PaperPlaza and PaperCept Conference Manuscript Management
and Registration Systems

Getting Started Manual: Authors

PaperCept, Inc.
(Revised October 5, 2011)

PaperPlaza and PaperCept Conference Manuscript Management and Registration Systems

Getting Started Manual: Authors

Contents
1.

Create and Maintain a Personal Profile ......................................................................................................................... 1
Who Needs a User Profile and Why? ......................................................................................................................................... 1
What Information is Stored in the System and Who Has Access to it? ..................................................................................... 1
How Do I Locate, Update or Create a User Profile? ................................................................................................................... 1
Verification of the Personal Data at Log In ................................................................................................................................ 4

2.

Initial Manuscript Submission ....................................................................................................................................... 6
How Do I Prepare My Manuscript? ........................................................................................................................................... 6
What Is PDF and Why Do I Have to Upload the Manuscript File in Compliant PDF Format? .................................................... 6
What Information Do I Need for Uploading the Manuscript? ................................................................................................... 6
What Are the Steps Involved with Initial Submission?............................................................................................................... 7
Can I Update My Paper Title, Abstract, Author list or Re-upload the Paper? .......................................................................... 14

3.

When Will I Be Notified About My Paper? .................................................................................................................. 16

4.

Final Manuscript Submission ...................................................................................................................................... 17
The Reviewers Suggested No Changes. Can the System Automatically Transfer My File from Initial to Final Submission? ... 17
What Additional Information Must I Provide to the System to Upload the Final Paper? ........................................................ 17
Can You Show Me the Step by Step Final Submission Process? ............................................................................................... 19
May I Re-Upload My Final Version? ........................................................................................................................................ 22

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1. Create and Maintain a Personal Profile
Who Needs a User Profile and Why?
Every user who interacts with the system in any capacity needs to create and maintain a current profile ofpersonal data in the system. The system is entirely web-based and database driven, therefore it is necessary tohave the latest contact data (in particular the e-mail address) of all users of the system. The same information isused by administrators to contact users, editorial board to locate eligible reviewers, authors to identify their coauthors, etc.

What Information is Stored in the System and Who Has Access to it?
The system stores the following information:
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Full nameContact address
E-mail, phone and fax. Phone and fax are optional
PIN (numerical identification number assigned to you when you set up a profile) and password
Research interest profile

This information is requested from you at the time you open the account on the system.
Your society’s or organization’s conference administrators have access to your personal data and can dispatchyour password to the email addresses specified in your account. Note also that Editors and Associate Editors canaccess the data (but not the password) and edit some of the fields, in particular update the e-mail address. Thisdata is not shared by any third part mailing list managers or marketers.

How Do I Locate, Update or Create a User Profile?
Before you create a new profile, make sure that owing to some earlier interaction with the system, you do notalready have a user profile.
To check whether you already have a profile,If you located your profile, but need to recover your password,
To create a new Profile,
To update your Profile data,

follow these steps:
Step 1: Go the Start page of the submission site – always in the format: http://subdomain.papercept.net.

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This is the starting point for all conference related activities and has valuable information about all active
conferences. This page serves to let the users manage their accounts as well as submit papers.

Step 2: If you do not already have your PIN and password, you need to retrieve the same. Follow the PIN link to
get to the PIN wizard.

Choice 1: To check if you or a colleague has a PIN on the system, click on the Next button next to the option: “Findyour own or someone else’s PIN.” You are presented with an input field to enter the “Surname” as shown in theGetting Started Manual: Authors2

PaperPlaza and PaperCept Conference Manuscript Management and Registration Systems

next screen capture. Note that for privacy you need to enter the full surname. If you wish to find someone called
Johnson you need to type exactly that.

Upon clicking Submit, you are presented with a listing of PINs corresponding to the surname that was entered. If
you find the PIN of the person you were looking for (including your own), note it down and click on “Back”.
Choice 2: If you already have an account on the system, but have forgotten your password, you may retrieve it byfollowing the link “Retrieve your password.” If your email address is current, you may request the password to besent to that address. If your email address has changed you may follow the link “Email Address Update Request,”
encircled in the next figure.

