One major policy issue affecting several parts of the manual is the question of who has final authority over the Technical Program of ICASSP. The Signal Processing Society policy is that neither the Technical Committees nor the ICASSP Technical Program Committee has final authority. The responsibility for establishing a Technical Program is a shared responsibility. The Technical Committees have traditionally decided the acceptance or rejection of specific papers. The Technical Program Committee has traditionally decided all other matters related to the Technical Program. However, all matters are to be decided by negotiation of the Technical Program Chairperson and the Technical Committee Chairpersons.
The creation of the initial Technical Program has sometimes been a matter of controversy. Society policy permits the Technical Program Chairperson to decide whether to have the Technical Committees (i) design the Technical Program or (ii) review and revise a tentative version of the Technical Program that the Chairperson has devised.
For simplicity and because it may be better policy, most of this manual speaks only of option (i). However, in doing so, it gives the Technical Program Chairperson a significant role and clearly states his authority and responsibilities and those of the Technical Committees.
The only times that there have been exceptions to the stated policy have been for some ICASSPs held outside North America and cosponsored by another professional technical society. Any exceptions to the stated policy must be presented to the SP Society Conference Board for approval at least eighteen months prior to the data of the ICASSP.