the authors of the papers he reviews. This is also known as double-blind review.