PanelsSIGCSE Virtual 2026

Panel sessions provide an opportunity for expert panelists to present their views on a specific topic, and then to virtually discuss these views among themselves and with the audience. A panel session starts with a brief introduction to the topic by the moderator, followed by short presentations from the panelists sharing their views. Panel sessions are scheduled for 60 minutes total, but keep in mind that successful panels must allow sufficient opportunity (at least 20 minutes) for an interactive question-and-answer period involving both the panelists and the virtual audience.

When assembling a panel, we encourage authors to carefully consider ACM’s guidance for Building Diverse Teams. A typical panel will consist of four participants, including the moderator. Limiting a panel to four participants allows sufficient time for audience questions. Proposals with more than four panelists must convincingly show that all panelists will be able to speak and that the audience will be able to respond within the session time.

All panels will follow a synchronous format. The panel presentation time will ideally be coordinated with the time zone that is convenient for the institution of the lead panelist.

If you have questions about any of these policies, please contact panels@virtual2026.sigcse.org for clarification prior to submission.

Abstracts

All panel submissions must have a plain-text abstract of up to 250 words. Abstracts should not contain subheadings or citations. The abstract should be submitted in EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sigcsev2026) along with the submission metadata, and it should be included in the PDF version of the submission at the appropriate location.

Page limit

Panel submissions are limited to a maximum of 2 pages of body content (including all titles, author information, abstract, main text, tables and illustrations, acknowledgments) plus an optional additional page for references.

Templates

SIGCSE Virtual is NOT participating in the new ACM TAPS workflow, template, and production system.

All panel submissions must be in English and formatted using the 2-column ACM SIG Conference Proceedings format and US letter size pages (8.5x11 inch or 215.9 x 279.4mm).

Here is an annotated PDF example for Panel Submissions that has some notes/tips and shows the required sections.

MS Word Authors: Please use the interim Word template provided by ACM.

LaTeX Authors:

• Overleaf provides a suitable two-column sig conference proceedings template.
• Other LaTeX users may alternatively use the ACM Primary template, adding the “sigconf” format option in the documentclass to obtain the 2-column format.

Requirement for Single Anonymous Review Process: At the time of submission, all entries should include author information, an abstract, body content, references, and placeholders for the ACM Reference Format and copyright blocks. Each author should be defined separately for accurate metadata identification.

Other requirements: Include space for authors’ e-mail addresses whenever possible on separate lines. Even if multiple authors have the same affiliation, grouping authors’ names or e-mail addresses, or providing an ‘e-mail alias’ is not acceptable, e.g., {brian,lina,leenkiat}@university.edu or firstname.lastname@college.org. Panel submissions should include from the standard ACM template: keywords, CCS Concepts and ACM Reference Format.

Desk Rejects: Submissions that do not adhere to page limits or formatting requirements will be desk rejected without review.

Accessibility: SIGCSE Virtual authors are strongly encouraged to prepare submissions using these templates in such a manner that the content is widely accessible to potential reviewers, track chairs, and readers. Please see these resources for preparing an accessible submission.

Additional Format Instructions

Authors submitting a panel should use the standardized section names and additional formatting information when preparing their proposals.

• When providing author information, indicate which of the panelists is the moderator by placing the word “Moderator” in parentheses after their name.
• Abstract: Should provide a brief summary (up to 250 words) of your panel.
• Summary: The first section should be titled Summary and should provide an expanded summary of the panel’s goals, intended audience, and relevance to the SIGCSE community.
• Panel Structure: The section following the summary should explain the panel structure and plan for audience participation, and provide sufficient time for audience interaction and questions.
• Position Statements: The subsequent sections should contain the position statements of each panelist and a brief description of their expertise and background as it relates to the panel. Title each section by identifying the panelist.
• References: Citing relevant work where appropriate is encouraged, but not required. If references are included, they should be placed in a separate section titled References and should follow the ACM formatting guidelines.

