Last August, our community faced a serious ethics violation that led to the rejection of three conditionally accepted papers in the last round. The issue arose when a program committee (PC) member, serving as the primary reviewer for all three papers, failed to disclose a significant conflict of interest: one of the authors was their former Ph.D. advisor, a lifetime conflict in our field. We now want to update the community on the outcome of this matter and use it to sound a cautionary note for us all.

Over the past few months, both IEEE VIS leadership and IEEE itself have been addressing this issue. While we have little insight into the IEEE side, we wanted to let you all know that the IEEE VIS Steering Committee (VSC) has now agreed on disciplinary action for the offending PC member. This person—whose identity has been protected from all but the VIS OPCs, the TVCG EiC, and the VSC chairs—has been barred from publishing at or reviewing for VIS for two years, starting with VIS 2025. This includes not being allowed to present TVCG papers at the conference. The person has been notified of this penalty by the VSC chairs. After the end of two years, the slate will be wiped clean.

We hope that this decision will bring closure to both the authors of the three rejected papers, who were blameless in all of this, as well as the community as a whole.

Let this outcome also serve as a cautionary tale for all members of the VIS community to take conflicts of interest very seriously. Our rules, which are captured in the IEEE VGTC Reviewer Ethics Guidelines, are very clear, but we will nevertheless reproduce them here.

You have a conflict with a paper if:

• You are a co-author of the work.
• You have a strong affiliation with the same institution as one of the authors. This includes, but not limited to your current employment as a professor, adjunct professor, visiting professor, or similar position, in the role of a consulting or advisory arrangement, previous employment with the institution within the last 12 months, being considered for employment at the institution, any role as an officer, governing board membership, or relevant committee, or the current enrollment as a student.
• You have been directly involved in the work and will be receiving credit in some way. If you’re a member of the author’s thesis committee, and the paper is about his or her thesis work, then you were involved.
• You suspect that others might see a conflict of interest in your involvement. For example, even though Microsoft Research in Seattle and Beijing are in some ways more distant than Berkeley and MIT, there is likely to be a perception that they are “both Microsoft” and folks from one should not review papers from the other.
• You have collaborated with one of the authors in the past three years (more or less). Collaboration is usually defined as having written a paper, book or grant proposal together, although you should use your judgement.
• You were the MS/PhD advisor of one of the authors or the MS/PhD advisee of one of the authors. Funding agencies typically consider advisees to represent a lifetime conflict of interest.
• You are related to one of the co-authors. This includes, but not limited to spouse, child, sibling, or parent, as well as any affiliation or relationship of your spouse, of your minor child, of a relative living in your immediate household or of anyone who is legally your partner that you are aware of.
• Other relationships, such as close personal friendship, that you think might tend to affect your judgement or be seen as doing so by a reasonable person familiar with the relationship.

Note that these rules were last changed in May of 2009. In other words, they have remained unchanged for more than 15 years. Any claim of ignorance of the rules is moot and cannot be used as a defense.

We also want to communicate to the authors and the community as a whole that we, the IEEE VIS leadership, take these concerns with the utmost gravity and will pursue transgressions diligently. Please keep this in mind as the review requests begin to trickle in this spring.

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Dear VIS Community,

We are excited to announce an important initiative aimed at enhancing how we govern and support the evolution of the VIS conference. In response to the voices and concerns raised by the community, we are launching an experiment: reVISe 1.1.

Why this experiment? Some context.

The current structure of our conference organization and governance is a result of the unique history of the IEEE visualization community. The original IEEE Visualization conference came from researchers active in computer graphics in the 1980s who were developing and applying graphics techniques to spatial datasets. Through the 1990s and 2000s the conference was dominated by research focused on ways to visualize 2D and 3D volumes – what we later termed SciVis. During this period, researchers from HCI and human-factors working with non-spatial data began to engage with the conference through the IEEE InfoVis symposium, a co-located symposium which focused on non-spatial techniques and user evaluation methods. In 2006, the IEEE VAST symposium (visual analytics science and technology) was co-located with the conference, driven by researchers focused on bringing analytics and visualization techniques together.

These three somewhat separate research communities – SciVis, InfoVis, and VAST – came together for the first time as co-equal parallel tracks at the main conference in 2007, with the new multi-community conference going on to be called IEEE Vis Week. Each of the three tracks had their own scientific leadership and research content, with the work of overall conference planning and organizing being done by conference organizers and the VIS Executive Committee (VEC); the conference organization and VEC were filled equally by researchers drawn from the three communities to ensure each track was sufficiently represented. This separate-but-equal organization continued for some years until calls for a more unified conference organization resulted in the original reVISe committee, which over six years worked to bring together SciVis, InfoVis, and VAST into a single community. The V-I-S letters in IEEE VIS are a nod to these 3 original tracks.

