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Guidelines for WACV 2027 Senior Area Chairs

Email Program Chairs at: 

wacv_2027_pcs@computer.org

First and foremost, thank you for agreeing to serve as a Senior Area Chair (SAC) for WACV 2027. We truly appreciate your time and effort in helping with the reviewing and decision-making process. This document contains an overview of your responsibilities and some guidelines for how to fulfill your role as an SAC.

As an SAC, your role is to oversee the work of several ACs, making sure that the reviewing process goes smoothly. SACs serve as the first point of contact for ACs if they need assistance or guidance. SACs are responsible for helping ACs chase late reviewers, assign emergency reviews, calibrating decisions across ACs, and discussing and deciding borderline papers. During the final decision-making phase, SACs will be expected to consult with the program chairs (PCs) on particularly borderline or difficult paper decisions as well as recommendations for awards and highlights. SACs are also expected to complete the job of ACs in emergency situations.

Contact Info

If you encounter a situation that you are unable to resolve on your own, please contact the program chairs at wacv_2027_pcs@computer.org. Any questions about conflicts of interest or ethics should go to the program chairs. If the issue is related to OpenReview, email the OpenReview support team directly at info@openreview.net.

Timeline

Round 1:

Paper submission deadline: Fri, June 26, 2026

Papers assigned to ACs + Reviewers: Fri, July 3, 2026

Reviews due (from Reviewers): Fri, July 24th, 2026

  • ACs chase reviewers
  • AC “pair meeting”

Decisions and meta-reviews due (from ACs): Fri, August 4th, 2026

  •  PCs chase ACs
  • Release meta-reviews

Round 1 decision day: Fri, August 7th, 2026

Rebuttal + Revision deadline: Fri, August 28th, 2026 

Camera ready deadline for accepted Round 1 papers: Thu, November 2nd, 2026

 

Round 2:

Paper submission deadline: Fri, August 28, 2026

Papers assigned to ACs + AC Pairs (first) + Reviewers (second): Fri, September 4th, 2026

Reviews due (from Reviewers): Fri, September 25th, 2026

  • ACs chase reviewers
  • AC “pair meeting”

Decisions and meta-reviews due (from ACs): Fri, October 6th, 2026

  • PCs chase ACs
  • Release meta-reviews

Round 2 Decision Day: Fri, October 9th, 2026

Camera ready deadline for accepted Round 2 papers: Thu, November 2nd, 2026

 

Main Tasks

Task 1: Preparation & AC assignment:

  • Please ensure that your preferred email address is accurate in your OpenReview profile. We will send most emails from OpenReview (i.e., noreply@openreview.net). Such emails are sometimes accidentally marked as spam. Please check your spam folder regularly. If you find such an email in there, please allowlist the OpenReview email address so that you will receive future emails from OpenReview.
  • Please log into OpenReview and make sure that your profile is up to date, so that you will be assigned relevant ACs to work with.
  • In addition to the guidelines below, please also familiarize yourself with the AC guidelines, reviewer guidelines, and author guidelines. In particular, please review the LLM policy for authors as well as the timeliness and quality reviewing requirements for reviewers, as ACs will flag violations for you. You will be interacting significantly with ACs, so please make sure you understand what is expected of them. 
  • You will be assigned ~10 ACs to work with. When you receive your assignment, look it over carefully and email the PCs if you have any concerns.

 

Task 2: Help ACs with reviewer suggestions if needed 

(Round 1: Jun 26 – Jul 3, Round 2: Aug 28 – Sep 4)

  • ACs will suggest reviewers for each paper that is assigned to them. Please help ACs during this period. Your workload during this period should be light. Hence, make sure that each AC you work with has suggested the requested number of reviewers for each paper. If an AC has difficulty finding a qualified reviewer not in conflict with the paper, please help them. 