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Choice 3: If you do not have a PIN on the system, please create a new one by following the link “Register a new
PIN” from the PIN Wizard menu. You will be presented with a form where all fields are required.

After you complete the four fields and click on “Submit” the system will send an e-mail message to the designatede-mail address or addresses. This email has a link that allows the recipient to request the password.

Verification of the Personal Data at Log In
Each time you log in, the system checks if your personal data are incomplete or if anyone modified them since you
last approved them. If the system detects that either is the case then your Personal Information page appears
with the request to check and approve the personal information. In particular, when you never logged in before
the following screen appears. After completing a few additional required fields and clicking on “Submit” you will
be able to continue to log in by following the Log in link.

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This screen also appears, with a different message, if some of the fields were modified and the system wants you
to check and approve these modifications.

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2. Initial Manuscript Submission
How Do I Prepare My Manuscript?
For information about the submission deadlines and the general format of the manuscript of your paper pleaserefer to the website of your conference.
Word and LaTeX templates for the preparation of the manuscript may be downloaded from the Support section of
the PaperPlaza/PaperCept submission site.

What Is PDF and Why Do I Have to Upload the Manuscript File in Compliant PDF Format?
PDF by Adobe has become a de facto standard for electronic archival of documents. This format has been adopted
by most major publishing houses as well as by IEEE for its electronic archival system XPlore. Readers for PDF(Portable Document Format) are freely available for all platforms.
The PaperPlaza and Papercept Conference Manuscript Management Systems by PaperCept, Inc. works extensively
with PDF files and is capable of checking the files at the time of upload for various features that make it crossplatform compliant.
Please note that converting your Microsoft Word or LaTeX source file to PDF using the default settings of yourWord or LaTeX software will not automatically result in compliant PDF, even if you use the conference templatefiles. PDF files generated this way most likely will not be accepted by the system.
To generate compliant PDF from Word using Adobe Acrobat PDF Maker you need to use the correct
Acrobat settings. See the extensive instructions in the Support section of the submission site.
To generate compliant PDF from Word 2007 using the free Microsoft PDF Add-In you need to switch tothe setting “ISO compliant.” Again see the instructions in the Support section of the submission site.
There are various ways to generate compliant PDF from your LaTeX source file. Please refer to the
Support section of the submission site.

If your conference subscribes to the PaperCept Compliant PDF Creation service then you may simply upload yourWord or LaTeX source file, or your pdf file, and it will automatically be converted to compliant pdf.

What Information Do I Need for Uploading the Manuscript?
Please make sure that you have the following information available to you at the time of “initial” submission ofyour manuscript:


PINs of all co-authors of the manuscript – it is necessary to enter all PINs at this stage to identify all
authors. Please enter the PINs in the same order as the names appear on the manuscript. You will needto designate one of the authors as the “corresponding author.” Only the corresponding author may
update submission information, re-upload paper or submit the final paper.

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A “text only” abstract of approximately 200 words. This is required by most conferences to solicit reviews
from reviewers and to produce a Book of Abstracts.
A PDF file of your manuscript that has been checked for compliance. You may test whether the file iscompliant by following the link “Test your PDF file” on the Start page of the submission site.
You should have the authority to sign a “Commitment Statement” to the effect that you will comply withconference policy regarding registration and final manuscript submission.

What Are the Steps Involved with Initial Submission?
Here is the step by step procedure. The start point of all actions is the home page of the submission site:
http://subdomain.papercept.net where subdomain usually refers to your society’s acronym.

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Click on “Submit a contribution.” Individual papers, session proposals, papers to invited sessions
are all handled through the same link.

Click on the appropriate link to either submit an Invited Session Proposal, an Invited Session
Paper, a Regular Paper, or a Poster. This takes you to a submission form. On this form you will be
required to submit the following data:
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Paper title: Please use sentence case and ASCII characters only.
Award(s): If the conference is configured to allow you to submit your paper for Award consideration, youwill see a dropdown list to select the award.
Author PINs: It asks you for number of authors. Enter the right number and click on Go.
Author PINs (contd.): Clicking on ‘Go’ creates the number of fields that has been specified. In each field
enter a valid PIN for each co-author and click on the radio button next to the “corresponding author”.
Click on “Check” to verify that you entered the correct PIN or PINs.
Keywords: Select conference designated keywords for paper classification. Unless you select these
keywords you will not be able to proceed.
 Click on “Go” next to “Keywords.”
 Select up to three keywords from the given set.

