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 sigcsevirtual2026-panels@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 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, acknowledgements, and 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, including ACM’s Publications Policy on 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.

Accepted Panels

Each panel will receive a time slot in the program schedule. During the time slot, a live virtual meeting will be started. 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.