Programme Chair’s Responsibilities

Programme Chair Roles

The Programme Chair, under the guidance of the Steering Committee, is responsible for choosing the members of the Programme Committee and for leading the discussions about the papers with the reviewers.

Publication Decisions

Paper submissions that don’t follow the submission guidelines may be rejected without review. The Programme Chair is responsible for deciding which of the submitted papers will be accepted. These decisions are made after the papers are reviewed and discussed by expert reviewers, who have a strong influence on the decisions. The publication decision is based on the criteria outlined here. Legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism are also considered: papers found to be in violation of honorable academic conduct will be rejected.

Confidentiality

The Programme Chair must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, as appropriate.

Disclosures

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper shall not be used by the Programme Chair for his or her own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent.

Conflicts of Interest

The Programme Chair has an inherent conflict of interest with the symposium, and shall not submit any paper while in that role. Programme Committee members may submit papers to the symposium; these papers must be assigned to other reviewers who must ensure a high level of quality of those papers, well above the average. The Programme Chair must identify and avoid all conflicts of interest pertaining to expert reviewers and the submitted papers.

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

Contribution to editorial decisions

The peer-reviewing process assists the Programme Chair in making editorial decisions, and also serves the authors in improving the papers. The symposium encourages, expects, and facilitates reviewers to engage in discussions about the papers they review, under the guidance of the Programme Chair. Those discussions have a strong influence on the final decisions made by the Programme Chair, who is expected to follow the reviewers’ reconciled recommendations.

Adequacy and Promptness

Any reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in an assigned paper, or knows that its prompt review will be impossible, should notify the Programme Chair and withdraw from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any papers received for review must be treated as confidential. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the Programme Chair.

Reviewing Standards

All reviews should be made without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. Reviewers should clearly identify the main ideas of the paper, and proceed to assess their fitness with respect to the criteria outlined here. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate and shall be flagged as such by the Programme Chair. When appropriate, reviewers should strive to give suggestions of how the paper can be improved. Reviewers should identify cases in which relevant published work referred to in the paper has not been cited. They should point out whether observations or arguments derived from other publications are accompanied by the respective source. Reviewers will notify the Programme Chair of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept bconfidential and not used for personal advantage of reviewers. Reviewers should inform the Programme Chair about conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the papers.

Authors’ Responsibilities

Reporting standards

Authors of original research papers should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. Sources of data and ideas used in the reported work should be properly cited. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the misrepresentation of someone else’s work as one’s own, for example by incorporating it without appropriate attribution. The work might be words, or ideas, or programs, or pictures, among others; it might be copied verbatim, or paraphrased, or generated. It is irrelevant whether the original source has been formally published, or whether the original creator has granted permission.

Plagiarism is academic misconduct, and any plagiarising submission will be summarily rejected.

Data access and retention

Although the symposium currently does not have a separate Artifact Evaluation process, authors may be asked to provide the raw data and/or artifacts of their study together with the paper for editorial review and should be prepared to make the artifacts publicly available if practicable. The symposium strongly encourages authors to ensure accessibility of such artifacts to other peers for at least ten years after publication. The symposium facilitates this long term storage through Zenodo.

Prior Papers and Concurrent Submissions

Submitted papers must present original work made by the authors, must not overlap significantly with the authors’ previously published work in a peer review publication, and must not be under review on another journal or conference.

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study and the paper itself. Provision of funding without involvement in the conception of the work should not grant authorship. All those who have made significant contributions to the paper should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author(s) must verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Authorship and AI tools

Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All papers must include a statement disclosing any financial support for the work. At the time of submission, authors should notify the Programme Chair about conflicts of interest with potential reviewers, and clarify what those conflicts are.

Fundamental errors in published works

It is the authors’ responsibility to promptly notify the Programme Chair about significant errors or inaccuracies in his/her work after publication of the paper, and to cooperate to retract or correct the paper in form of an erratum. Errors and inaccuracies may also be reported by readers after publication, in which case the Programme Chair may publish readers’ letters, to which the authors may offer a rebuttal.