SPECIAL SESSIONS ORGANIZATION GUIDELINES

To enhance the technical program and focus on specific topics and areas, ETFA'2009 conference will include special sessions, in addition to regular ones. Special sessions can cover topics which belong to a specific track, or multi-track subjects, or novel topics not included in the description of tracks, but in the technical scope of the conference.

Special Session Co-Chairs:

John Gialelis ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and Herminio Martínez ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Special Session Proposal:

The proposal for a special session should be sent by Special Session Organizers to Special Session Co-Chairs, and should include:

1. title of the session;
2. names and contact addresses of the organizers, including telephone and email address;
3. description of the technical area focus of the session: background and rationale for organizing the session, at least 150 words, and the title of the conference technical track the session best fits in;
4. tentative titles of at least four (4) contributions, together with the names and contact addresses of the contributing and committed authors, no more then a quarter of contributions is to be from the same institution;
5. type of the session:
   1. session with invited contributions only,
   2. session with invited contributions, a minimum of four, complemented with contributions from advertising; a call for papers should be prepared using the corresponding Special Session template.

Special Session organizers will be notified on the acceptance of their proposal after February 29, 2009. In case of acceptance, sessionʼs Organizers will request the authors to submit their papers by the due date as advised on the conference web site; where relevant, calls for papers will be posted on the “Special Sessions” page of the conference web site.

Paper Submission Process

Authors should submit their manuscripts using the conference paper electronic submission system (as for regular tracks).

Important Dates for Authors

Important dates are exactly the same as the ones for regular papers, i.e.,

The Review Process

The Special Session papers are subject to normal review process handled by the Track Chairs of the designated Track, through the conference paper submission system. The Special Sessionsʼ Organizers are to provide to the relevant Track Chairs the names and contact addresses of at least four potential reviewers for each paper in their session. Two reviewers, if available, will be selected. At least one reviewer will be arranged for by the Track Chair from outside this pool of recommended reviewers. Authors contributing to a special session are not to be nominated as reviewers for the papers from the same session.

Milestones

The Organizers of the Special Sessions, in consultation with the relevant Track Chairs, will prepare the final composition of their sessions, based on the outcome of the review process. Session Organizers are to be Session Chairs of their sessions.
In order to allow proper composition of the Special Session, a minimum of 4 accepted papers is needed (in case of less accepted papers, accepted papers will be moved to adequate regular tracks).
In order to allow proper composition of the Final Program, it is possible to move accepted papers between regular tracks and special sessions, or vice-versa, whenever appropriate.

Miscellaneous

As for regular papers, each accepted paper must be presented at the conference by one of the authors. The final manuscript must be accompanied by a registration form and a registration fee payment proof.