The model developed by the reVISe 1.0 committee was implemented in 2020 for the 2021 conference, and remains the current model for IEEE VIS. It includes the area model for papers, the VEC for overseeing conference organization, and the VIS Steering Committee (VSC) for longer term steering. The governance bodies and the OC (organizing committee) roles were largely seeded with triplets of people in order to smooth the transition from 3 communities to 1 by ensuring equal representation in the new model. Our governance model remains top-heavy and relatively large because of its evolution from the three-track model.

We think it is a good time to revisit the governance and organizational model of the conference, to shake off unnecessary historic effects, and develop a more nimble, streamlined, and modern conference governance structure. Hence, reVISe 1.1.

Goals of reVISe 1.1

At a high-level, reVISe 1.1 will focus on two key goals:

1. Adapting governance and streamlining structure: We are exploring options that include the possibility of consolidating the current VEC and VSC. This adjustment could help create a more cohesive and efficient governance structure to better support the evolving needs of the VIS community. As part of this effort, we intend to also revisit the structure of the organizing committee to ensure balanced workloads, clear roles and responsibilities, and accountabilities. By streamlining these processes, we hope to empower the many volunteers who make the conference possible.

2. Empowering front-line organizers: We are exploring options to delegate more authority to General Chairs and the Organizing Committee in order to create an environment that fosters experimentation, innovation, and trust. We believe in appointing capable organizers and giving them the autonomy to lead.

Next Steps

We are pleased to share that Arvind Satyanarayan will chair the reVISe 1.1 committee. Arvind, along with a dedicated team of community members, will identify tactical, yet progressive changes to help put VIS on a stronger footing in the coming years. The VSC and the VEC will work together with Arvind to select the committee members, who represent a cross-section of the community (including disciplinary backgrounds, geographies, and seniority).

In the spirit of experimentation guiding this process, we have set an ambitious but achievable timeline:

• By May 2025: The committee will aim to finalize its initial proposal, outlining key changes to governance structures and processes. This includes an initial set of recommendations for a framework for empowering organizers. These changes will allow the VSC to begin the process of appointing the VIS 2026 Organizing Committee (OC) in line with the new plan or portions of it.

• By October 2025: The committee will deliver a complete and detailed proposal for the new governance structure, including implementation steps, by-laws and a process for community feedback and iteration. This ensures the VIS 2026 General Chairs (GCs) can work with the new structure as they plan the conference.

Additionally, reVISe 1.1 will prioritize running an inclusive process and is considering a variety of approaches to ensure the VIS community’s feedback is heard and meaningfully incorporated. We aim to acknowledge the contributions of everyone who has played a significant role in shaping all aspects of the conference program over the years. This process will also include making a deliberate effort to recognize the perspectives of students, junior faculty, and early-career researchers, who might not always see themselves reflected in traditional governance discussions. Our goal is to converge on a shared set of priorities and understanding that charts a path forward for the community as a whole.

This initiative reflects our commitment to evolving and adapting as a community, striving to better serve everyone who makes VIS what it is. We are grateful for your ongoing engagement, insights, and support.

Warm regards,

Members of the VSC: Niklas Elmqvist, Jeff Heer, Kwan-Liu Ma, Miriah Meyer, Michael Sedlmair, Jinwook Seo, Vidya Setlur, Anna Vilanova, Xiaoru Yuan

Members of the VEC: Leilani Battle, Anastasia Bezerianos, Rita Borgo, Matthew Brehmer, Gautum Chaudhary, Daniel Keim, Narges Mahyar, Hendrik Strobelt, Brian Summa, Tatiana von Landesberger

Chair of reVISe 1.1: Arvind Satyanarayan

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We, the Overall Papers Chairs (OPCs) for IEEE VIS 2025, are pleased to announce several important changes to the review process that will be implemented for the upcoming conference. These proposals were initially presented and discussed at the IEEE VIS 2024 town hall, where we gathered feedback from the community both through Zoom, Discord, and email. After incorporating this feedback, we presented formal proposals to the VIS Steering Committee (VSC) in November 2024, which conducted two separate meetings, one month apart, to thoroughly review and discuss each proposal.

We are now happy to share these approved changes to the greater community. The changes have already been incorporated into the VIS 2025 call for papers.

Extended Deadline for Supplemental Materials

To enhance the quality of supplemental materials while maintaining the rigor of the review process, we will now provide authors with an additional week after the full paper deadline to submit their supplemental materials. This means that while abstracts and full papers are still due on March 21 and March 31, respectively, you have until April 7 to submit your supplemental material (including any videos). Of course, those authors who wish to finalize their submission by March 31 (as for past VIS deadlines immemorial) may still do so.

