Proceedings Curator — Role and Responsibilities

This proposal is based on the ACM’s policies on withdrawal, correction, retraction, and removals (https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/retraction-policy), with some modifications for EDM and specific procedures for EDM.

In line with the ACM policies, withdrawal, correction, retraction, and removals are allowed as follows:

• Withdrawal: Prior to the publication of the proceedings on the EDM conference website, authors may request to withdraw their paper. This should be done via an email to the program chairs for the conference, stating that the authors would like to withdraw their work and giving the title and submitted track of the work, and all co-authors must be cc’d on the email. All co-authors of the work must have given consent to the withdrawal without coercion. The program chairs will communicate via reply email that the work has been withdrawn; until such an email is received by the withdrawing authors, the paper has not been withdrawn.
• Corrections: In cases of minor errors that do not substantively change the conclusions of the work, errata or corrigenda may be issued after publication. An erratum is issued when the error is production-related (e.g., a page was omitted in the conversion from the submitted version to the proceedings). A corrigendum is issued when an author has made a mistake or error. In either case, the author should send an email to the current EDM Proceedings Curator with the following information, and cc all co-authors:
  1. Title of the paper, names of all authors of the paper, and year in which the paper was published at the EDM conference
  2. A link to the published paper from the EDM website
  3. A brief description of the error, and a description of the changes to fix the error.
  4. A PDF submission of the revised version of the paper with the error(s) corrected, with all changes in red or another clearly distinct color from the original text. If changes cannot be marked in a distinct color – e.g., images are changed, the orientation of a page is changed, or an entire page that was erroneously omitted in the production process is now included – then no specific indication is needed in the PDF, but these changes should be included in the description of changes.
  5. A request to the co-authors to independently email the Curator to indicate their approval or non-approval of the changes. That email must also contain the tTitle of the paper, names of all authors of the paper, and year in which the paper was published at the EDM conference.

The EDM Proceedings Curator will determine whether they believe the proposed changes are relatively minor and do not substantively change the conclusions; if the proceedings curator is unsure, they may request assistance from one or more members of the IEDMS Board or from the Program Chairs from the relevant year of the conference.

The EDM Proceedings Curator will reply back to the author(s) within four weeks of receipt and indicate whether or not they can permit the correction. In the case that the correction is permitted, the EDM Proceedings Curator will issue a corrigendum or erratum that briefly explains the reason for correction. The EDM Proceedings Curator will ask the EDM website point person to add the erratum or corrigendum to the original proceedings page alongside the original paper, and to create a link to both the original version and the revised version on the proceedings page. New full versions of proceedings (i.e., the PDF with all papers together) will not be created. Corrigenda and errata that were issued in the previous year will also be linked to in the current conference webpage at the time when proceedings for the current conference are published. 

• Retractions: Retractions will be issues in the case of the following (copied from the ACM guidelines):
  • Duplicate or redundant publication
  • Plagiarism
  • Prior publication without proper citation or attribution
  • Failure to disclose a major conflict of interest during the submission and publication process
  • Disputed authorship
  • Clear evidence that findings are unreliable as the result of either errors or misconduct

Anyone may email the EDM Proceedings Curator to request an investigation into a specific work due to a potential need for retraction, including the author(s) themselves. The EDM Proceedings Curator will consult with the IEDMS President and if reachable, the Program Chairs from the EDM conference where the work was originally published. If the EDM Proceedings Curator, President, and relevant program chairs are not in agreement after investigation and discussion, then a decision about retraction shall be taken by majority vote. If there is a tie, the EDM Proceedings Curator will bring the issue to the whole IEDMS Board to discuss and vote on. The EDM Proceedings Curator will notify the original requester of the investigation. A decision that a work should be retracted does not mean that the work represents misconduct; retractions may occur due to honest errors as well as due to misconduct.

If a decision is made for retraction, the EDM Proceedings Curator will notify the website point person to do the following: indicate in writing next to the published work on the proceedings page that the work has been retracted, including a brief explanation for why the work was retracted, and replace the currently posted PDF with a version of that PDF which has a “Retracted” watermark on every page.

• Removals: Removals are rare and occur due to serious ethical or legal issues. Specifically, again drawing from the ACM, they occur only in the following circumstances:
  • A violation of the rights of a research subject, including a violation of generally accepted standards and laws surrounding human subject research
  • Publication of unethical research
  • Research conducted or published in violation of law, including copyright law
  • Egregious errors in the published work or unintended consequences as a result of the published work, either of which could result in the endangerment of the general public
  • Defamatory comments made about others or their works appear in the published work
  • A court order has been issued to remove the work from the EDM proceedings

Just as for a retraction, anyone may email the EDM Proceedings Curator to request an investigation into a specific work due to a need for removal. As above, the EDM Proceedings Curator will consult with the IEDMS President and if reachable, the Program Chairs from the EDM conference where the work was originally published. If the EDM Proceedings Curator, President, and relevant program chairs are not in agreement after investigation and discussion, then a decision about retraction shall be taken by majority vote. If there is a tie, the EDM Proceedings Curator will bring the issue to the whole IEDMS Board to discuss and vote on. The EDM Proceedings Curator will notify the original requester of the investigation.

In the case of a removal, the EDM Proceedings Curator will request that the website point person completely delete all versions of the work from the EDM website. The original title and authors will remain on the proceedings website, with a note after it of the removal and the reason(s) for the removal.

Other Logistical Considerations

These instructions will be included on the EDM society website, and linked to in future websites of individual EDM conferences. That page should also clearly indicate who the current EDM Proceedings Curator is and include their email address. Should the EDM Proceedings Curator prefer, they may decide to have submissions occur via a webform rather than email. If they make this decision, the form must also include contact information for all author(s) of the original article if the request is for a correction, and the EDM Proceedings Curator will in that case email all authors to indicate that a correction has been requested and give authors a chance to object.

The EDM Proceedings Curator will be named by the IEDMS Board and will typically serve a term of three years.