Guidelines for the Steering Committee of a SIGPLAN Event

All conference series that are sponsored by SIGPLAN must be organized by a Steering Committee (SC). The SC, working in partnership with the SIGPLAN Executive Committee (EC), is responsible for the overall organization and financial plan of each conference instance.

Responsibilities of the SC

  1. To appoint the conference General Chair and Program Chair. The conference General Chair, Program Chair, and program committee members must be approved by the Vice Chair of SIGPLAN. Conference leaders and program committee members may be removed in exceptional circumstances by the SIGPLAN EC or the conference SC.
  2. To provide help and guidance to the General Chair in selecting the site and date and preparing the budget, in collaboration with SIGPLAN’s liaison at ACM. Also to provide help and guidance with the overall technical organization of the conference.
  3. To request approval from the EC Chair and Vice-Chair whenever a major change is planned for the conference.
  4. To have a representative attend SIGPLAN EC meetings when issues relevant to the conference are under consideration.

Steering Committee Bylaws

The SC operates under a set of rules, which must be established by the initial steering committee and approved by the SIGPLAN EC. These rules must include the following:

  1. Composition of the SC: the number of members serving, and the structure of the committee. (For example, the SC could be made up of the current and previous two General Chairs and Program Chairs.)
  2. Committee member rotation: how committee members are rotated off the SC (how often, how many, and in what order).
  3. How the chair of the SC is determined.
  4. The schedule for the conference: how often and what time of year.
  5. Suggestion: The SC can include the current SIGPLAN EC Chair and Vice Chair as members.

Managing Changes

It is recommended that pending changes are communicated to the community in advance, e.g., at the open meeting of the previous conference.

Surveys of authors, reviewers and attendees are a good mechanism for gathering community feedback. Careful alignment of survey questions from year to year and with those from other SIGPLAN conferences may allow meaningful comparisons to be drawn longitudinally and among the conferences.

Important Email Addresses

SIGPLAN Chair: chair_sigplan@acm.org
SIGPLAN Vice Chair: vc_sigplan@acm.org
SIGPLAN Information Director: infodir_sigplan@acm.org
ACM Representative to SIGPLAN (Abigail Sumandal): sumandal@hq.acm.org