Call for Papers: UH-OS 2010


Time and Place

UH-OS 2010 will convene on Friday, December 10th, 2010, at Notre Dame, Indiana. Students in the operating systems class will present their semester projects. The proceedings of the workshop will be published on the web.

Topics of Interest

Any paper in the following topic areas is guaranteed to be accepted by the program committee:

Important Dates

What When What to Turn In
Draft Papers 23 Nov 2010 FOUR Printed Copies of Paper
Peer Review 2 Dec 2010 Two Printed Copies of Each Review; only ONE marked with the reviewer's name.
Final Papers 9 Dec 2009 One Printed Copy of the Final Paper.
Final Talks 10 Dec 2010 Email PPT or PDF to Instructor by 8AM

Important Considerations

The paper must be formatted as follows:

Here is the recommended paper structure:

It is absolutely imperative that authors make sure that they have addressed any issues raised at each step of the project development process. To this end, you are strongly advised to re-read previous feedback several times. Human memory is often leaky. Use your notes and old materials to ensure that you have changed what you have been asked to change. Ensure that you incorporate all that you have learned from the following sources:

Peer Review Process

Keep in mind that the draft paper should be a serious attempt to write a polished and complete paper, adhering to all of the requirements given above. It is acceptable if the draft is missing some final data such as the performance results of an experiment currently running. However, you may not omit the results section: you must still include a description of how you are evaluating the system, what the results may demonstrate, and any intended graphs or tables with appropriate axes, captions, and keys, albeit minus the missing data.

We will be using a peer review process in order to turn good draft papers into outstanding final papers. After submitting a draft, you will receive several reviews from your peers in this class as well as others. Of course, that means you must write some reviews. The instructors will write an "editor's summary" of each of the reviews and give comments on what must be done for the final paper. Half of your draft paper grade will evaluate the quality of your draft paper, and the other half will evaluate the quality of the reviews that you have written.

In order to allow each reviewer to speak candidly, peer reviews will be single blind. This means that the identity of each reviewer will be concealed from each author. If any author should ask another whether he or she was the reviewer, the proper answer is always no.

Writing Reviews: Each review must use this reviewing form. You should plan to spend about one hour digesting each paper, and each review should be a full page worth of text. Just as if you were preparing for class, you should read each paper at least twice: one for an overview, and again for details. Summarize the paper to demonstrate that you actually understood it. Provide detailed and constructive comments that will help the author to write a better final paper. If the subject matter is a little out of your area, provide suggestions for making the paper more accessible to a non-expert like you.

Reading Reviews: Consider peer reviews to be a golden opportunity. They are an early poll of how readers will react to your paper before you deposit the copy that counts. Often, reviews vary widely: for the same paper, one reader might love it, and another might hate it. This is quite normal; Don't take it personally.

It is important that you seriously consider the feedback from all reviewers. Naturally, you will apply any suggestions that you agree with. But, what if the reviewer was wrong about a certain technical detail? Don't assume the reviewer is dumb: emphasize, clarify, or repeat the detail so that future readers will not miss the point. What if the reviewer didn't even get the main point of the paper? Again, do not assume the reviewer is dumb: clarify or extend your introduction so that every future reader will be gently guided to your main point. What if the reviewer suggests some enormous task that you don't have time to accomplish? Don't assume the reviewer is mean: address the idea and discuss why it is not feasible (or not a good idea.) Every objection of the reviewers must be addressed in some way.

Good luck and happy writing!