sigir-workflow

SIGIR Workflow

SIGIR is an annual single-cycle venue with a distinctive rhythm: recent editions

put the full-paper deadline in mid-January (2025: abstract Jan 16, paper Jan 23;

2026 trackers reported Jan 15/22 — exact dates 待核实 on the current Key Dates page),

notification in early spring, camera-ready in late April (Apr 29, 2026 verified for

Resources/LRE), and the conference in July (2026: July 20-24, Melbourne). Secondary

tracks stagger a few weeks behind the full-paper dates. Plan backward from the dates

you verify, and treat every date in this file as a pattern anchor, not a promise.

SIGIR is a conference run by ACM SIGIR (the special interest group): there is no

standing editor-in-chief — program leadership rotates per edition — and no

journal-style APC; costs arrive as registration and travel, with ACM Open status

determining any publication-fee exposure per institution (待核实).

The annual shape

| Phase (pattern) | Months (recent cycles) | Owner's job |

|---|---|---|

| Track decision + scoping | Aug-Oct | Pick full/short/resource/repro target; freeze claim |

| Evidence build | Oct-Dec | Collections, baselines, runs, ablations |

| Writing + audits | Dec-Jan | Style, related-work, submission audits |

| Abstract → paper deadlines | mid-Jan | Metadata frozen a week early; PDF last |

| Review window | Feb-Mar | Response prep if a channel opens; next-venue scouting |

| Notification → camera-ready | Mar-Apr | TAPS pipeline, artifacts public |

| Conference | Jul | Presentation, community work |

Backward plan from the paper deadline

| Weeks out | Milestone for a ranking/retrieval paper |

|---|---|

| 10+ | Claim frozen; collection lineup chosen against the claim's scope |

| 8 | Baselines reproduced at current strength, tuning protocol logged |

| 6 | Main results stable across seeds; ablation matrix running |

| 4 | Full draft in sigconf; significance script wired to run files |

| 3 | Internal mock review by an evaluation-minded reader |

| 2 | Repository mirror anonymized; PAPER_MAP written |

| 1 | Submission audit (sigir-submission); PC nominee confirmed; buffer |

| 0 | Abstract by its deadline, PDF by its deadline, both AoE |

The two-stage deadline is a real gate: the abstract registers title, authors, and

track, and late abstracts close the door regardless of PDF readiness. Freeze the

author list before the abstract — ACM authorship policy makes later changes painful.

Multi-track coordination

Groups often have several irons: a full paper, a short paper from a side finding, a

resource from the data work. SIGIR's cross-track double-submission ban makes this a

planning problem, not just an ethics one:

• Assign each contribution to exactly one track before the abstract deadline.
• Stagger risk: if the full paper is rejected, which parts return as a short paper

or resource paper next cycle? Write the modular repo accordingly.

• The Resources track's own calendar (2026: abstract Feb 5, notify Apr 2, camera

Apr 29) runs weeks behind full papers — a rejected-dataset-chapter salvage plan

is sometimes executable in the same year. Verify each cycle.

The fallback calendar

IR has a dense venue ring, so a SIGIR reject waits weeks, not a year:

Typical resubmission ring (verify each venue's current dates):
SIGIR (Jan deadline, Jul conf)
  -> CIKM     (~May/Jun deadline, Nov conf)   broader IR+KM+DB scope
  -> SIGIR-AP (~Jul deadline, Dec conf)       regional; has advertised an R&R route
  -> WSDM     (~Aug deadline, Feb/Mar conf)   web search + data mining angle
  -> ECIR     (~Sep/Oct deadline, Mar/Apr conf) European IR, full+repro tracks
  -> back to SIGIR (Jan)
Journal exits: TOIS / TOIS-adjacent for work that outgrew 9 pages.

Each hop costs a re-framing pass, not just a re-upload: CIKM wants the knowledge/

data-management angle sharpened, WSDM the web/user-data angle, ECIR welcomes

reproducibility framing. Budget one week per hop for venue-fit revision.

Ownership map

Deadline collapses at SIGIR are usually ownership failures, not effort failures.

Assign by name, once, in the scoping phase:

| Deliverable | Single owner's duty |

|---|---|

| Run files + significance script | One person regenerates every table end-to-end |

| Baseline tuning log | Proves symmetry claims during review |

| Anonymization sweep | Names, logs, leaderboards, metadata, repo history |

| OpenReview metadata + PC nominee | Abstract-deadline gate; nominee agreed in advance |

| Camera-ready/TAPS | Starts the week of notification, not the week of the deadline |

Shared ownership of the anonymization sweep is the classic failure: everyone

assumes someone else checked the PDF metadata.

Failure modes by phase

• Claim still moving at week 6 → the collection lineup no longer matches the

claim; scope-narrow now rather than during reviews.

• Baselines start in week 4 → tuning symmetry becomes unprovable; this is the

most-cited fatal review at this venue.

• Anonymization at week 0 → leaderboard rows, repo history, and system names

leak under deadline pressure (see sigir-submission).

• Response window opens and nobody owns run files → coordinate-based replies

become impossible; archive the exact submitted PDF + runs at upload time.

• Camera-ready collides with teaching/travel in April → TAPS proofs get

rubber-stamped; schedule the proof check like a review, not a formality.

Output format

[Current phase] scoping / evidence / writing / submitted / responding / camera-ready
[Verified dates] <each from the live Key Dates page, with URL + check date>
[Backward plan] next three milestones with owners
[Track map] contribution -> track, cross-track conflicts: none / <list>
[Fallback route] <next two venues with verified deadlines>
[Risk register] <top risk from the failure-mode list>