IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING SOCIETY POLICIES

 

Confidentiality of the Review Process

IEEE Policy and professional ethics requires that referees treat the contents of papers under review as privileged information not to be disclosed to others before publication. It is expected that no one with access to a paper under review will make any inappropriate use of the special knowledge which that access may provide. Contents of abstracts submitted to conference program committees should be regarded as privileged as well, and handled in the same manner. The Conference Publications Chair shall ensure that referees adhere to this practice.  

Author Registration (7.9)

Every regular paper accepted by a technical meeting sponsored by the IEEE Signal Processing Society must have attached to it at least one registration at the full member/non-member rate. Thus, for a manuscript for which all authors are students, one student author will be required to register at the full registration rate. For manuscripts where at least one author is already registered at the full rate, this fulfills the obligation for up to four papers.  

Paper Withdrawals

The IEEE strongly discourages changes and, in particular, withdrawals of papers once submitted and included in the program. To avoid the likelihood of this, the author is strongly encouraged to get all necessary company and/or government approvals prior to submitting his/her paper to the conference. If under any circumstances it becomes necessary for the author to withdraw or change a paper, IEEE policy dictates that the request to do this must come directly from the author and not from any third party. IEEE policy also states that in this case, the author will be held liable for all costs that are incurred. It would then be up to the author to get reimbursed for the expense from any third party if he/she feels it is justified. The IEEE cannot act as a policing entity on behalf of the author in this regard. 

Technical Meeting No-Shows (7.13)

No-show papers are defined as papers submitted by authors who subsequently did not either themselves or via proxy present the paper at the technical meeting. No-show papers that were not withdrawn and were published in the Proceedings must be identified as "No-Show" in the files submitted to IEEE for further publication (IEEE Xplore). No-shows will not be available on IEEE Xplore or other public access IEEE forums. IEEE will maintain an archive of no-shows.

Exceptions to this policy will be made by the Technical Program Chair of the conference only if there is evidence that the no-show occurred because of unanticipated events beyond the control of the authors, and every option available to the authors to present the paper was exhausted. The no-show authors may appeal the decision of the Technical Program Chair to the Vice President-Conferences.  

Technical Meeting Paper Plagiarism Policy (7.17)

Requirement for Original Material and Sanctions for Plagiarism and for Duplicate Submission of Technical Meeting Manuscripts

Authors are required to submit material that is original and that has not been published, or submitted for consideration, elsewhere. Authors who plagiarize the work of others--who copy the work of another without attribution or appropriate documented permission--shall be subject to sanctions by IEEE. Such behavior not only constitutes a misdeed, but may be actionable by IEEE under the rules of Member Conduct. Instances of suspected or documented plagiarism shall immediately be brought to the attention of the Technical Meeting Technical Program Chair for notification to IEEE.

In addition, authors who make duplicate submissions of a Technical Meeting manuscript shall be subject to the sanctions of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. Duplicate submission shall be defined as:

- A crossover of 25% or more in the material of two or more manuscripts;

- Submission of the same manuscript to an IEEE SPS Technical Meeting and one or more IEEE Technical Meetings;

- or Submission to an IEEE SPS Technical Meeting and one or more Technical Meetings inside/outside IEEE.  

The sanctions of the IEEE Signal Processing Society for duplicate submissions are:

- All manuscripts submitted to the Signal Processing Society discovered to be duplicate submissions shall be immediately REJECTED.

- All authors (that is, any single, paired, or group of authors) of the duplicate submission(s) shall be prevented from submitting new manuscripts for the period of one year from the date of sanction; and

- Any author(s) of duplicate submission(s) with papers in review by the Society will have his/her/their manuscripts returned to them immediately, regardless of the stage of peer review. In this way, innocent co-authors will not be harmed by having their manuscript rejected; but the manuscript(s) will automatically be classified as withdrawn from consideration by the Society.

Notification of sanction for duplicate submission shall be to the author(s) from the Conference Technical Program Chair with copies to the SPS Vice President-Conferences.  

Procedures for Investigation of Author Misconduct 

- If the Technical Meeting Technical Program Chair (TPC) learns that an author may have acted improperly, which may include the suspicion of plagiarism or self-plagiarism, then he/she shall investigate the alleged misconduct. All inquiries shall be handled promptly and fairly. All parties relevant to the allegation shall be given the opportunity to respond.

- In considering the allegation, the TPC shall appoint an independent, ad-hoc committee of experts in the topic to confidentially investigate and make a recommendation on the allegation to the TPC. This ad-hoc committee may seek the advice of the IEEE Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) offices. The institution where the author's work was performed is not to be contacted, unless there is explicit information that such institution has already investigated the issue.

- After considering all available evidence in relation to the plagiarism policy of the Signal Processing Society (SPS), the TPC shall communicate the evidence to the authors. The authors may then respond and provide any additional evidence or arguments. Subsequently, the TPC shall make a decision.

- The TPC shall communicate the final decision to the authors, the SPS Offices, and the SPS Vice President-Conferences.

- Should the authors choose to appeal, they shall be referred to the SPS Vice President-Conferences to handle the appeal process. Further appeals shall be referred to the IEEE PSPB Chair.

- The SPS Office shall then implement the decision and notify the IEEE Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) office or that person's designee of the inquiry and the decision. In severe cases of misconduct (as specified in the PSPB Operations Manual Section 8.2.4.D and F), the TPC may recommend additional IEEE-level corrective actions to the IEEE PSPB Chair.

- If the TPC has a conflict of interest, he/she shall report this to the SPS Vice President-Conferences to find a proper substitute to handle the case.

- All co-authors of a paper have responsibility for work submitted under their names. (viz. PSPB Operations Manual 8.2.1.A.6)  

Plagiarized Work Published by the Society

When authors plagiarize work published by the Society, whether in its periodicals or conference publications, the Society volunteer leader who is the nominal publisher of the periodical or conference publication will contact the publisher of the offending paper to request an investigation of the offense in a specified period. If the publisher of the offending paper does not undertake an investigation, or does not respond timely to the request, then the relevant society leader will undertake an investigation on behalf of the Society and will recommend a sanction to the Society's Conference Board, if appropriate. In any event, the Society may take action, and also report the outcome of the Society's decision to IEEE for the sanctioned author list.  

More Information

For more information, consult the IEEE Signal Processing Society Policy and Procedures, Section 7 (Conference/Technical Meeting Activities)

Nondiscrimination

IEEE prohibits discrimination, harassment and bullying.  For more information, visit http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p9-26.html  

"IEEE is committed to the principle that all persons shall have equal access to programs, facilities, services, and employment without regard to personal characteristics not related to ability, performance, or qualifications as determined by IEEE policy and/or applicable laws.  For more information on the IEEE policy visit www.ieee.org. Any person who believes that he or she has been the victim of illegal discrimination or harassment should contact IEEE Staff Director - Human Resources, at nondiscrimination@ieee.org or +1 732 465 6434.  The mailing address is IEEE Human Resources, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ, USA."