Some Practical Tips for Proceedings Publishing with Electronic Submissions

.. arising from the experiences in the IEEE 1997 Mohonk Audio Workshop (WASPAA'97)

Eric Lindemann <eric@audiologic.com> AudioLogic Inc., Boulder CO
29 Oct 1997

1. Pick a submission format. .pdf is probably the most stable although .ps is closely related. In any event there will probably be problems with some of the files. Most authors will not be familiar with generating .pdf. A possible strategy is to require them to generate .pdf from GhostScript/GhostView which is free, available on most platforms, and downloadable from many web sites.
   
2. Make sure that Authors submit in 8.5"x11" Letter Size format. Many European authors will want to submit A4 which will create problems for you down the line.
   
3. Your goal will be to generate a single .pdf file for the entire proceedings. This is the file that you will submit to the printer. DO NOT SUBMIT HARDCOPY TO THE PRINTER as the resulting graphics will be noticably inferior to a direct electronic submission. You will need a tool such as Adobe Exchange to bring together the papers into one .pdf doc and to add the introductory pages table of contents etc.
   
4. There are many problems with attached email formats. You will probably need to support more than one format but these should include MIME and uuencode. Encoding in a compressed ascii format which is included directly in the email message (not as an attachment) should be discouraged as it frequently truncates the message. Still many systems don't seem capable of sending true attachments.
   
5. Copyright release forms should be included with the submissions form and authors should be instructed to fill out sign and fax/mail the form with their submission in order for their paper to be considered. This will savetime later chasing down authors who haven't sent in their forms. Acknowledgement of submission should include acknowledgment of receipt of Copyright release so that the loop is closed.
   
   A second strategy is to use the Copyright release signing as a confirmation of paper acceptance which closes the loop for each accepted author so you have some confidence they will actually appear at the conference.
   
6. Try to find a local printer who will take responsibility for the entire job (cover, insides, and binding) even if they have to farm out part of the work. The printer should probably use a Xerox Docutech system (a big fancy laser printer) for printing the insides. While these are available at Kinko's or equivalent stores these stores generally cannot support the binding and cover printing you will require. The cover needs to be "perfect bound" with the name of the proceedings on the spine. This is requested by IEEE. The cover will be printed using standard offset printing technology where a photographic plate is made. Since the book will be 8.5 x 11 the cover will be BIGGER than twice this size in order to include the spine and a trimming region. This means BIGGER that standard 11 x 17 "Tab" size. Many printers with docutech machines will not have presses this big but a good printer will offer to farm out the cover. This is fine as long as they take responsibility for the results. You should try to deal with the printer who puts it all together even if they don't print the cover.
   
7. About the IEEE Book Broker program...
   

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