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Reviewer Guidelines

Thank you once again for agreeing to review for CCN!

Role

As a Reviewer, you carry the important responsibility of evaluating submissions, thereby identifying work that should be highlighted at CCN as a Contributed Talk, as well as giving the feedback to others' work that is vital to the scientific process.

Each submission to the CCN 2026 Extended Abstracts will receive at least 3 high-quality reviews from Reviewers like yourself. After the review period concludes, there will be no discussion period; instead, the reviews will be forwarded to the CCN 2026 TPC to make talk selections. Your communications with the Technical Programme Committee (TPC) will take place via OpenReview.

OpenReview Console

The OpenReview console provides an overview of all papers assigned to you (for Reviewers and (S)ACs) or submitted by you (for Authors). From the console, you can access the forum page for each submission to view details, post comments, and engage in discussions. For a quickstart on the OpenReview forum page, see Using the New Forum Page.

Working in OpenReview

OpenReview supports Markdown and LaTeX formatting in text fields such as reviews, comments, and rebuttals. You can use standard Markdown syntax for structure and inline LaTeX (e.g., $x^2$) for mathematical notation.

Save your work locally

Do not rely on the OpenReview console to store your work in progress. OpenReview has some autosave functionality, but it may not persist. Draft your reviews, responses, and comments in a local file before submitting them on OpenReview.

Setting comment visibility

To set comment visibility in OpenReview, use the "Readers" dropdown when posting your comment. Check carefully that the appropriate people can see the comment before posting. For example, to engage in private discussion with an AC or SAC, the comment should be set visible to the AC or SAC and "Program Chairs" only. (The "Program Chairs" on OpenReview are the CCN TPC.)

OpenReview screenshot

Timeline

Period Reviewer responsibilities Dates
Review Reviewers submit reviews for assigned papers. Apr 20 - May 18, 2026

Review

Apr 20 - May 18, 2026

Assignment

We have done our best to match reviewers with the most appropriate submissions. However, if you recognize a potential conflict of interest, please let the TPC know straight away so that we can re-assign the manuscript.

A conflict of interest arises when an author on one of your assigned submissions is a current or former advisor, family member, or close personal relationship, a current or recent collaborator, or someone who works in your current or recent immediate organization, or when you have a financial interest in the work.

In addition, please make sure that your OpenReview profile has your latest email listed and keep an eye on emails possibly landing in spam.

Review deadline

May 18, 2026, 11:59 PM Anywhere on Earth (AoE), is the reviewing deadline. We are counting on you to submit your review(s) on or before this date so that we can move onto the next step of the process.

Reciprocal reviewers

As stated in the submission guidelines, if you are a Reciprocal Reviewer (reviewing as part of an Extended Abstract submission) and do not submit all assigned reviews by this date, the relevant submission(s) may not be considered for a Contributed Talk.

Structure of a CCN Proceedings review

Title

A brief summary of the reviewer's perspective on the manuscript.

Ratings

Submissions are rated on the following criteria:

Interest: To what extent is this work relevant to the CCN community, in terms of scope and impact?

  • 5: Landmark (contributions have transformative implications for multiple disciplines at CCN)
  • 4: Broad (contributions have significant implications with interdisciplinary relevance)
  • 3: Disciplinary (contributions have significant implications within one of AI, cognitive science, or neuroscience)
  • 2: Incremental (contributions have minor implications for one of AI, cognitive science, or neuroscience)
  • 1: Limited (contributions are out of scope for CCN, or are covered by prior work)

Soundness: Does the evidence support the claimed contributions? Are the right methods used?

  • 5: Exceptional (establishes new standards of evidence for a field)
  • 4: Compelling (rigorous, e.g., convergent evidence from multiple methodologies)
  • 3: Convincing (appropriate methodology and evidence consistent with claims)
  • 2: Incomplete (evidence only partially supports the claims, or more appropriate methods are not used)
  • 1: Inadequate (lacks critical evidence, or has methodological flaws that undermine conclusions)

Clarity: Are the contributions clearly communicated?

  • 5: Exceptional (understandable to all of CCN; highly reproducible; pedagogical)
  • 4: Accessible (coherent; understandable beyond immediate subfield; reproducible)
  • 3: Adequate (understandable to an expert audience)
  • 2: Underdeveloped (hard to follow and/or missing key details)
  • 1: Poor (difficult to understand even for experts in the subfield)

Confidence of Expertise: Do you feel confident in your ability to judge this work?

  • 5: You are absolutely certain about your assessment. You are very familiar with the related work and checked the methodological and/or technical details carefully.
  • 4: You are confident in your assessment, but not absolutely certain. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that you did not understand some parts of the submission, or that you are unfamiliar with some pieces of related work.
  • 3: You are fairly confident in your assessment. It is possible that you did not understand some parts of the submission, or that you are unfamiliar with some pieces of related work. Methodological and technical details were not carefully checked.
  • 2: You are willing to defend your assessment, but it is quite likely that you did not understand the central parts of the submission, or that you are unfamiliar with some pieces of related work. Methodological and technical details were not carefully checked.
  • 1: You are unable to assess this paper.

Comments

10,000 characters. Reviewers explain their evaluations of the interest, soundness, and clarity of the submission and provide additional comments to the authors. Reviewers can incorporate Markdown and LaTeX into the comments section.

Comments should:

  • Summarize the manuscript's claims and approach

  • List the strengths and limitations of the manuscript

  • Cover the dimensions above (Interest, Soundness, Clarity) and motivate the rating. It can also be helpful to explain why a higher or lower rating is not appropriate

  • Note any questions for the authors, or requests to clarify something, that could be helpful for the authors when presenting the work at CCN

  • Make suggestions for improvement of the work

Things to flag

If you note any of the following in your submissions, please flag them with the TPC.

Breaches of anonymity

If you find that the identity of the authors is revealed (e.g., names or affiliations can be found in the text, or in included or linked supplementary material), please escalate this to the TPC.

Ethical concerns

This includes, for instance, harm, injury, or unfair bias. If you notice unethical behavior involving authors or reviewers assigned to you, please escalate this to the TPC.

Policies

Confidentiality

Do not discuss, distribute, or use ideas, content, or code of the submissions. Reviews are double-blind; authors and reviewers do not know each other's identity. Maintain strict confidentiality for all review materials. Don't use or share submission content (ideas, results, code) until publicly available. Never distribute submissions outside the OpenReview platform.

The use of LLMs or other automated tools is prohibited for generating review text or summarizing submissions. Inputting a paper submission into such a tool is a violation of confidentiality.

Conduct

Abide by the CCN Code of Conduct. Take part in an active, polite, and constructive manner.

Transparency

Please note that reviews of Extended Abstracts are not made public.

Anonymization

Authors and other reviewers do not know your identity.

Only the TPC knows your identity as a reviewer.

Interdisciplinarity

Keep in mind that a submission may have a greater affinity with a domain other than yours.

Flexibility

Despite our best efforts to plan this year's process, this is very much a recent endeavor, and therefore, the timeline and guidelines may shift now and then. So please keep an eye on our communications, and we ask for your understanding and patience as we keep developing CCN.

Contact Info

If you encounter a situation that you are unable to resolve on your own, please contact the Technical Program Committee (TPC) at tpc@ccneuro.org.

If the issue is a technical issue related to the OpenReview platform, email the OpenReview support team directly at info@openreview.net and CC the TPC at tpc@ccneuro.org.