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Instructions for submitting reports
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We will use the EasyChair system for peer-reviewing the course projects. One of your group members should submit an anonymized version (strip off ids of team members) of the report. Please follow these steps to do so (just submit one report per team please):


1) Enter your name and email address associated with your EasyChair account here, please (this information will be used to assign reviews to you, so everyone in the class should fill out this form, not just the project submitter):

https://goo.gl/forms/iw35gqVLPv5FlL7t1


2) Create an account w/ EasyChair by going here (only the project submitter needs to do this part):

https://www.easychair.org/account/signup.cgi

(You can skip this, if you already did this step as part of the "Instructions for reviewing" below.  In the EasyChair sign up form, be sure to use the same email address that you entered into the Google form above.  Also, after you fill out the EasyChair sign up form, check your email and follow another link to fill out another (second) sign up form to finish creating your account.)


3) Log into the main conference site:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ccmls17

Then click to enter the site as an “author”.  (You can change your "role" at any time by hovering over "CCML S17" > clicking "Change role".)


4) Click "New submission", and fill out the submission form.

Some further notes:
- Here please input email address of all your team members which are corresponding to their *EasyChair accounts*.
- For Abstract and Keywords, you can input anything; something like 'test' should be fine.
- In "Uploads", submit anonymized version of your team's report.
- Click Submit button.
- Submissions are due Mon Apr 10, 5:00pm. You do not need to submit a hard copy.


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Instructions for reviewing
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After the submissions are done, you will be assigned 3 projects to review. You first indicate your preference for each paper submitted by your colleages ("paper bidding"), and then 3 projects will be assigned to you. Reviewing is not optional!  It is part of your final project grade.  Here is how to register to be a reviewer:


1) Accept the email invite to join the "CCML S17 program committee".  The email should be from "noreply@easychair.org", and titled "invitation to CCML S17 program committee".  (Check your spam folder if you don't see it in your inbox.)


2) Then, create an account w/ EasyChair by going here:

https://www.easychair.org/account/signup.cgi

(You can skip this, if you already did this step as part of the "Instructions for submitting reports" above.  In the EasyChair sign up form, be sure to use the same email address that you entered into the Google form above.  Also, after you fill out the EasyChair sign up form, check your email and follow another link to fill out another (second) sign up form to finish creating your account.)


3) Log into the main conference site:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ccmls17

Then click to enter the site as a "PC member".  (You can change your "role" at any time by hovering over "CCML S17" > clicking Change role.)


4) For bidding papers:
Click "Paper biddings" > choose between "yes", "maybe", "no", "conflict" for each submitted papers below.

It is important that you choose "conflict" for your paper!


5) For reviewing papers: 
Hover over "Reviews" > click "My papers" > click the plus sign in the column "Add new review" > fill out the review form as follows.

Please organize your feedback into the following categories (with each category being clearly indicated in your feedback):

a) Briefly summarize the project.

b) State a few positive aspects of the project.

c) State a few potential drawbacks of the project.

d) Detailed feedback for the authors (please provide scores along w/ justifications):
[0-10] Motivation: Is the problem properly motivated?
[0-10] Review of prior work: Have they considered previous approaches
or is there major work they missed?
[0-10] Objectives: Are they clearly stated? Do they make sense?
[0-10] Suitability: Is the project suitably related to statistical machine learning
and the topics covered in class?
[0-10] Theory description: Is the theory clearly described? If not,
please state which paragraphs/statements/equations are unclear. Be as
specific as you can.

e) Add up the total score from the above (out of 50).