Organizing IEEE sponsored conferences, meetings and other events in South Africa

Last edited on 2018-11-05 by A Lysko

Overall

Primary guidance on organizing conferences, meetings and other events involving IEEE is provided in Section 10 of the IEEE Policies available at http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieee_policies.pdf .

If the conference is specific to the scope of a particular IEEE Society or Technical Council, it is advised that support/sponsorship from this unit is considered, prior to looking at local georgaphical resources.

Conferences sponsored by Societies or Technical Councils (including the conferences supported by Chapters), must also adhere to the relevant portions of TAB Operations manual available at http://www.ieee.org/documents/tab_operations_manual.pdf (especially Section 6). Conferences associated with other organizational units of IEEE must accordingly adhere to the relevant polocies/documents found in http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/index.html .

General regional/local IEEE conferences, e.g. Africon, must adhere to the Region 8 provisions listed by the IEEE Region 8 Conference Coordination Subcommittee (CoCSC) at http://www.ieeer8.org/technical-activities/conference-coordination/confe... , including IEEE Region 8 Conference guidelines and rules (“conference organizer’s handbook”) at http://www.ieeer8.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/IEEER8CoCSCrulesandguid...

Information about IEEE requirements, support for and formal registration of a conference

The site http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/index.html has info how to start an IEEE-associated conference. It also refers to the specialized unit of IEEE specifically dealing with supporting organizing the conferences (http://ieeemce.org/). Both sites refers to tutorials, courses and other resources on how to organize a conference, available to IEEE members.

It is important to highlight that

• All approvals and endorsements should be obtained at least a year in advance of the proposed conference;

• There should be no conflict (including conflicting dates) with other IEEE conferences in related fields (conference search is available at http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/index.html);

• IEEE brand may only be used for the conference name for conferences financially sponsored by IEEE (as per specific values stated by the IEEE Policy). Small financial (e.g. 10%) or technical sponsorship do not qualify for using IEEE in the name of the conference, but may use appropriate logos (Section, Chapter etc) in publications, for advertising etc. (IEEE Policies sections 10.1.16-17)
• IEEE sponsored conferences must have a sufficient discount for IEEE members (IEEE Policies section 10.1.15);
• Conferences wanting their submissions to appear in IEEE eXplore need to use plagiarism tools, e.g. CrossCheck.
• If a conference would like to send announcements (e.g. via IEEE VTools eNotices) not just to South African Section members but also to the members of entire IEEE Region 8 (incl. Europe, Middle East and Africa), the Region 8 (R8) support (at least "technical support" will be required as per the R8 rules. The coordination of conference activities for R8 is done by the IEEE R8 Conference Coordination Subcommittee (CoCSC). Please use these R8 pages for further details, training information etc.

 

Tips for organizing large events / conferences

http://ieee.org.za/tips-organizing-large-events-such-conferences

re finding / negotiating venue, getting registrations done, managing the event, taking care of the guests etc.

 

Support (sponsorship) by IEEE South Africa Section

Organizing a South African or African conference to be suppored by IEEE South Africa Section requires contacting the Section, agreeing on terms and conditions and including the Section as a co-sponsor for the conference in a memorandum of undertanding (MoU).

Typically, we require the following information and satisfaction of the following conditions:

• info on the past conferences held, i.e. profit/loss statements and number of attendees
• expected conference size, budget, and clearly defined location, dates;
• key members of the conference committees and their experience in running conferences;

• information about sponsors to be involved and their contribution; 

• the participating/supporting IEEE unit(s) must be represented on relevant conference committee(s) and able to access the reviews and review system and request changes;
• there should be a possibility of financial sponsorship from IEEE Society, South Africa Section and/or one of its Chapters (unless rejected by the supporting IEEE entities) - please see a note on finances closer to the end of this page;
• support to be provided for promotion of IEEE, membership, and IEEE's resources (such as IEEE Society Disti)nguished Lecturer programme, IEEE funding opportunities etc.), e.g.
  • by giving an opportunity to Chapter Chair or another IEEE volunteer to give a talk telling about what IEEE offers to its members, have a stand for IEEE etc. (e.g. as a part of the introductory or keynote talk for the conference), plus offering IEEE membership fliers as a part of the bag content, and, if possibe, having a desk to explain and offer IEEE membership; 

  • by promoting / offering free IEEE Society memberships (https://www.ieee.org/about/volunteers/cmr.html) and allowing IEEE to set up a membership recruitment desk at the conference;

  • It will be highly appreciated if the registration and payment forms have the text like "Join IEEE at ieee.org/join. Cost (2019, R8): USD27+ (students) or USD92+ (professionals)".

