Conference program management using the Internet

An increasing number of conferences encourage or require electronic submission of papers. As program chair of the 1996 Sigmetrics conference, the author ran the conference paper submission process electronically. The author approached the task with a number of goals. He encountered a few surprises along the way, and can now comment on the benefits and drawbacks to the Internet based approach. The system developed to manage Sigmetrics 96 (WIMPE-Web Interface for Managing Programs Electronically) can be used to manage other conferences.