sigir-workflow

name	sigir-workflow
description	Use when planning a SIGIR project calendar — backward-planning from the January-pattern abstract/paper deadlines to the July conference, sequencing evidence freeze, significance testing, and anonymization, coordinating multi-track decisions, and wiring the SIGIR/ECIR/CIKM/WSDM/SIGIR-AP fallback calendar into one pipeline.

SIGIR Workflow

SIGIR is an annual single-cycle venue with a distinctive rhythm: recent editions put the full-paper deadline in mid-January (2025: abstract Jan 16, paper Jan 23; 2026 trackers reported Jan 15/22 — exact dates 待核实 on the current Key Dates page), notification in early spring, camera-ready in late April (Apr 29, 2026 verified for Resources/LRE), and the conference in July (2026: July 20-24, Melbourne). Secondary tracks stagger a few weeks behind the full-paper dates. Plan backward from the dates you verify, and treat every date in this file as a pattern anchor, not a promise.

SIGIR is a conference run by ACM SIGIR (the special interest group): there is no standing editor-in-chief — program leadership rotates per edition — and no journal-style APC; costs arrive as registration and travel, with ACM Open status determining any publication-fee exposure per institution (待核实).

The annual shape

Phase (pattern)	Months (recent cycles)	Owner's job
Track decision + scoping	Aug-Oct	Pick full/short/resource/repro target; freeze claim
Evidence build	Oct-Dec	Collections, baselines, runs, ablations
Writing + audits	Dec-Jan	Style, related-work, submission audits
Abstract → paper deadlines	mid-Jan	Metadata frozen a week early; PDF last
Review window	Feb-Mar	Response prep if a channel opens; next-venue scouting
Notification → camera-ready	Mar-Apr	TAPS pipeline, artifacts public
Conference	Jul	Presentation, community work

Backward plan from the paper deadline

Weeks out	Milestone for a ranking/retrieval paper
10+	Claim frozen; collection lineup chosen against the claim's scope
8	Baselines reproduced at current strength, tuning protocol logged
6	Main results stable across seeds; ablation matrix running
4	Full draft in sigconf; significance script wired to run files
3	Internal mock review by an evaluation-minded reader
2	Repository mirror anonymized; PAPER_MAP written
1	Submission audit (sigir-submission); PC nominee confirmed; buffer
0	Abstract by its deadline, PDF by its deadline, both AoE

The two-stage deadline is a real gate: the abstract registers title, authors, and track, and late abstracts close the door regardless of PDF readiness. Freeze the author list before the abstract — ACM authorship policy makes later changes painful.

Multi-track coordination

Groups often have several irons: a full paper, a short paper from a side finding, a resource from the data work. SIGIR's cross-track double-submission ban makes this a planning problem, not just an ethics one:

• Assign each contribution to exactly one track before the abstract deadline.
• Stagger risk: if the full paper is rejected, which parts return as a short paper or resource paper next cycle? Write the modular repo accordingly.
• The Resources track's own calendar (2026: abstract Feb 5, notify Apr 2, camera Apr 29) runs weeks behind full papers — a rejected-dataset-chapter salvage plan is sometimes executable in the same year. Verify each cycle.

The fallback calendar

IR has a dense venue ring, so a SIGIR reject waits weeks, not a year:

Typical resubmission ring (verify each venue's current dates):
SIGIR (Jan deadline, Jul conf)
  -> CIKM     (~May/Jun deadline, Nov conf)   broader IR+KM+DB scope
  -> SIGIR-AP (~Jul deadline, Dec conf)       regional; has advertised an R&R route
  -> WSDM     (~Aug deadline, Feb/Mar conf)   web search + data mining angle
  -> ECIR     (~Sep/Oct deadline, Mar/Apr conf) European IR, full+repro tracks
  -> back to SIGIR (Jan)
Journal exits: TOIS / TOIS-adjacent for work that outgrew 9 pages.

Each hop costs a re-framing pass, not just a re-upload: CIKM wants the knowledge/ data-management angle sharpened, WSDM the web/user-data angle, ECIR welcomes reproducibility framing. Budget one week per hop for venue-fit revision.

Ownership map

Deadline collapses at SIGIR are usually ownership failures, not effort failures. Assign by name, once, in the scoping phase:

Deliverable	Single owner's duty
Run files + significance script	One person regenerates every table end-to-end
Baseline tuning log	Proves symmetry claims during review
Anonymization sweep	Names, logs, leaderboards, metadata, repo history
OpenReview metadata + PC nominee	Abstract-deadline gate; nominee agreed in advance
Camera-ready/TAPS	Starts the week of notification, not the week of the deadline

Shared ownership of the anonymization sweep is the classic failure: everyone assumes someone else checked the PDF metadata.

Failure modes by phase

• Claim still moving at week 6 → the collection lineup no longer matches the claim; scope-narrow now rather than during reviews.
• Baselines start in week 4 → tuning symmetry becomes unprovable; this is the most-cited fatal review at this venue.
• Anonymization at week 0 → leaderboard rows, repo history, and system names leak under deadline pressure (see sigir-submission).
• Response window opens and nobody owns run files → coordinate-based replies become impossible; archive the exact submitted PDF + runs at upload time.
• Camera-ready collides with teaching/travel in April → TAPS proofs get rubber-stamped; schedule the proof check like a review, not a formality.

Output format

[Current phase] scoping / evidence / writing / submitted / responding / camera-ready
[Verified dates] <each from the live Key Dates page, with URL + check date>
[Backward plan] next three milestones with owners
[Track map] contribution -> track, cross-track conflicts: none / <list>
[Fallback route] <next two venues with verified deadlines>
[Risk register] <top risk from the failure-mode list>