Paper-AC Assignment
Assign an Area Chair to every paper — pick an AC manually (search any user or choose an existing one), batch-assign by round-robin, or run auto-assignment that proposes suggestions for you to approve.
Purpose
Paper-AC Assignment gives each paper in your program an Area Chair, who owns that paper's meta-review. You can assign papers one at a time, in batches, or run auto-assignment that proposes suggestions for your approval.
When you use it
- After ACs are on your committee, to make sure every paper has an Area Chair.
- To balance the AC workload across all papers.
- To change or remove the AC on a paper as circumstances change.
Walkthrough
- 1
Open the SAC-AC tab and select the Paper-AC Assignment sub-tab.
- 2
Check the header counts (unassigned vs. total papers) and use the Show toggle (All / Assigned / Suggested / Unassigned) plus the search box to focus the papers table.
- 3
To assign one paper, click Assign (or Change) on its row. In the modal, search any user to appoint as Area Chair, or pick from your program's existing Area Chairs.
- 4
To assign many at once, tick unassigned papers (or Select Unassigned) and click Batch Assign — papers are distributed round-robin to the ACs with the fewest papers.
- 5
To let the system propose assignments, click Configure to set min / max / target papers per AC, then click Auto-Assign. This creates Suggested assignments rather than final ones.
- 6
Review suggestions in the Suggested view: Approve or reject each one, or click Approve All to confirm every suggestion at once.
- 7
To remove an AC from a paper, open its assignment and unassign it; use the Show filters and the pager at the bottom to work through long lists.
Tips
Auto-Assign never finalizes on its own — it produces Suggested assignments you can approve or reject paper by paper, or all at once. Use Configure to cap the max papers per AC before running; the capacity preview warns you if there are not enough AC slots for the unassigned papers.
The per-paper Assign / Change modal lets you search any user, not just your existing ACs. Appointing a new person automatically gives them the Area Chair role and a reviewer number and sets up their meta-review task.