Planning a Technical Program

Each sponsor appoints members from its organization to represent them on the Technical Program Committee. The sponsor representatives encourage their members to submit papers and attend the conference. If there is a non-IEEE co-sponsor, IEEE has the sole ability to decide which papers accepted for presentation at the conference are eligible to be included in the IEEE Conference Publications Program (CPP).

The Technical Program Chair is responsible for delivering a well-balanced and high-quality technical program at the conference. The Technical Program Committee oversees the submission and review of papers and organizes the presentations delivered at the conference.

Committee members are experts in their fields and may represent different areas within the domain of the conference. The size and scope of your conference will dictate the number of members needed for the Technical Program Committee and the functions they perform.

All conferences planning a technical program should:

• define the scope for the technical program;
• define quality standards for the technical program;
• set deadlines for technical program activities;
• communicate IEEE guidelines;
• manage the Call for Papers;
• manage the paper review process;
• plan the presentation of papers;
• manage the presentation of papers;
• coordinate with the Conference Publication Chair;
• offer IEEE Continuing Education Units (CEUs).

The scope of the conference should include one or more of the following subject areas:

• engineering;
• computer science;
• societal implications of technology;
• disciplines that have firmly established ties to engineering and computer science.

Set guidelines for managing the quality of the technical program.

• Establish standards for judging the quality of accepted papers.
• Develop reviewer guidelines.
• Estimate the number of papers to be submitted.
• Identify the number of reviews for each paper.
• Identify the number of papers assigned to each reviewer.
• Establish the acceptance rate for submitted papers.
• Choose tools to manage papers, validate formatting, and check for plagiarism.
• Determine conference policy for non-presented papers.

Set a schedule that allows enough time for writing, reviewing, selecting, formatting, and publishing the conference papers. Publish all important dates on the Web site and in the Call for Papers so authors can meet deadlines. Schedule dates for:

• publication of the Call for Papers;
• initial abstract and paper submission;
• completed reviews;
• author notification;
• submission of IEEE Xplore®–compliant final papers in PDF format.

The Call for Papers is a public solicitation of papers for the conference. Unless you are limiting the conference to invited speakers, you must publish a Call for Papers.

Learn more about managing the Call for Papers

Each conference is responsible for communicating IEEE policies in the Call for Papers, Web site, and other materials.
 

• Do not claim or guarantee that any papers will be published in IEEE Xplore. IEEE can decline to publish the conference proceedings that do not meet IEEE quality standards.
• Do not claim or guarantee that any papers will be indexed in any database. Indexing services evaluate conferences and independently determine what they will index.
• Each conference determines their policy for papers that are accepted but that are not presented at the conference. If you decide that non-presented papers will not be published to IEEE Xplore, then you must clearly communicate this to authors prior to the conference.
• Follow US regulations and policies for publications by authors in embargoed countries or that contain military- or defense-related subject matter. These regulations may affect paper and electronic distribution of your conference publications. These policies apply to all IEEE-sponsored and co-sponsored conferences, even when held outside the US with no US participants.

Learn more about handling non-presented papers

Learn more about the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)

Learn more about the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR)

The Technical Program Committee manages the paper-review process. Select independent reviewers who are knowledgeable in the subject area of the conference. The number of reviewers depends upon the estimated number of expected submissions and accepted papers.

Learn more about reviewing submitted papers

IEEE requires all publications to be submitted to a plagiarism-detection process prior to being uploaded to Xplore to ensure originality of the content. Organizers are encouraged to sign up for CrossCheck, a plagiarism-detection tool that is offered at no cost to all IEEE publications. The Technical Program Chair will determine when the plagiarism checking will occur, whether at submission or upon acceptance.

If IEEE is unable to confirm that a conference's proceedings has been screened using CrossCheck, then staff will run the proceedings through CrossCheck prior to posting in Xplore. The organizer will be notified of any problematic papers detected and held from posting in Xplore and will be responsible for notifying authors of the decision to remove the paper.

Learn more about CrossCheck Plagiarism Checking Tool

Once the papers for the conference have been selected, organize them into sessions for presentation at the conference. During the conference, the Technical Program Committee should be available to assist authors and ensure that papers are successfully presented. If you are following IEEE's Non-Presented Paper policy, monitor the presentations to identify any authors that do not present their papers at the conference and communicate this to the Publication Chair so those papers can be noted when submitted to IEEE for publication.

Learn more about planning the presentation of papers

The Technical Program Chair coordinates with the Conference Publication Chair to provide authors with instructions for submitting papers for publication in IEEE Xplore. The Conference Publication Chair submits the IEEE Publication Form and manages the production of conference publications.

Learn more about preparing papers for the IEEE Xplore Digital Library

The Technical Program Chair provides authors with information needed to transfer the copyright for their papers to IEEE. All papers copyrighted to IEEE should be registered through Electronic Copyright Form (eCF). The Technical Program Chair: 

• notifies authors that they need to transfer copyright of their papers;
• registers with IEEE to provide authors with access to the eCF. The form is also available in PDF, DOC, and HTML.

Authors must transfer copyright of their individual papers to IEEE if IEEE is the copyright holder of the proceedings. The transfer is made prior to publication so that IEEE has clearance to publish the paper. The authors, not IEEE, are responsible for determining whether disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties and, if so, obtaining the consent.

Learn more about the technical program responsibilities for the copyright transfer

You can provide more value and attract more participants if you offer education credits for conference workshops and tutorials. Conference participants can apply IEEE Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to their professional-development hours for licensing and certification.

IEEE must review and approve your workshop or tutorial before you can offer IEEE CEUs.

Complete the IEEE Certificate Program Event Application and submit to IEEE. The application should be submitted at least three months before your conference.

Find out more about IEEE CEUs

Complete the IEEE Certificate Program application

IEEE is ready to help. If you have questions about the conference technical program, please contact Conference Operations.

Do you have other questions about organizing a conference? Please see IEEE Conference Organizer Contacts.

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