Author Information


Instructions for Camera-ready Submissions

The conference proceedings for Robotics: Science and Systems 2018 will be published online with open access, and in a book. A revised version of your paper is due to be uploaded to CMT by AOE 25 May 2018. Please note that there will be no additional opportunity to revise your paper. In preparing for the proceedings, please follow the author guidelines posted below under “Paper Format.” In particular, if more than 8 pages are used for a paper, the 9th page and any subsequent pages can contain ONLY references. There is no provision for supplementary materials in the proceedings, so please provide links to any additional content. Your proceedings submission should, of course, include your names, affiliations, and acknowledgements as we are past the double-blind review phase. In terms of content, please incorporate the reviewer and meta-reviewer comments.

Author Agreement Form: One author must complete, sign, and upload the author agreement form to CMT.

How to access everything:

  1. Login to CMT at https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/RSS2018
  2. Make sure your role is “Author”
  3. Click on “Create Camera Ready Submission ” in the “Actions” column for each of your accepted papers.
  4. You will be taken to a new screen where you can modify:
    • The title and abstract
    • Names and ordering of authors
    • Upload files: a camera-ready PDF [MANDATORY], and the author agreement form [also MANDATORY]. Please make sure you submit both files. You can upload newer versions of these files until the deadline.

Submission Instructions

Submission website: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/RSS2018/.

  • Logging into the system: If you already have a CMT account, use those credentials to login. If you do not, sign up as a new user.
  • Conflict domains: When you login for the first time, please enter your conflict domains. To edit conflict domains, click on your name in the top right of the page, click on “Conflict Domain” and follow the instructions.
  • Paper submission: To create a new submission, click on the “Submissions” tab on the top left of the page and then on “Create new submission”.
    • Enter title, abstract (5000 characters maximum), and authors.
    • Select your primary and secondary themes.
    • Upload your paper. Papers must be in the accepted conference style format and must be submitted as a PDF of no more than 10MB. Papers may be edited, updated and replaced up to the submission deadline (Feb 1, AOE).
    • We will be using the Toronto Paper Matching System (TPMS) as part of the reviewer assignment process. We ask that all authors agree to send the paper to the TPMS servers.
    • Answer if the first author is a student (eligible for the Best Student Paper Award).
  • Conflicts: This is a very critical step for the review process. After submission you will be asked to identify conflicts for this paper. You will be able to mark conflicts (and type) with RSS program committee members. This helps us execute the double blind policy and ensure unbiased reviewing. Make sure to Save Conflicts (at the bottom of the page) when you are done identifying the conflicts.
  • Paper ID: After clicking the Submit link, your paper will be assigned an ID.
  • Supplementary material: Authors may submit supplementary material adhering to the double blind requirement, such as a video or an expanded version of a proof (30MB max, accepted formats: avi, mov, mp4, mpg, pdf, tar, tgz, zip). Please note that the link to upload supplementary material becomes active only after the paper submission is complete. The link can be found in the Author Console page.
  • Email confirmation: CMT does not automatically send an email confirming that the submission is complete. You may send an email to the primary author or all the authors from the submission summary page (top right).

Paper Format

RSS only accepts PDF files as the main paper submission. Submissions may be up to 8 pages in length, including figures but possibly excluding references. Additional pages can be used for references. However, the 9th page, and any subsequent pages, can contain ONLY references. This will be strictly enforced. Submissions can use a font no smaller than 10 point. Submissions violating these guidelines will not be considered. A paper template is available in LaTeX and Word.

Supplementary Material

Authors may submit supplementary material such as a video or an expanded version of a proof. However, note that reviewers are not required to view this material and include it in their assessment of the paper. Lastly, if authors feel they must link to additional supplementary material, they are cautioned to ensure that their identities are not revealed. Please note that the link to upload supplementary material becomes active only after the paper submission is complete.

Double Blind Submission

Reviewing for RSS 2018 will be double blind, meaning the reviewers should not know the names or affiliation of the paper authors. This is desirable to remove any possible or perceived bias toward a paper on non technical grounds. The following general principles should be applied in submissions:

  • Authors names and affiliations should not be cited in the title or text of the submission.
  • Acknowledgments: Acknowledgments to people or funding agencies should not appear in the submission (it will appear in the camera ready version if the paper is accepted).
  • Citing of web links to the authors or author’s institute should be avoided.
  • Related work: In self citing authors previous work, avoid expressions such as “In the authors earlier work…”, rather use alternative expressions such as “In previous work…” or “In related work…”, in a manner that does not distinguish their own work from the work of others. Authors should otherwise cite work, including their own, as required for the completeness of the submission.
  • Images and descriptions: In presentation of experimental work, avoid logos in pictures, or overt references to an individual laboratory. Use expressions such as “The experimental equipment…” rather than “The University of XYZ’s Robby the Robot…”. Otherwise authors should include photographs, graphics and other presentation material as in the normal manner for a paper submission.
  • Supplementary material: In the supplementary materials submitted or linked to in the paper, please make sure to retain anonymity. This includes making sure authors names and affiliations do not appear in the text, weblink (such as a dropbox link or youtube channel) or filename.

In general authors should avoid obviously attributable self-references while ensuring that the paper is complete, makes appropriate citations of related work and fully describes the contributions made.

Multiple Submissions

Submissions that are identical (or substantially similar) to versions that have been previously published, or accepted for publication, or that have been submitted in parallel to other conferences are not appropriate for RSS and violate our dual submission policy.

Exceptions to this rule are the following:

  1. Submission is permitted of a short version of a paper that has been submitted to a journal, but has not yet been published in that journal. Authors must declare such dual-submissions either through the paper upload submission form, or via email to the program chair. It is the authors’ responsibility to make sure that the journal in question allows dual concurrent submissions to conferences.
  2. Submission is permitted for papers presented or to be presented at conferences or workshops without proceedings, or with only abstracts published.
  3. It is acceptable to submit to RSS work that has been made available as a technical report (or similar, e.g. in arXiv) without citing it.

None of the above should be construed as overriding the requirements of other publishing venues. In addition, keep in mind that author anonymity to RSS reviewers might be compromised for authors availing themselves of exceptions 2 and 3.

Plagiarism

RSS is utterly intolerant of plagiarism. Submitted papers are expected to contain original work executed by the authors with adequate, proper and scholarly citations to the work of others. It is the job of the authors to clearly identify both their own contribution(s) and also published results / techniques on which they depend or build. RSS reviewers are charged to ensure these standards are met. In cases of alleged plagiarism, the program chair will be guided by Section 8.2.4 Allegations of Misconduct as laid out by the IEEE in this document.

Review Process

Please read the review form to understand our emphasis this year. Authors, Program Committee members, and Area Chairs will all be anonymous. Each paper will receive 3 reviews. This year, as last year, we will not have rebuttals.