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

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Click on the “Submit” link in the box with the keywords to save the keywords and to return to themain submission page.
Type of presentation: Only if required by the conference.
Abstract. Only if required by the conference.
Commitment: Only if required by the conference. Check the checkbox “I agree” to agree with conference
policy.
Verification: Click on Verify to confirm that information provided is accurate. When you click the button
the system checks that it is complete and in the correct format.
Click on Next to go to the File Upload pageThe following screen captures illustrate various steps.

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File Upload pageThe appearance and functionality of the File Upload page depends on whether the Papercept Compliant PDF
Conversion Service is available for the conference.
If the Papercept Compliant PDF Conversion Service is not available then you will see an upload box for yoursubmission like this:Getting Started Manual: Authors

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Use ASCII characters only

Click on Browse button to locate the pdf file on your computer. Please make sure that the filename and file-path
is all ASCII. You may receive an error message otherwise.
If the Papercept Compliant PDF Conversion Service is available then you will be able to upload Word files and
LaTeX source file packs for conversion to pdf:

Click on one of the links Pdf files, Word files or LaTeX file packs for more detailed instructions. The file is uploaded
as soon as it has been selected. You will see a progress report and a status report like this after the upload has
been completed:

It is the author’s responsibility to
download the pdf file andexamine it. PaperCept is not liable
for inaccuracies in the output

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If you need to upload any attachments to your submission then use the browse buttons that are available for thispurpose to locate the files on your computer.

The converted manuscript file and any attachments that you selected for uploading are uploaded when you clickon the Submit button at the bottom of the page. Review the information carefully because this step cannot be
undone. It depends on conference policy if you are able to update the information afterwards.
Acknowledgement that all is well with the file. If not, suitable warnings are displayed and you will
not be able to upload the file until the warnings are addressed.

You may use the link Download to download an archive copy of the submission as it was saved by the system.
Note: If you selected your paper to compete for an award, the system may automatically assign it to two profiles,
one for the regular evaluation and one for the evaluation within the award competition. Accordingly, the paper
receives two separate submission numbers.

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Can I Update My Paper Title, Abstract, Author list or Re-upload the Paper?
This depends upon whether your conference has set up suitable permissions. With the exception of the“keywords,” which may already have been used to classify the paper, you may be able to update all of the above
information, depending on the conference’s choices.
To do this, you need to log in first. On the Start page, click on “Log in” link to be presented with the log in screen:Your Access page lists your access to all active conferences where you are a user.

When you click on “Enter” next to “Author or proposer of …” you will be presented with various Actions andOptions that you have available. Actions are necessary for completion of your manuscript submission. Options are
additional actions always available to you throughout the submission and review cycle.

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For each paper corresponding available Actions and Options may be accessed through last two columns. The“Actions” items are clearly identified as mandatory actions needed to complete your submission and optional
items available to you.

The corresponding author may follow any of the mandatory or optional action links to perform that action.
Under Options (last column), if you point your mouse over the “Choose an option” hotspot, a menu of available
options pops up as shown below. All menu items are linked to a corresponding activity. These include:
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View the details of your submission (any time)
Download previously uploaded files (any time)
Withdraw a submission (any time, only if the conference configured this)Inspect and review the decision email you received and the reviews (after acceptance/rejection)
Transfer copyright (this depends – some conferences require copyright transfer at initial submission,others during the final submission cycle)

Depending upon the conference settings there may be additional Options available to authors.

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3. When Will I Be Notified About My Paper?
While your submissions are under review you may log in regularly to watch their status. Under normal conditions
you may expect the status of your paper to change from “Received” to “Under review” shortly after thesubmission deadline expired.
After this, it may take some time until the status of your paper changes from “Under review” to “Decisionpending.” This signifies that the evaluation of the paper has been completed and that a decision about acceptanceor rejection is to be taken soon.
Following this there may be a brief period where the status of the submission appears as “Undisclosed.” Thismeans that a tentative decision has been taken. This decision is finalized as soon as the conference organizers
send you the e-mail notification with their decision about acceptance or rejection. Once this e-mail has been sent
the status appears as “Accepted” or “Rejected.”

