Upon receipt of a submission, the author, paper title, and the author's address should be logged. Computer entry of this information is desirable, where feasible. Receipt of each submission should be acknowledged, to ease the concerns of the authors.
A database management system, CONFORG, has been written and successfully used for organizing the technical program of past ICASSPs. It is recommended that such a program be used for aiding the organization process. A description of the program is given in the appendix.
The papers should then be categorized by technical areas, and counts taken to determine the number of submissions on each topic, and on the number of papers in each of the technical areas - Digital Signal Processing, Speech, Statistical Signal and Array Processing Image and Multidimensional Signal Processing, Underwater Acoustics, Audio and Electroacoustics, VLSI, and Neural Networks for Signal Processing.
The submissions should be sent to the appropriate Technical Committee for review and organization into sessions. Six weeks is the minimum time needed for this review process. Classification of the papers is an especially important task. Misclassified papers are likely to be rejected merely as inappropriate. The Technical Committees will review and rate the submissions, group the papers into preliminary sessions, and make their recommendations back to the Technical Program Committee.
On approximately the first week of October, a report on the technical program will be made to a joint meeting of the SP Technical Committees and the SP Conference Board. It is essential that the Technical Program Chairperson guarantee that all Technical Committees meet in advance of this joint meeting to review papers and prepare the preliminary session assignments.
It is the policy of the SP Society that all submissions receive a full review by the appropriate Technical Committee. The full policy is given in the last section of this chapter. Traditionally, the decisions of the Technical Committees are accepted; any exceptions to this tradition must be negotiated by the Technical Program Chairperson.
The authors of each submission must then be informed of the fate of their submission. A faithful execution of the decisions of the Technical Committees is expected. The list of accepted authors, preliminary session titles and session types must be transmitted to the Publications committee so that Author kits can be distributed. Consider mailing the author kits with the acceptance letters.
The Advance Program can then be created, and rooms can be assigned to the sessions. The Technical Program Committee should take the lead in coordinating the advance program with the Publicity Committee, which is responsible for distribution of the advance program, and the Publications Committee, which is responsible for interfacing with the publisher. After the final papers have arrived, the Technical Program will need to be adjusted to accommodate the inevitable changes.
Additional instructions on the review, selection, and organization of papers may be found in the chapter, ``Responsibilities of the Technical Program Chairperson.''