Publication policies

Submission Policy

  • The official language of the Conference is English;
  • Two forms of reviewed submission exist: the Full Technical Paper and the Communication paper;
  • Technical papers should present significant scientific advances that are at a mature stage of development. We are looking for full papers that present relevant contributions to research, development, and practice in the area of Web Accessibility, which will fit in with any of the topics listed in the call for papers. All submissions will be peer-reviewed by an international panel. Submissions MUST contain substantial original, unpublished material. Please refer to the ACM policy on plagiarism for guidance. Technical papers will be marked as such in the proceedings.
  • Communications should present interesting recent results or novel thought-provoking ideas that are not quite ready for a regular technical paper. We are looking for interesting and bold papers in all areas of Web Accessibility technology and its application, which will fit in with any of the topics listed in the call for papers. All submissions will be peer-reviewed by an international panel. Submissions MUST contain substantial original, unpublished material. Please refer to the ACM policy on plagiarism for guidance. Communications will be marked as such in the proceedings and will not be included in our technical paper statistics.
  • The only Conference chair or organiser with access to the submission system will be the Programme Chair(s) and the General Chair(s);
  • Anyone including the full Programme Committee, any Organiser, or any Chair (including the Programme Chair) can submit a paper;
  • All submissions except submissions from the Programme Chair will be reviewed by the Programme Committee;
  • Submissions from the Programme Chair will be reviewed by the Steering Committee who will provide unified anonymous feedback outside of the submissions management system;
  • All submissions will be reviewed by 2 reviewers at a minimum, while aiming for 3 reviewers as a default;
  • Papers will not be blinded – In this way we encourage a degree of self-policing: submissions are not blinded, therefore submitting immature work, to be read by a programme committee populated by the field’s top researchers, will tarnish your reputation.
  • All authors will have a chance to respond to the reviewers comments; and these responses will be taken into account in the programme chairs acceptance / rejection process;
  • Reviewers will be given the opportunity to respond to the author responses;
  • Each paper will have an Advocate assigned from the steering committee and operations to provide the Programme Chair with additional feedback; these advocates will not re-review the submissions, but will base their decisions on the quality, clarity, and content of the reviews and the associated rebuttals;
  • Inter-reviewer discussions are encouraged (this is an Advocate decision). However, the program committee should read all the submissions, debating each acceptance decision (and many rejections) as a group.
  • Very high technical quality, or thought provoking work in the case of a communication, is the only selection criteria, however, we strive for a 30% or less acceptance rate in the technical track; and
  • The Programme Chair will make the final decision based on all information available; and will then take the necessary steps to inform each corresponding author of the outcome.

Publication Policy

  • All accepted submissions will be published in an abstract form in the paper based conference proceedings and in full in the selected digital library;
  • Keynote papers will appear in the Conference proceedings contained on the Conference CD and will be between 4 pages and 10 pages long, but will not be only an abstract except in extenuating circumstances as decided by the General Chair;
  • Accepted papers and communications will appear in the Conference proceedings contained on the Conference CD;
  • Technical papers will be marked as such in the proceedings;
  • Communications will be marked as such in the proceedings and will not be included in our technical paper statistics; and
  • Accepted papers from the Programme Chair will contain a small section after the conclusions detailing their review and acceptance process (as mentioned above) and will contain an addendum to the copyright notice on the front page saying `please refer to section x’.

Awards Policy

  • The W4A bestow the following four awards at each conference edition:
    • The W4A Best Paper Award;
    • The John M Slatin Award for Best Communication Paper;
    • Web Accessibility Challenge sponsored by The Paciello Group: Judges Award (Chosen before the conference by the Challenge Judges); and
    • Web Accessibility Challenge sponsored by The Paciello Group: Delegates Award (Chosen at the conference by the Delegates).
  • Any submission (within the correct category of submission) can win a W4A Award, with the exception of:
    • The General Chair(s): May not win any conference award;
    • The Programme Chair(s): May not win any conference award relating to the Technical or Communications programme; and
    • The Challenge Chair(s): May not win any conference award related to the Web Accessibility Challenge sponsored by the Paciello Group.

Submission Details.