Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking

Abstract

The 24th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (ACM MobiCom 2018) is the premier international forum for disseminating significant, cutting-edge research in mobile systems and wireless networks. The technical program this year features 42 outstanding papers that cover a wide variety of topics including augmented reality, cellular networks, millimeter-wave networking, security, and localization. The program this year also includes an experience-track paper and a verification-track paper, reflecting contributions that present experiences in the deployment and operations of mobile systems and networks as well as contributions that seek to verify and/or characterize recent results using rigorous experimental methodology. This year's call for papers attracted 187 qualified submissions from across the globe that were carefully reviewed by 63 Program Committee (PC) members along with a selected group of 12 External Review Committee (ERC) experts. The PC was formed with the goal of covering diverse research expertise as well as diverse perspectives and approaches, and included researchers from 12 countries including China, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. 18% of the PC members were female and there was broad industry participation with PC and ERC members from Alcatel-Lucent, Google, IBM, Microsoft, NEC, and Telefonica. The PC this year was "all-heavy," meaning that all members participated throughout the entire review and shepherding process. The paper review process was double-blind (both authors' and reviewers' identities were hidden from each other), and carried out in five phases: three review rounds, followed by an online discussion phase, and discussion at the PC meeting itself. In Round 1, each paper was reviewed by at least four PC members, with the top 122 papers selected for promotion to Round 2. In Round 2, each paper was reviewed by three more reviewers, with the top 92 papers selected for promotion to Round 3. Round 3 papers received between one and four further reviews, at the chairs' discretion, depending on the strength of their review scores as well as the confidence of those review scores. We are pleased to report evidence that the additional number of reviews helped the reliability of the review process: 15 papers had three Round 1 reviews all scoring either 1 or 2 (out of 4), yet eventually made it into Round 3 on the basis of a fourth first-round review score of 3 or above, and further high second-round scores. After Round 3, reviewers participated in an online discussion phase to come to an agreement on whether to promote each paper to discussion at the in-person PC meeting, based on an often-extensive technical exchange of each paper's merits and demerits. The online discussion phase resulted in 69 papers being promoted to discussion at the PC meeting, which was held on May 21-22 at Rutgers University in New Jersey. These 69 papers were organized by topic area, and discussed at length in the meeting. After the in-person PC meeting, 42 papers were selected to enter a new doublyanonymous shepherding process, which we describe next.