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The conference organizers may not be able to adhere strictly to the announced decision deadlines. In any case it isadvisable to monitor the status of your paper on-line as a precaution if the decision e-mail should not reach you.
After the message has been sent it is available for on-line inspection, including the reviews, under “Inspect thereviews and decision letter” in the “Choose an option” menu for your paper.

4. Final Manuscript Submission
The Reviewers Suggested No Changes. Can the System Automatically Transfer My File from
Initial to Final Submission?
Unfortunately this is not possible. It is required that the authors of all submitted manuscripts, whether thereviewers recommend any changes or not, resubmit their manuscripts. This is for the following reasons:
1. Initial submissions are stamped with a confidentiality notice and hence cannot be reused.
2. Often the page requirements for initial and final submissions differ.
3. Organizers prefer to have less stringent PDF requirements at initial submission so that authors may focus
more on their manuscript than on formatting and compliance.
4. Most conferences require a payment at the time of paper upload and/or assess over-length charges on
the manuscripts. This may only be accomplished at the time of final upload.
For these reasons it is required that the manuscript be re-uploaded as a final submission.

What Additional Information Must I Provide to the System to Upload the Final Paper?
The e-mail that notifies you of the acceptance of your paper for presentation at the conference contains
appropriate instructions, including the deadlines for uploading the final version of your paper. If you omit to
upload the final version the paper will not be included in the conference program.
Re-submitting the manuscript gives you the opportunity to update the title, author list, abstract, etc. Most
importantly it allows you to “electronically” transfer copyright to the cognizant organization. The system has
copyright transfer integrated with the manuscript submission process.
From here on, for any update to your submission you must log in to the system using your PIN and password. On
your Access page, enter as Author to access your Author workspace.

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Only the Corresponding Author is able to perform the required actions. Clicking on “Submit the final version”
opens the Final Submission page for the paper.

The table “Actions to be completed” lists the actions that need to be completed for the final submission. The
necessary links to transfer copyright and to update the final version information may be found near the bottom of
the page. Note that the link to upload the actual paper will only appear after all other required actions have been
completed.

Can You Show Me the Step by Step Final Submission Process?
There may be an additional step “Pay the upload charge” in the checklist depending on the conference policy.

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PaperPlaza and PaperCept Conference Manuscript Management and Registration Systems“Pay the upload charge” effectively means that the conference requires at least one of the authors to register forthe conference and pay the conference fee before the final version may be uploaded. In this case the ‘uploadcharge’ is part of the conference fee. Please consult the conference website for the details.
Important: If the step “Pay the upload charge” is shown please first complete the step, “Update the final version
information” before going to the registration site. This is needed so that the system has accurate information
about the author list and the number of pages in the paper.
Step 1. Update the final version information: Follow the link for this purpose. Make sure that the author list andnumber of pages in the final version of the paper are correctly entered. The Abstract that you enter here willappear in the conference Book of Abstracts.
Step 2. Copyright Transfer: Click on the link “Transfer copyright.” It will take you to the form below:

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Make sure thata) the title of your paper and what appears in the box above are identical,b) the author list and the sequence in which they appear on your paper and above are identical.
Then click on continue. This will take you through electronic copyright (eCP) transfer process. Depending on the
final copyright holder the next screen may differ. The next screen is shown for IEEE eCP interface.

Follow the eCP transfer wizard.
Step 3. Final paper upload. Once the final version information has been completed and copyright has beentransferred the file upload link appears. Make sure that you have tested your paper for PDF compliance byfollowing the link “Test your PDF file” from the Start page. Once you have compliant file, click on the link “Upload

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or re-upload.” If the conference requires you to upload attachments such as PowerPoint slides, suitable links for
those uploads will also appear here.

After all mandatory steps have been completed the status of the submission changes to “Final version received”.
The system automatically dispatches an e-mail message to acknowledge the completion of the final submission.
This message is sent to the corresponding author with copies to all co-authors.

May I Re-Upload My Final Version?
Normally the conference is configured so that you may re-upload the final manuscript and update the final
submission information until the final submission deadline. Your Author workspace indicates this clearly.

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