The Technical Program Chairperson is responsible for the planning and execution of the entire technical program. The Technical Program Chairperson is assisted by the Technical Program Committee; by the Session Chairpersons; and by the Technical Committees, which approve the content of the technical program. The Technical Program Chairperson is responsible for arranging for or contracting for paper submission handling services, and for monitoring the submission handling process.
The Technical Program Chairperson stimulates and organizes special invited, and plenary sessions, and works with the SP Education Committee on the tutorial sessions. It is a good idea to recruit a committee member to be responsible for coordinating the tutorials with the SP Education Committee and overseeing all aspects of the tutorial program. Special sessions should each have their own coordinator. If any evening topical panel/audience discussion sessions are planned, appoint a separate coordinator for them. A few carefully chosen special sessions can be of great value to the technical program. Before announcing such a session or inviting anyone to participate in it, the Technical Program Chairperson must obtain the concurrence of the cognizant Technical Committee. More information on creating the technical program may be found in the chapter, ``Responsibilities of the Technical Program Committee.''
For the regular sessions, the Technical Program Chairperson drafts the Call-for-Papers after soliciting and receiving recommended topics from the Technical Committees, receives and acknowledges submissions, gives them to the Technical Committees for review, and tells each Technical Committee how many poster and lecture sessions it may organize, and how many papers will be in each session. The Technical Committees decide which papers should be accepted and suggest how they should be organized into sessions. Each Technical Committee should be asked to specify a minimum of two alternates to give the Technical Program Chairperson the flexibility to handle withdrawals, multiple submission problems, etc. Any exceptions to the decisions of the Technical Committees must be negotiated with them. The Technical Program Chairperson then notifies the authors, decides on time and room assignments for the sessions, and recruits session chairpersons.
Due to the peculiarities of visa granting in many countries, Technical Program Chairpersons often find themselves involved in visa requests. To avoid the time-consuming process of dealing with author visa problems individually, make sure that a special invitation letter is included in the author kits for them to use when requesting their visas. Government agencies of the host country may request information about foreign authors and attendees. Refer all such requests to the Signal Processing Society's Executive Officer.
Before ICASSP, the Technical Program Chairperson should check that the Local Arrangements Committee has arranged for suitable audio-visual equipment to be available for each session along with personnel to operate that equipment. The list of standard equipment is given in the chapter on Local Arrangements, and should be included in the ICASSP presentation guidelines which are included in the Author kits. It is the Signal Processing Society's policy to honor all requests for special equipment that are received in advance of the ICASSP. Since session chairpersons and the Technical Program Chairperson generally receive special equipment requests from authors, the Technical Program Chairperson has the responsibility of ensuring that all requests are passed on to the Local Arrangements Committee.
During ICASSP, the Technical Program Chairperson monitors all aspects of the technical program, taking remedial action as necessary.
After ICASSP, the Technical Program Chairperson writes a report summarizing the technical program and providing statistical data and other information that could help future conference organizers.