American Institute of Chemical Engineers

Computing and Systems Technology Division, Group 10

CAST Policy on Technical Papers

The CAST Executive Committee has directed the Programming Board to formulate and implement a policy on paper submissions for the AIChE Annual Meeting. This policy is described below.  

Please see www.aiche.org/annual for session information and to submit proposals to present.  Deadlines are listed at www.aiche.org/Annualapp/info/meetsched.asp and format guidelines at www.aiche.org/conferences/guidelines.


CAST Policy on Technical Papers at the AIChE Annual Meeting

1.     Proposals to submit papers for presentation at the AIChE Annual meeting receive peer review. Exceptions are for invited papers, or papers in sessions co-sponsored by CAST with other areas that do not have a review process. Acceptance and rejection of papers in sessions not covered by this policy are the responsibility of the session chair and co-chair.

2.     Details for implementation of the review process are decided by the Area Programming Coordinators.  CAST members interested in improving the processes are encouraged to provide suggestions to the CAST Programming Board by September 1 for consideration at the Annual Meeting.

3.     Authors must submit papers to one session only.  Program organizers will move papers between sessions as necessary.

4.     CAST recommends the following review process.  Area Program Coordinators may modify these policies to best suit the needs of the area members.  Modifications must be published via the CAST e-mail list at or near the time that the AIChE opens the PTP submission process.  Authors whose papers are rejected shall receive anonymous copies of the reviews and an explanation of the decision on request.

a.     The session chair, session co-chair, and one other qualified person decided by the Area Program Coordinator shall review each submission. The third reviewer shall be anonymous, and a substitute review will be obtained when the session chair or co-chair is not available.

b.     The contents of all proposals to present is privileged and shall be confidential until and unless the material is presented at the Annual Meeting. Reviewers and programmers shall protect the confidentiality of such information as they would protect their own such information.

c.      No one shall review their own submission or the submission of a collaborator or colleague where there is a conflict of interest. Reviewers shall point out such conflicts when a review is requested, and alternate anonymous reviews shall be requested as needed.  Where an Area Program Coordinator has a conflict of interest, reviewers shall be assigned by one of the other Area Program Coordinators.

d.     The session chair, co-chair and/or Program Coordinators as desired by each CAST area shall decide on acceptance or rejection of papers based on the reviews and on the suitability of the subject matter for the session.

e.     Effort should be made to provide a reasonable balance of viewpoints in the technical program.  Accordingly, CAST recommends that no person should speak more than once at the meeting.  Occasional exceptions will be made in case of severe financial constraints, illness, or other unforeseen circumstance such as travel delays.  Special consideration may be given to speakers in their early careers.  Presentations in the CAST Plenary session, software demonstrations, award lectures, and papers with undergraduates at the student paper competition are excluded from this limit, but posters are included.  (N.B. This is a change from previous policies and removes any guidelines for the number of papers that one person may co-author.)

f.       Reviewers should take note of the number of papers presented by a speaker at previous meetings when evaluating proposals to present.  CAST shall request that AIChE provide an archive of recent meeting programs.  Decision-makers (see d) shall use this information to select among acceptable papers when assembling the final program.

g.     Speakers who cannot attend the meeting due to circumstances beyond their control should promptly notify the session chair, co-chair, and Area Program Coordinators as well as the AIChE meetings staff either in New York on on-site.  If a co-author is not available to speak, the paper or poster will normally be cancelled.  Speakers who fail to promptly notify the session organizers that they cannot attend will be given low priority for selection at future annual meetings.  Session chairs or co-chairs should notify the Programming Board of the details in writing.

h.     The CAST Programming Chair and/or Vice-Chair shall resolve conflicts in exceptional cases or where one or more of the responsible parties is unavailable in a timely fashion.

i.       Authors should follow the AIChE guidelines for presentation records and should provide copies (paper or electronic) of visual aids to attendees at the meeting.


CAST Programming Board

Original, March 2001

Revised, February 2004

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