Final Submission Instructions

By the end of day on Monday, September 09, 2019:

• You must submit the camera-ready version of your paper.
• At least one author (the one presenting the paper) must register for the workshop.
• You must submit the IEEE copyright form.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Submit Your IEEE Copyright Form

   This step can be done at any point in the process, but you might want to do it early so that co-authors have time to consult about it. It should be completed by Monday, September 09, 2019. If you need more time than this, email fturbak@wellesley.edu. Follow the instructions on the Blocks and Beyond 2019 Copyright page to start the proces of submitting your IEEE copyright form.

2. Revise Your Submission:

   Revise your submission to address all of the comments of all the reviewers and any additional comments from the organizers.

   In order to clarify which documents are position statements, the titles of all position statements should begin with "Position:" or "Position Statement:", as in "Position: Thinking Outside the Blocks" or "Position Paper: Block Party: Having Fun with Blocks". If you did not make this changed before you submitted your IEEE copyright form, it turns out it's not a problem. The copyright form is still valid with the minor changed in title.

3. Format Your Paper

   All submissions must be created using the 8.5" x 11" (US Letter), Two-Column Format template (LaTeX or MS Word) provided at the IEEE templates site.

   If you use the LaTeX template, use the following \documentclass declaration; do not use the compsoc option.

   \documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}

   The page limits for the main text of the paper are as follows, depending on whether your submission was accepted as a position statement, short paper, or long paper:

   • Position statement: 3 pages
   • Short paper: 4 pages
   • Long paper: 8 pages

   The above limits do not include acknowledgments (optional) or references, which follow the main text of the paper and may make the paper longer than the above limits.

   If you added page numbers to your original submission, please remove them from your camera-ready version.
   

   Note on copyright footer: The IEEE paper submission FAQ says "A copyright footer must be applied to the paper prior to uploading manuscript to PDF eXpress." However, you do not need to add such a footer in your workshop paper. We will add this footer (with the appropriate ISBN number) when we assemble the papers into a proceedings.

4. Create/validate your submission PDF
   (This should now work for the 2019 workshop.)

   All camera-ready submissions must be PDF documents that have been validated using IEEE's PDF eXpress Plus tool. You can choose either to let PDF eXpress Plus create your final PDF from source or you can validate a PDF you have created yourself. Only papers that pass validation by PDF eXpress Plus are accepted by the IEEE Xplore digital library.

   1. Begin by visiting the PDF eXpress Plus site at:

      https://www.pdf-express.org/plus

      • If you've visited this site before, log in with Conference ID 48857XP and go to step 4c.
      • If this is your first visit to the site, click on the link "New Users - Click Here" and fill in your information. You will need the Conference ID, which is

        48857XP

        You will also need to specify a password for this particular conference ID.

        Click "Submit" when done and go to Step 4b.

   2. On the Create Account Page, fill in any missing information, click "Submit" when done, and then click "Continue".
      
      
   3. On the Home -- Title Status page, click "Create New Title" and enter some version of the title for your paper. (The title is not official in any way; it is only used by you to distinguish submissions if you have more than one). Click "Submit File for Checking or Converting"
      
      
   4. On the Upload File page, either (1) choose a PDF file to validate or (2) choose a source file to convert to PDF (e.g. .doc/.docx). Then click "Upload File" and read the message on the resulting page.

      Soon, you should receive an email from the system reporting the status of the validation/conversion.

      • If the validation/conversion is successful, the email will say so, but will not include the validated/converted PDF file as an attachment. To see the validated/converted PDF file, go to step 4e. The email will claim that the paper needs to be uploaded by 8 November 2019, but this is incorrect. The correct date for uploading the paper is 9 September 2019.
      • If the validation/conversion is unsuccessful, the email will give hints on how to fix the problem. Go to step 4e and try again. If you have problem validating a PDF file you saved from a .doc/.docx file, you might instead try using PDF eXpress Plus to convert the .doc/.docx file directly.
        
        
   5. Click "Continue" to return to the Home -- Title Status page. This page shows the status of your paper(s). On this page you can:
      
      
      • Click on a title to view the validated/converted PDF associated with that title.
      • Click on "Try Again" to retry validation/conversion for a paper
      • Click "Refresh File Status" to refresh the page.
        
        
5. Upload your final submission to PDF Express Plus
   (This should now work for the 2019 workshop.)

   This step must be completed by the end of day on Monday, September 09, 2019.

   For the B&B 2019 workshop, you will use PDF eXpress Plus (not EasyChair) to upload the final version of your submission.

   1. In PDF eXpress Plus, go to the Home -- Title Status page.
      
      
   2. Click on the "Approve for Collection" link for the title you wish to submit.
      
      
   3. On the resulting page, labeled IEEE PDF eXpress, you will be able to change the default File Name for your PDF file. Please ignore the advice on that page, and name your file using the following convention:

      lastNameOfPresentingAuthor-firstTitleWord-secondTitleWord

      E.g., presenting author Phil E. Buster of paper "Time Consuming Blocks" would use the filename Buster-Time-Consuming.pdf

   4. Click "Approve File for Collection" to submit your final version.
      
      
6. Registration

   In order for your paper to be published in the proceedings, it must be presented at the workshop by one of the authors. At least one of the paper authors must register for the workshop by Monday, September 09, 2019 (end of day, same as the camera-ready deadline). This is before the early regisration deadline on Friday, September 13.

   Workshop registration information can be found at the VL/HCC registration page.

   You can register for the workshop without registering for the main VL/HCC workshop. But please consider attending at least one day of the VL/HCC workshop. One of the main benefits of holding the Blocks and Beyond workshop with VL/HCC is cross-fertilization between the two communities.

7. Hotel reservations

   Now is a good time to be thinking about hotel reservations. Hotel information is posted at the VL/HCC hotels page. Discounted rates for hotels are available only through Sunday, September 22, 2019.