Single Anonymized Review

Submissions of a panel are reviewed with the single-anonymous review process. Submissions should include author names and affiliations. Thus, the author identities are known to reviewers, but reviewers are anonymous to each other and to the authors.

The reviewing process includes a discussion phase after initial reviews have been submitted. During this time, the reviewers can examine all reviews and privately discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the work in an anonymous manner through EasyChair. This discussion information can be used by the track chairs in addition to the content of the review in making final acceptance decisions.

The SIGCSE Virtual review process does not have a rebuttal period for authors to respond to comments, and all acceptance decisions are final.

ACM Policies

By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies (https://sigcsevirtual2026.acm.org/info/authorship-policies), including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects (https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/research-involving-human-participants-and-subjects). Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.

ORCID ID

ACM has made a commitment to collect ORCiD IDs from all published authors (https://authors.acm.org/author-resources/orcid-faqs). All authors on each submission must have an ORCiD ID (https://orcid.org/register) in order to complete the submission process. Please make sure to get your ORCID ID in advance of submitting your work.

ACM’s New Open-Access Publishing Model

Please review details of ACM’s new open-access publishing model at https://sigcsevirtual2026.acm.org/info/information-on-acm-open.

Accepted Panels

Each panel will receive a time slot in the program schedule. During the time slot, a live virtual meeting will start. The lead author of the panel will serve as the session chair. Attendees will be expected to write their questions into the chat, so the lead author will need to monitor the chat during the panel session to ask the panelists the attendees’ questions.

Overview

Panel sessions provide an opportunity for expert panel members to present their views on a specific topic and then to discuss these views among themselves and with the audience. Usually a panel session starts with a brief introduction of the panel topic and the participants, followed by short presentations by the panelists giving their views. They are scheduled in standard conference spaces. The session must allow sufficient opportunity (about 30 minutes) for an interactive question and answer period involving both the panelists and the audience.

A typical panel will consist of four participants, including the moderator. Limiting a panel to four participants allows sufficient time for audience questions. Proposals with more than four panelists must convincingly show that all panelists will be able to speak, and the audience able to respond, within the session time.

Criteria used in reviewing the proposals include the likely level of interest of the topic, the presence of panel members with multiple perspectives on the topic, and the likelihood that the panel will leave sufficient time for audience participation.

If the proposal is accepted, all presenters listed in the panel description will be required to register for the conference and to participate in the session.

Timeline

*### Single-Anonymous Review Process

Submissions to the Panel track are reviewed with the single-anonymous review process. Submissions should include author names and affiliations. Thus, the author identities are known to reviewers, but reviewers are anonymous to each other and to the authors. Because author identities are known, reviewers must be especially careful to avoid bias in their reviews.

The reviewing process includes a discussion phase after initial reviews have been posted. During this time, the reviewers can examine all reviews and privately discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the work in an anonymous manner through EasyChair. Reviewers can refer to each other by their reviewer number on that submission’s review. This discussion information can be used by the track chairs in addition to the content of the review in making final acceptance decisions.

The SIGCSE Virtual review process does not have a rebuttal period for authors to respond to comments, and all acceptance decisions are final.

Getting Started Reviewing

As a Reviewer, we ask that you carefully read each submission assigned to you and write a constructive review that concisely summarizes what you believe the submission to be about. When reviewing a submission, consider:

• its strengths and weaknesses,
• its potential contribution to an outstanding SIGCSE Virtual program and experience for attendees, and
• how it brings new ideas or extends current ideas through replication to the field and to practitioners and researchers of computing education.

Panel Review Guidelines

SIGCSE Technical Symposium panel proposals are reviewed using EasyChair. Each proposal is assigned to at least three reviewers.

Please provide constructive feedback and clearly justify your choice of rating to help the authors. A review that gives a low score with no written comments is not helpful to the authors since it simply tells the authors that they have been unsuccessful, with no indication of how or why.