• the conference must be able to share the mailing lists with IEEE South Africa Section;
• if the conference has "International" in its name, this must be substantiated by a reasonable indication of intenational nature/representation in the TPC, invited speakers, and attendees.
• the conference web site should continue being online for at least 5 years after the conference ends.

All this information and more will need to be captured in the MoU and must be specific (something specific like 'IEEE Senior members Prof X, Dr Y and Mr Z will be members of committee and Chapter Chair XYZ will give an opening talk' is what we are looking for; general statements like 'TPC will include IEEE members' will not be accepted).

Recognition by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) in South Africa

Please note that this recognition is currently not linked to IEEE in any way. South Africa's DHET follows the Research Outputs Policy (2015) which allows to all research outputs, including in the form of approved approved published conference proceedings (Section 7 of this Policy). In accordance to this Policy, for the DHET to reward a public higher education institution for a publication in conference proceedings, the conference must  be approved (NB! not retrospectively). A sample outdated list of approved conferences is available here. A sample template letter (unofficial) may be found here. Please contact DHET for details.

Useful links:

IEEE Convene (formerly Panel of Conference Organizers (POCO)) is an annual conference for conference organizers. Conference organizers may want to budget for attending IEEE Convene to maximize the impact and optimize the budget for the conference. 

 

How to check IEEE membership and grade (for conference fee discount purposes)?

METHOD 1: To assist with membership / grade verification you can request the IEEE Member Verification file from the IEEE Meetings, Conferences, and Events (MCE). This file is said to be updated monthly on approximately the 15th of each month. You can request the file by completing and submitting a special form (please contact us for the link). 

FAQ:

1. Should I submit the form with the receiver being myself or can I nominate someone else? (e.g conference's representative or one of Section's representatives)

YOU CAN LIST MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS ON ONE FORM. IF YOU WISH TO ADD MORE EMAIL THE MCE THE NAMES AND EMAIL ADDRESSES AND THE MCE WILL UPDATE YOUR SUBMITTED REQUEST.

2. Can I submit the form more than once, e.g. nominating both myself and someone else?

IEEE MCE PREFERS ONE FORM PER CONFERENCE LISTING MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS. SEE THE RESPONSE TO QUESTION 1.

4. Is there an easier way to deal with the validation process? 

CONFERENCES THAT CONTRACT WITH MCE FOR REGISTRATION RECEIVE AUTOMATIC MEMBERSHIP VERIFICATION AT REGISTRATION. FOR FUTURE EVENTS YOU CAN VIEW OPTIONS AT: http://ieeemce.org/registration-services/
 

METHOD 2 (for conferences with only local participants): SAMIEEE

The membership can be verified by downloading the latest membership records from IEEE SAMIEEE (requires access rights: Chapter Chair can download Chapter members, Section Chair can download Section members).

 

Important update regarding fees for the technically supported conferences

We have been informed about the following:

In 2015, the IEEE Board of Directors adopted a motion to recover some of the costs incurred in supporting technically co-sponsored conferences and the publication of their papers or record in Xplore. The IEEE MCE team developed and deployed procedures to collect these fees as part of the conference application process. This process began in January 2015 for all society TCS conferences.   Until recently, MGA had been absorbing the TCS charges for its geographic units.  The IEEE Member and Geographic Activities Board approved the following TCS Fee Motion as final policy for handling the TCS fees at the  November 2017 IEEE Meeting.

Motion:

For any technically co-sponsored conference in which there is no IEEE financial interest (0%), the MGA co-sponsor shall arrange (via an approved MoU) for recovery of IEEE operation costs in the form of TCS fees. Effective for conferences for which the creation of the MoU starts after 1 January 2018, the fees are $1000 per event plus $15 for each paper that is optionally published in Xplore. As an exception to this general policy, MGA will continue to pay those fees if the external (non-IEEE) financial sponsor has a National Society Agreement with IEEE or has a Sister Society Agreement with one or more of the IEEE Societies.

Therefore, for all conference applications received 1 January 2018 or later, in which an MGA Geographic Unit is a technical co-sponsor, the MGA TCS Fee policy shall apply. Starting 1 March 2018, IEEE MCE will deploy processes to collect the TCS fees for conferences with applications submitted 1 January 2018 or later. 

MGA and MCE are working together to support Geographic Units during this transition. You can expect more detailed communications about TCS fees, related website content, and webinar training in early 2018. In the meantime, please begin communicating this information to volunteers in your local area responsible for organizing conferences.

If you would like more information on this new allocation process or have any questions, please contact us at mgatcs@ieee.org.

 

Possibility to order membership development materials (IEEE banners, promotional materials, tablecloths etc.) and get members to join IEEE Society for free for your conference

It used to be  Membership Recruitment Support for Conferences (formerly called Conference Membership Recruitment or CMR). 

Now it is called Conference Support form.  Please contact  grow-membership AT ieee.org  to get the correct link and order