The following is DeSE Series Policies
Introduction
This document provides detailed guidelines to all the policies for running the developments
in eSystems Engineering international conference series (dese.org.uk).
Selecting General Chair
The General Chair, who serves as the chair of the Conference Committee, is appointed by the steering committee each year. The selection process is based on the following criteria:
- Members should be of High stature within his/her organisation, profession, IEEE member and holds membership in other professional organisation/society.
- A well-established scholar with an international reputation in his/her field of research.
- Having experience from at least one of the following roles (in a major international conference)
- A programme chair in a related area.
- A general chair in a related area.
- A conference organising committee’ chair.
- A competent manager with a track record of leading event, including good organisation, communication, delegation and collaborative skills, commitment and attention to details.
Diversity, Ethics and Integrity policy
The DeSE conference series is committed to applying the highest ethical standards in carrying out its mandate. DeSE follows closely the IEEE core ethical standards and values including: integrity, professionalism and respect for diversity.
a. Integrity
Integrity is a core ethical standard in all aspects of professional in dealing with colleagues.
Integrity includes, but is not limited to, probity, impartiality, fairness, honesty and truthfulness in all matters affecting the organisation and running of the conference. These
qualities provide a basis for ethical decision making when inviting keynote speakers, technical committee members, reviewers, committee Chairs, accepting/rejecting manuscripts, and all other related aspects related to the conference. As the integrity of the conference depends on the integrity of its stakeholders (Committee, chairs, speakers, reviewers, and others), they are expected to:
- Demonstrate in practice the values of the conference in activities and behaviour;
- Make decisions without consideration for personal gain;
- Ensure that official power or authority is not abused and effective action to deal with unprofessional or unethical behaviour, is taken.
b. Professionalism
All stockholders need to be mindful of their duties to serve the scientific and research community. In order to achieve high standards of professionalism, members of all committees within DeSE should be motivated by professional objectives rather than personal
concerns.
c. Respect for diversity
The DeSE Conference Series takes pride in the diversity of its team, participants, attendees
and contributors, which brings together colleagues from varied backgrounds, cultures and
experiences. DeSE Conference Series encourages its stakeholder members to embrace this
diversity and view it as an advantage. Any form of discrimination and harassment is
unacceptable and is not tolerated. DeSE is committed to creating a harmonious environment
where everyone can work together and are treated with respect and tolerance.
Criteria for pre-screening of submitted papers
The following criteria are used for pre-screening of the submitted papers before starting
assigning reviewers for papers.
- Appropriateness of the article to the scope of the conference.
- Quality/Standard and impact of the paper.
- Originality score
- Style, including using an appropriate academic standard (language, spelling and grammar).
- Template mismatch, not having the standard components of a proper scientific communication.
- A full paper should be submitted (not just abstract).
- Omitting the name of the authors (DeSE using Blind Review policy).
Conference Management System
EDAS (https://edas.info/) Conference management system is used to manage the paper
submission, review and registration process for our conference. There is no software to install
and support staff within EDAS can help authors, reviewers and chairs with any problems.
Users interact with EDAS using standard web browsers.
All features below are included in the basic paper processing fee, except if noted for a
particular item.
Beyond the normal functions required for managing paper submissions and reviews, EDAS
supports many special features throughout the conference life cycle, including paper
processing fee, managing the final paper submission as well as checking for plagiarism.
Managing and Checking Plagiarism
DeSE uses the feature available with EDAS for checking plagiarism. EDAS
uses docoloc (https://www.docoloc.de) and iThenticate/CrossCheck (for IEEE conferences) to
search other published papers for possible plagiarism. Authors are also checked against the
IEEE Prohibited Author List (PAL), updated monthly. DeSE’s Chairs are notified if an author
matching a name on that list submits a paper.
Selection of reviewers
The selection of the reviewer is critical to the process of accessing DeSE submissions, and
DeSE considers a number of factors such as expertise (of the subject area), Confidentiality,
“Disclosure and Conflict of Interest”, reputation, specific recommendations and our own
previous experience of a reviewer’s characteristics. Our policy is to select referees/reviewers
who are respecting timeframes and deadlines, provide reasoning for their views. We always
check with potential reviewers before sending them manuscripts to review and ask them to
choose between accepting and declining the review’s invitation.
We use our own database for reviewers which is being collected and updated through all the
period of the organizers’’ experience in research as well as the through the 12 years of
organizing DeSE conference series. We choose the reviewers whose expertise closely matches
the manuscript’s content and invite them to review the paper. We also consider the number
of manuscripts sent so that not to overburden the colleagues. We also support the “bias
screening” which is incorporated in our policies and in the online submission system.