Task 3: Ensure that all papers have at least 3 quality reviews 

(Round 1: Jul 24 – Jul 31, Round 2: Sep 25 – Oct 2)

  • Round 1 Reviews are due on Jul 24 and decisions will be released to the authors on Aug 7. Round 2 Reviews are due on Sep 25 and decisions will be released to the authors on Oct 9. Prior to Jul 31 (for Round 1) / Oct 2 (for Round 2), ACs should ensure that the reviewers have completed their reviews, send reminder emails if needed, find emergency reviewers potentially by emailing them personally if needed, assign emergency reviewers if needed, read all reviews to ensure they are high-quality reviews, and ensure that all papers have at least 3 quality reviews. 
  • Your role during these two periods is to ensure that ACs perform these checks, and that they are able to find emergency reviewers successfully and on time. We ask that all SACs check on their ACs if they have missing reviews, and provide appropriate guidance on how to make sure that by Jul 31 (for Round 1) / Oct 2 (for Round 2), all papers have at least 3 high-quality reviews. 
  • We encourage SACs to quickly skim all of the reviews and point out any potential issues to ACs. You are ultimately responsible for making sure the reviews are all there and high quality, so if an AC is unresponsive, you will need to step in. Emergency reviewers should be assigned no later than Jul 27 (for Round 1) / Sep 28 (for Round 2).
  • If the AC flags extremely delayed reviews, low-quality reviews, or papers with significant LLM usage not disclosed in the paper, weigh in on the AC’s determination. If you agree with the AC, flag these cases to the program chairs.

Task 4: Supervise Virtual AC “pair meetings” 

(Round 1: Jul 24 – Aug 2, Round 2: Sep 25 – Oct 4)

  • Ensure that the AC Pairs are meeting during the times that they scheduled.
  • Each AC Pair must 
    • meet to discuss the papers and reach an accept, revise or reject decision and 
    • also make recommendations on the format (oral, spotlight, poster) in the event there are multiple presentation styles at WACV 2027

Task 5: Ensure that all decisions and meta reviews are entered 

(Round 1: Aug 4, Round 2: Oct 6)

  • Make sure that the ACs submit their decisions and high-quality meta-reviews by this date.

Task 6: Review special category decisions (Oct 9 – Oct 30)

  • Encourage ACs to recommend oral papers and award candidates. 
  • Respond to PC requests regarding special category decisions.

 

Best Practices

  • Be responsive. Respect deadlines and respond to emails as promptly as possible. Make sure that your preferred email address is accurate in your OpenReview profile and that emails from noreply@openreview.net don’t go to spam. If you will be unavailable (e.g., on vacation) for more than a few days—especially during important windows (e.g., decision-making)—please let the program chairs know as soon as possible.
  • Be proactive. It is your responsibility to ensure that the review process goes smoothly. Check in to make sure that the ACs you work with are responsive, help them find emergency reviewers, and make sure discussions are happening on their papers.
  • Be kind. It is important to acknowledge that personal situations may lead to late or unfinished work among reviewers and ACs. In the event that a reviewer or an AC is unable to complete their work on time, we encourage you to be considerate of the personal circumstances; you might have to pick up the slack in some cases. If necessary, make a back-up plan with another reviewer or AC, and be flexible to the extent possible. In all communications, exhibit empathy and understanding.
  • Please flag any concerns to the PCs in a timely manner.
  • Respect conflicts of interest. If you notice a conflict of interest with a submission contact program chairs right away. Do not talk to other SACs about submissions assigned to your ACs without prior approval from program chairs since other SACs may have conflicts with these submissions. Do not talk to other SACs or ACs about submissions you are an author on or submissions with which you have a conflict of interest. 

 

Confidentiality

You must keep everything relating to the review process confidential. Do not use ideas, code, or results from submissions in your own work until they become publicly available (e.g., via a technical report or a published paper for ideas/results, via open source for code). Do not talk about or distribute submissions (whether it is the code, or the ideas and results described in them) to anyone without prior approval from the program chairs. Code submitted for reviewing cannot be distributed. If you wish to invite an external reviewer, do so through OpenReview rather than sharing submissions through another channel.