Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
related activities rely heavily on both Webbased communication
and email. Authors submit papers over the Web; panel moderators
use a Webbased form to submit proposals for panels; and organiz
ers of special sessions submit their proposals through Webbased
forms as well. After a submission deadline, these materials are as
signed to reviewers for their comments, which are likewise collected
via a Webbased form. After reviews are completed, conference
leaders select papers, panels, and special sessions for the final pro
gram. This process requires several rounds of email: first to previ
ous reviewers, asking them to update their records; next to authors
and session proposers, asking them to verify the correctness of their
online submissions; then to reviewers, telling them their reviewing
assignments; and finally to authors and proposers, indicating
whether their materials were accepted for presentation. In the
course of this communication, several conference leaders collabo
rate to prepare email communications, but one person typically is
designated as a conference contact. Thus, although several people
may be involved in sending email, the “From” line of an email re
ports it comes from the contact person—a symposium chair, a pro
gram chair, a panels chair, or a chair for special sessions. Likewise,
when a conference leader prepares the email, she or he usually pre
pares a general note and instructs a script to use the central data
base to fill in details for each email recipient.
In considering a specific email, the person preparing the email
information and initiating the correspondence may or may not be
the designated contact person. Also, regardless of who actually
sends the message, the email draws from a central database, and all
email actually comes from the same physical server that is con
nected to the database. To accomplish this processing, when a mes
sage is sent, scripts insert the appropriate “From” and “To” lines
within each message, based on the conference leader designated as
the contact. This feature allows conference leaders to share the
work of organizing correspondence while maintaining a single con
tact person for various tasks.
As this example suggests, many scripting languages allow you to
send anonymous email or email with an altered “From” line; you
just specify both where the message goes and who the email should
say the message is from. The example also illustrates that this capa
bility is completely appropriate in some circumstances.
This example, however, also illustrates that scripting languages
make it remarkably easy for users to insert any email address they