The review form for panels will ask you to comment specifically on three aspects of the proposal, described below. Please refer to the prompts below as you write your review.

Relevance and Interest

• Is the panel topic clearly stated?
• Are the benefits to the SIGCSE Virtual audience clearly indicated?
• Is the panel topic of interest to the SIGCSE community?

Structure & Plan for Audience Participation

• Is there an overview of the panel structure?
• Does the proposed structure include time for a brief introduction of the topic and the panelists?
• Does the proposed structure include time for panelists to present their views?
• Does the proposed structure allow sufficient time (at least 30 mins) for an interactive question and answer period between the audience and panelists?
• Do the panelists have a viable plan for the online format?

Panelists

• Does the proposal clearly identify the panelists (i.e., name and affiliation) and describe their expertise related to the topic?
• Will the panel be well positioned to present multiple views on the topic, representing the diversity of perspectives within the SIGCSE community? Note: Please refer to ACM’s definitions of diversity and inclusion.
• Does the proposal clearly identify an appropriate number of panelists (usually no more than four), including the moderator? Otherwise, are each of the panelists needed to represent a full range of perspectives on the panel topic?

Your Summary

While your review text should clearly support your scores and recommendation, please do not include your preference for acceptance or rejection of a submission in the feedback to the authors. Instead, use the provided radio buttons to make a recommendation (the authors will not see this) based on your summary review and provide any details that refer to your recommendation directly in the confidential comments to the APC or track chairs. Remember that as a reviewer, you may only see a small portion of the submissions, so one that you recommend for acceptance may be rejected when considering the other reviewer recommendations and the full set of submissions.

Discussion

The discussion and recommendation period provides the opportunity for the Track Chairs to discuss reviews and feedback so they can provide the best recommendation for acceptance or rejection to the Program Chairs and that the submission is given full consideration in the review process. We ask that Reviewers engage in discussion when prompted by other reviewers and the Track Chairs by using the Comments feature of EasyChair. During this period you will be able to revise your review based on the discussion, but you are not required to do so.

The Track Chairs will make a final recommendation to the Program Chairs based upon your feedback.

The approximate text from the review form follows. Note that not all reviewer responses are available to authors.

Summary: Please provide a brief summary of the submission, its audience, and its main point(s), with respect to the review criteria of this track.

Familiarity: Rate your personal familiarity with the topic area of this submission in relation to your research or practical experience. Your response will not be available to the authors.

• None - I have never reviewed or written a paper or otherwise have experience in this area
• Low - I have read papers or otherwise have slight experience in this area
• Medium - I have reviewed papers or otherwise have some experience in this area
• High - I have written and reviewed papers or otherwise have moderate experience in this area
• Expert - I have written and reviewed many papers, or otherwise have extensive experience in this area

Relevance and Interest: Is the proposed session interesting and relevant to the SIGCSE community and the conference participants? Please comment on both the strengths and weaknesses with respect to structure and participation, considering the list of review prompts in the track-specific Instructions for Reviewers on the SIGCSE Virtual website.

Structure and Audience Participation Does the proposed session have a clear and engaging structure and plan for audience participation, including a strong plan for a hybrid session? Please comment on both the strengths and weaknesses with respect to structure and participation, considering the list of review prompts in the track-specific Instructions for Reviewers on the SIGCSE Virtual website.

Presenters: Do the presenters have appropriate expertise, represent a variety of viewpoints (if relevant), and include diverse perspectives? Please comment on both the strengths and weaknesses with respect to structure and participation, considering the list of review prompts in the track-specific Instructions for Reviewers on the SIGCSE Virtual website. Because this is a single-anonymous review process, please pay particular attention to potential areas of bias in your comments.

Overall evaluation: Please provide a detailed justification that includes constructive feedback that summarizes the strengths & weaknesses of the submission and clarifies your scores. Both the score and the review text are required, but remember that the authors will not see the overall recommendation score (only your review text). You should NOT directly include your preference for acceptance or rejection in your review.