Paper Review Criteria
Reviewers will be asked to use the following criteria when reviewing a paper on EDAS,
however, more details will be provided as part of the form which will be available within the
evaluating form provided within the EDAS system:
- Abstract clearly conveys the meaning of the paper.
- Content of the paper is a valuable contribution to the professional literature on the
subject area been investigated. - The subject material is timely and will likely have significant reader interest.
- Background information is adequately covered, up to date and referenced.
- The paper is well organised and the material is clearly presented.
- Figures and tables are of suitable quality and clarity and enhance the understanding
of the information being presented. - Conclusions follow logically from the text and are supported by the information
presented. - Text is edited to acceptable standards, i.e. proper grammar, spelling, etc.
- Use of references, symbols and units is consistent throughout the paper.
- Data and methods presented are new.
- Is the data set (if applicable) itself of high quality?
Guideline for reviewers
Following are guidelines and criteria to be taken into consideration by reviewers during the
evaluation process. The recommendations given by the reviewers will be used by the
programme chairs and conference co-chairs to make a final decision. The conference chairs,
with the assistance of senior TPC committee will decide on whether or not the paper will be
published in the conference proceedings and also whether or not it will be presented verbally
or as a poster during the conference programme. The reviewers’ comments will be provided
to the author anonymously so they can properly modify their paper for publication. All papers
will have at least two reviews performed for the committee’s consideration.
a. Purpose of Review
The primary purpose of your review is to improve the technical quality of the submission and
provide a recommendation on whether the paper would make an interesting conference
presentation so that a high quality technical program can be developed.
b. Review Process
Once the reviewer has been chosen to serve as a reviewer, he/she will receive an email
instructing him/her to logon to the conference management system (EDAS). We always check
with potential reviewers before sending them manuscripts to review and ask them to choose
between accepting and declining the review’s invitation.
Once he/she logged on, he/she will have a choice whether to accept or decline the review. In
case of acceptance the reviewer will see the list of papers to which he/she has been assigned.
The EDAS area for DeSE will provide reviewers with full instructions of how to do the reviews.
The reviewers will be provided by a list of evaluation questions to answer, which are provided
within this document. The evaluation form also includes space for the reviewers to enter
comments to the authors, conference chairs and program chairs. The reviewers ranking and
comments to the author are the only information visible to the author. Comments to
coordinators will only be viewable to the chairs. A deadline will be provided to the reviewers
within the emailed instructions. If reviewers are unable to meet the deadline for any reason,
they could advise the Conference Organizing Committee or decline the review immediately
so another reviewer can be identified.
c. Paper Evaluation
There are four components presented to the reviewers, as shown below (the reviewer has to
rank each of the complement provided):
- Relevance: Rate the importance and timeliness of the topic addressed in the paper
within its area of research.
• Excellent
• Good
• Acceptable
• Little
• None - Technical content and scientific rigour: Rate the technical content of the paper (e.g.:
completeness of the analysis or simulation study, thoroughness of the treatise,
accuracy of the models, etc.), its soundness and scientific rigour.
• Excellent work and outstanding technical content.
• Solid work of notable importance.
• Valid work but limited contribution.
• Marginal work and simple contribution. Some flaws.
• Questionable work with severe flaws. - Quality of presentation: Rate the paper organization, the standard of written English,
the clearness of text and figures, the completeness and accuracy of references.
• Excellent.
• Well written.
• Readable, but revision is needed in some parts.
• Substantial revision work is needed.
• Unacceptable. - Recommendation: The reviewer expected to provide detailed comments to the author
describing any shortcomings of the paper and recommending changes that will
address these shortcomings. Reviewers are encouraged to address all concerns as
comments within the EDAS evaluation form. Additionally, the reviewer must make a
recommendation to the chairs on the evaluation form indicating a mark to his/her
decision:
• Accept
• Weak Accept
• Weak Reject
• Reject - The role of the technical program committee?
The technical program committee is coordinated by the conference series chairs who have
extensive experience of organising IEEE conferences. Their role is to ensure the high standard
quality of the accepted papers. All members of technical program committee have extensive
academic experience and majority of them have IEEE membership. There are over 100
technical committee members from over 40 countries including Europe, Asia, America, South
America and so on. The role of the technical committee members in addition to the review of
the papers is to promote the conference. There are over 100 reviewer names associated with
the conference. The conference is using EDAS for managing, handling paper submissions.
Last Update – January 2022