Tracks
Tracks provide fine-grained control over PC member rights. The right to see and review a submission can depend on both submission and user tags. For example, only PC members tagged #heavy can be granted the right to self-assign a review.
Set up tracks on Settings > Tracks.
Understanding track permissions
Overall site settings and track permissions both restrict PC member rights. For example, review self-assignment has an overall setting (“PC members can self-assign reviews”) and a per-track permission (“Who can self-assign a review?”).
To compute a user’s rights to perform an action on a submission, HotCRP checks:
- The overall settings for the action, if any.
- All matching tracks for the submission. This is either one or more tagged tracks, or the default track (“For submissions not on other tracks”) when no track tags match the submission.
Rights are granted when both the overall settings and at least one matching track allow it.
This may require more generous overall settings than you first expect. Say that users tagged #vicechair should be able to view reviews as non-reviewers, but other users should not. Setting “Can non-conflicted PC members see review contents?” to “Only after completing a review for the same submission” would be too strict: it prevents any non-reviewer from viewing reviews regardless of track. Instead, choose “Yes, unless they haven’t completed a review for the same submission,” and rely on track permissions to filter out unwanted users.
“Act as” members of the PC to see how track permissions affect them.
| Action | Track permission | Overall settings | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Administer submission (edit submission, view and assign reviews, all other actions)* | Who can administer these submissions? | N/A | ||
| View submission (e.g., title) | Who can see these submissions? | PC can view incomplete submissions (for draft submissions only) | ||
| View submission documents (e.g., PDFs) | Who can see submitted documents? | PC can view submitted PDFs (before submission deadline only) | ||
| Accept review assignment | Who can be assigned a review? | Non-conflicted PC members | ||
| Self-assign review | Who can self-assign a review? | PC members can self-assign | ||
| View review | Who can see reviews? | Can non-conflicted PC members see review contents?; Who can always see review contents? | ||
| View review as non-reviewer** | Which non-reviewers can see reviews? | Can non-conflicted PC members see review contents? | ||
| View reviewer names | Who can see reviewer names? | Can non-conflicted PC members see reviewer names?; Who can always see reviewer names? | ||
| Add comment as non-reviewer | Which non-reviewers can add comments? | Enable reviewing; Allow comments even if reviewing is closed; Can reviewers see comments? | ||
| View or edit hidden tags | Who can see hidden tags? | N/A | ||
*Submission administrators have full rights regardless of other track permissions. **A non-reviewer can view reviews only when both “Who can see reviews?” and “Which non-reviewers can see reviews?” track permissions allow it. | ||||
Example: External review committee
An external review committee is a subset of the PC that may bid on submissions to review, and may be assigned reviews (using, for example, the autoassignment tool), but may not self-assign reviews, and may not view reviews for submissions they have not reviewed. To set this up:
- Give external review committee members the #erc tag.
- On Settings > Tracks, “For submissions not on other tracks,” select “Who can see reviews? > PC members without tag: erc” and “Who can self-assign a review? > PC members without tag: erc”.
Example: PC-paper review committee
A PC-paper review committee is a subset of the PC that reviews papers with PC coauthors. PC-paper review committees are kept separate from the main PC; they only bid on and review PC papers, while the main PC handles all other papers. To set this up:
- Give PC-paper review committee members the #pcrc tag.
- Give PC papers the #pcrc tag.
- On Settings > Tracks, add a track for tag #pcrc and select “Who can see these submissions? > PC members with tag: pcrc”. (Users who can’t see a submission also can’t review it, so there’s no need to explicitly set the other permissions.)
- For submissions not on other tracks, select “Who can see these submissions? > PC members without tag: pcrc”.
Example: Vice chairs
A vice chair is a PC member with full administrative rights over a subset of submissions. To set this up for, say, an “industrial” track:
- Give the industrial-track vice chair(s) the #industrial-chair tag.
- Give industrial-track submissions the #industrial tag.
- On Settings > Tracks, add a track for #industrial, and select “Who can administer these submissions? > PC members with tag: industrial-chair”.
Vice chairs can run the autoassigner, make assignments, edit submissions, and generally administer all submissions on their tracks. They cannot modify site settings or change track tags, however.
Example: Hiding submissions from non-reviewers
By default, HotCRP program committee members can see all submissions. Some conferences prefer to restrict submission visibility to assigned reviewers only. To set this up:
- On Settings > Tracks, “For submissions not on other tracks,” select “Who can see these submissions? > Administrators only”. Assigned reviewers can see their submissions despite this restriction.
You can also reveal submission titles but hide submitted documents (PDFs, uploaded files) using the “Who can see submitted documents?” track permission.