Some conferences track papers where authors did not appear to present their paper or poster. Such papers may, for example, be excluded from the final conference proceedings, such as the IEEE Xplore digital library.

The no-show process consists of three phases: First, the chair designates the no-show papers, using the normal status change mechanisms for papers, as in designating papers as accepted or rejected. Using Reviews:Notify authors, the authors receive an email alert that typically invites them to explain the situation and includes a link to a form where the author can offer their excuse or explanation. The no-show disposition can then be entered for each paper, again via the status change link, or all such papers can be set to don't-publish in Reviews:Accept/Reject. In the third step, authors are notified immediately if the status is changed paper-by-paper, or separately via Reviews:Notify authors if the status change was made in bulk.

In more detail, the no-show process works as follows:

  1. You can use the session forms at Conference:Sessions to have session chairs track whether a paper was presented and by whom ("print session sheets for session chairs, print session reports for session chairs").
  2. Set the deadline for authors to explain their absence at Conference:Configure, Papers, "There is currently no special deadline for authors to submit an explanation...".
  3. Set up the email template at Conference:Templates, "Authors did not present paper (no show)".
  4. Select the papers that should receive a no-show notification, via Reviews:Accept/reject papers. For example, you can provide a list of paper numbers to mark as no-shows via the "provide a list of accepted, rejected or no-show papers" link or "judge papers in a list". You can also set the status for each paper via the paper page.
  5. Notify the authors via Papers:Check & remind.
  6. Authors then fill out a no-show explanation form. The form is only available until the specified deadline.