This approach, similar to that used by ACM CHI and UIST, allows authors to focus on their main paper for the initial deadline while ensuring high-quality supplemental content. This change aims to improve replicability and reproducibility while giving authors more time to properly anonymize supplemental materials for double-blind submissions. While this does create a slightly more complex submission timeline, we believe the benefits to submission quality and author well-being outweigh these considerations. We have confirmed the technical feasibility of this approach in the PCS submission system.

Opt-In Publication of Anonymized Reviews

In a step toward greater transparency in the peer review process, we are introducing an opt-in system for publishing anonymized reviews of accepted papers. Both reviewers and authors will have the choice to participate, and reviews will only be published when both the authors and all reviewers of a paper agree. In other words, all reviewers and the corresponding author have to agree before the reviews are published. The reason for this is that for this first year, we want to avoid confusing situations where only a partial set of reviews are published, potentially skewing the perception of an accepted paper.

Reviewers will indicate their willingness to participate at the start of the review process through a checkbox on the review form, while authors will make their choice upon paper acceptance. Approved reviews will be archived as supplemental material in IEEE Xplore.

While we acknowledge concerns about reviewer privacy and potential fingerprinting, we believe these risks are minimal and comparable to existing risks in anonymized submissions. This experimental change represents a measured step toward open reviewing while respecting all participants’ preferences.

Student Reviewer Program

To nurture the next generation of reviewers and enhance the diversity of perspectives in our review process, we are introducing a student reviewer program for full paper reviews. Primary reviewers will have the option to invite a Ph.D. student as an additional reviewer, supplementing the existing three-reviewer structure (primary, secondary, and external). The student reviewer is merely advisory.

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Call for Program Committee Volunteers for VIS 2025

As the new Overall Papers Chairs (OPCs) for VIS 2025, we—Niklas Elmqvist, Holger Theisel, and Melanie Tory, along with our OPC Assistant Petra Specht—are excited to begin preparations for next year’s conference. Following the significant steps taken to increase transparency in the VIS Full Papers program last year (detailed in our “The Road to VIS 2024” blog series), we anticipate a more focused set of updates this year, highlighting only new initiatives and particularly important matters.

One of our first priorities is to announce the opening of volunteer applications for the VIS Full Papers Program Committee (PC). While preparations for VIS 2025 are already well underway, we need your expertise and dedication to make this conference a success.

The VIS 2025 Papers Chairs Committee (PCC) will carefully evaluate all volunteers while considering several key factors. At a minimum, PC members must have

• A Ph.D. degree (or equivalent);
• Published at least one full paper at VIS (preferably within the last five years); and
• Reviewed at least one full paper for VIS (preferably within the last five years).

Additional factors that will influence selection include

• Publication record at VIS and related venues;
• Reviewing experience at VIS and related venues;
• Academic qualifications in our field;
• Previous PC experience for related venues; and
• Areas of expertise.

Please note that while volunteering does not guarantee a position on the program committee, we deeply value and carefully consider all volunteers.

Serving as a PC member represents a significant commitment; much more work than that of a regular reviewer. Before volunteering, please carefully consider whether you can accommodate the workload, particularly during the summary review period, which requires substantial effort within a short, fixed timeframe. Key responsibilities include:

• Conflict management: Managing conflicts of interests is a crucial aspect of maintaining the integrity of our review process. PC members should
  • Bid on all paper abstracts;
  • Carefully identify and declare all conflicts of interest with paper authors (recent co-authors as well as current and former advisors/advisees);
  • Complete all conflict declarations between abstract and full paper deadline; and
  • Maintain strict confidentiality throughout the process.
• Submission management: All PC members will be asked to serve as Primary or Secondary reviewer for 4-6 papers:
  • Recruit at least one expert reviewer per paper they serve as Primary;
  • Ensure timely submission of high-quality reviews; and
  • Find replacement reviewers when necessary.
• Reviewing: All PC members review papers and are expected to model best review practices:
  • Write their own high-quality reviews of all assigned papers;
  • Monitor and ensure quality of external reviews; and
  • Lead and/or participate in the reviewer discussion for each paper.
• Summary Review: Primaries will be asked to write a summary review for each paper:
  • Write summary reviews capturing all reviewers’ assessments;
  • Suggest an initial recommendation for each paper they are managing; and
  • Complete summary reviews within approximately one week after the review deadline.

The volunteering period closes on December 20, 2024. Please go to the following form to volunteer: Link

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