In this blog post we want to touch on the actual creation of your paper PDF, and on some information that should be reported in the paper, and how.

First, the PCS system is now open for you to create your paper submissions. We are looking forward to seeing many of them. In this context we also need to announce a small change to what we had initially communicated in the previous blog post: rather than having a separate, optional field for the paper plus appendix upload we allow the main paper upload to directly include the paper appendixes as well. That means that you paper still, like in previous years, can only have up to a maximum of 9 pages of main text plus you can fill the rest of your paper up to a maximum of 11 pages with references (with acknowledgements, additional material points, and figure credits being allowed on pages 10 and 11). In contrast to previous years, however, you no longer have to cut off your appendices and upload them as a separate file, they can be included in the main document, can be cross-linked to the main text, and do not count toward the 11-page limit. (We also updated the previous blog post accordingly.) Please note that this change only applies to the reviewing phase, however. For a potential final (camera-ready) submission you still will have to upload your main paper plus references separately from the appendix section, because otherwise you will be charged for the additional appendix pages by the IEEE.

Next, we would like to let everyone know that we initiated several improvements to the VGTC LaTeX template, which is now available to all authors. For example, we made some changes that make the template more compact for the listing of references (e.g., an automatic limit to the number of authors listed for each entry to avoid the template breaking for papers with many authors and to reduce the used space overall). In the text of the example paper we also updated the overall instructions for how to prepare papers for VGTC-sponsored events. We thus not only ask you to download the new version of the template for your submissions but also strongly recommend all authors to consult (or re-consult) these instructions for assistance on how to specify author details (Section 2), on how to create hyperlinks and cross references (Section 3), on how to embed figures most effectively (Section 4), on how to prepare your lists of references (Section 8), and much more. Of course, you are by no means required to use LaTeX to prepare your documents, but most of these guidelines apply as well if you use a different word processing software to prepare your submission, so we still recommend you consult this file even if you do not use LaTeX.

Specifically, a new section in the example paper we added is instructions on how to report about experimental results that involve human participants (Section 7). For these you, as authors, today are required to “include a statement in the article that the research was performed under the oversight of an institutional review board or equivalent local/regional body, including the official name of the IRB/ethics committee, or include an explanation as to why such a review was not conducted. For research involving human subjects, authors shall also report that consent from the human subjects in the research was obtained or explain why consent was not obtained,” as specified in Section 8.1.1.E of the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual. For more information please see our detailed instructions on this subject in the call-for-paper documents.

We also would like to touch on the subject of AI-generated content in submitted papers. Our call for papers has clear instructions on how to report the use of AI tools for the creation of materials for the paper. Other conferences recently expressed concerns about AI-hallucinated content, in particular hallucinated references. We want to clarify that such a use of AI is not allowed. For this very reason we also expect that authors provide hyperlinked DOIs for all cited material that has such a digital object identifier—virtually all published papers and also books, preprints, theses, etc. These hyperlinked DOIs allow your reviewers to quickly check the material you are citing and to verify that they are legitimate (nonetheless, please ensure that all the DOIs indeed link to the pages they claim to refer to). Note that you do not necessarily need to use the potentially long original DOIs that the publishers provide, you can also use the shortDOI® service of the DOI foundation to save space in your documents. Either way, this inclusion of DOIs reduces the work that your reviewers have to do—in addition to the above-mentioned hyperlinking and other ways to make your paper reviewer-friendly. For further details on how to create a usable, correct, and consistent lists of references please see Section 8 of the template’s example paper.

Since the fall of 2025, we—the 2026 OPCs Melanie Tory, Alex Endert, and Tobias Isenberg, along with our OPC assistant Shani Spivak—have been working toward organizing the full paper submission and reviewing process. As a first point we would like to remind everyone that the old blog posts by the previous years’ OPCs and by the VGTC/VEC are still available for 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. You may consult them for excellent guidance on issues such as the VIS area model, the role of keywords for authors and reviewers, how to make your paper reviewer-friendly, replication studies, handling conflicts and reviewing ethics, reviewing revised papers, and an analysis of the VIS 2025 review process as well as many more topics. In this first edition of the blog posts for VIS 2026, however, we would like to raise a few points that are new for this year.

First, in the submission process this year we are making a few changes, which we hope will improve the process overall. Specifically, we now allow the main paper upload to include the paper appendixes as well. That means that your paper still, like in previous years, can only have up to a maximum of 9 pages of main text plus you can fill the rest of your paper up to a maximum of 11 pages with references (with acknowledgements, additional material points, and figure credits being allowed on pages 10 and 11). In contrast to previous years, however, you no longer have to cut off your appendices and upload them as a separate file, they can be included in the main document, can be cross-linked to the main text, and do not count toward the 11-page limit. The intention of this change is that reviewers can take advantage of this integrated file and the cross-links between the main paper text and the appendices. The deadline for this upload does not change, it is still March 31. Also, this does not change your ability to upload further additional material files until April 7.

A second change we are making to the submission form is that we are introducing the option to suggest up to three external reviewers for a paper by providing their names, e-mail address, academic website, and reason for the suggestion. These suggested reviewers must not be in conflict with any of the authors, you as authors must not have contacted these reviewers about the submission, and they must not be members of this year’s IPC, area chairs (APCs) or overall paper charis (OPC). The secondary reviewer assigned to your paper may then consider these suggestions but is not required to pick from the list and can also assign a completely different person.

Finally, we maintain the program to involve and train younger members of our community in the reviewing process, but updated the name from “student reviewers” to “junior reviewers”. With this change we want to clarify that a junior reviewer does not necessarily have to be a PhD student but also includes anyone new to reviewing for IEEE VIS, whether they are Ph.D. students or seasoned professionals from other fields. For more details on this program please see the dedicated page on it.

In the coming weeks we will make a few additional blog posts on some dedicated issues, to help you prepare your papers for VIS in the best possible way.

Note: We added a small correction/clarification of the main paper and appendix download after the initial posting of this article.