If you have questions or comments about our policies, you can contact us.

Why Have a Policy?

A simple answer is "because we care about our reputation". In the beginning, IGERS was used by several conferences and workshops in computer science organized by leading scientists in their areas. Now, it is used by thousands of conferences organized by scientists, organizations, associations, professional conference organizers and individuals. If one of these conferences does not comply with generally accepted ethical standards, it may, directly or indirectly, harm IGERS.

Our policy, or code of behavior, is explained below. The parallel submission requirement below is IGERS-specific, other policies can be considered as general fair policy guidelines to conference organizers.

If some of the requirements explained below are not applicable to you (for example, your conference has no Web page or you use IGERS for teaching students), you can ignore them.

Strictly no Spam

IGERS itself has a strict no-spam policy. We do not spam our users and do not sell or otherwise distribute their email addresses. We expect our users to do the same. If your conference uses mailing lists for sending conference-related announcements, you should adhere to the following principles:

1. The mailing list should be assembled in such a way that it only targets the intended audience.
2. There should be a simple one-click unsubscribe link. When the link is followed, the unsubscribe email address should be shown on your Web page and removed from the list
3. If you run several conferences, you should preferably use a single mailing list. If you have to use several lists, for example, when the conferences you run are in very different areas, you cannot include addresses who unsubscribed from one mailing list in another mailing list.

The concrete organization of your mailing lists can be different, as long as email recipients do not complain.

If you host your conference in IGERS, we forbid sending email from your IGERS conference about anything not related to this conference. This includes promoting future editions of your conference. We are helping you to host the conference but we are not a mailing list service and authors and reviewers often consider such promotional emails as spam.

Verifiable Information Principle

All information included on the Web pages and in any announcements of your conference should be authentic and verifiable. This includes:

1. All persons mentioned in the pages and announcements. For example, if your Web page lists the conference scientific committee, then either it should include links to the Web pages of committee members or you should be able to provide, upon request, a confirmation that a particular committee member has agreed to be on this committee.
2. All organizations, for example sponsors, mentioned on your Web pages or in your announcements. Your association with these organisations should be verifiable upon request.
3. All third-party logos used on your Web pages or in your announcements. You should receive permission to use these logos and be able to justify that you have such permission.

Other Requirements

1. If a conference, or part of a conference, uses IGERS for submission, there should be no parallel submission process. That is, submission must only be done through IGERS and not by email or using another submission system.
2. The conference Web pages must clearly explain who is organizing the conference. For example, the organizer can be a university, other organization, company, academic association, or an individual.
3. The conference Web pages must have easily accessible contact information:
   • There must be an email address, which preferably belongs to the domain of a university, other recognized academic institution, or a major company or organization.
   • If the email address does not belong to one of these domains, there must be a contact phone number.