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1
Publications Requirements
for IFAC PapersOnLine
Guidance for Editors of IFAC Events
June 2010
The development of digital publishing technologies and the universal availability of
high-speed Internet connections have opened a wide range of opportunities for the
publication of technical papers. IFAC is moving to the leading edge of electronic
publishing, following a Council decision in September 2006 to move all its technical
publications, including fully reviewed papers presented at IFAC technical meetings, to
electronic support on the Internet.
This decision heralds profound changes in the way IFAC meeting publications are
handled. Printed Proceedings volumes are being replaced by collections of papers
available on a web site, called IFAC-PapersOnLine, which became operational at the
time of the 17
th
IFAC World Congress in July 2008. This web site provides open access
to all fully reviewed papers presented at IFAC events. This dramatically changes the
limited distribution provided by the former Proceeding volumes, as it will allow
instantaneous visibility of all IFAC technical work across the entire world. Excitingly, in
contrast to the current practice of other engineering societies, papers can be viewed
and downloaded by individuals at no cost, which makes IFAC publications truly
universally accessible. The new site supports the capability to search for papers based
on the paper characteristics or content, and each paper is uniquely identified by a DOI
(Digital Object Identifier) number, the current standard for making electronic papers
citeable.
This is probably the most important change in IFAC policies in recent years, and is
expected to have a substantial impact on the number and the quality of papers
submitted to IFAC meetings, as authors will know that their work will be made available
to anyone who is interested. However, it is not without risks. By openly exposing its
technical work worldwide, IFAC is making a commitment to maintaining a high level of
quality in all its technical events, in order to maintain the value of the IFAC brand. It is
the joint responsibility of the IFAC Technical Board, the Technical Committees, and the
International Programme Committees of all IFAC events to rise to this challenge and to
ensure that only high-quality material is published under the IFAC banner.
The new publishing scheme also poses new challenges to the organizers of IFAC
events, and especially to event Editors who now have the additional responsibility for
the technical aspects of the electronic publication process. This document has been
written as a guide for event Editors in order to help them to get acquainted with the new
publication procedures and the technical requirements for the electronic paper files that
are to be collected from the authors.

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1. Introduction
The purpose of this document is to provide a set of guidelines about the IFAC
requirements that must be met by the organizers of IFAC Technical meetings in order
to have the papers presented at the meeting published on the IFAC-PapersOnLine web
site.
The preparation of the materials for publication is the main responsibility of the event
Editor, who must work in close cooperation with the NOC (National Organizing
Committee) and the IPC (International Program Committee) in order to ensure that all
the publications-related activities of the event organization comply with IFAC
Publications Requirements. The Editor is appointed by the NOC, in agreement with the
Technical Committee(s) sponsoring the event. The Editor must also work in close
cooperation with the Editor-in-Chief of IFAC PapersOnLine and the Editors-in-Chief of
IFAC Journals, as described below.
2. IFAC meeting publications
A paper submitted and accepted to an IFAC meeting may only be published in
electronic form on the IFAC-PapersOnLine web site (www.IFAC-PapersOnLine.net).
This is the only publication that may result from an IFAC event.
The organizers of an IFAC meeting may provide preliminary materials including the
papers to be presented at the meeting, and they can distribute or sell them freely, but
these materials (traditionally called preprints in IFAC) can only be produced as support
for the meeting and may not carry any kind of identification that enables them to be
considered publications in any way, e.g. ISBN, code bars, or the words published by!
Additionally, an expanded version of a paper that has been presented at an IFAC
meeting may be published (by order of priority):
In a special section or a standalone paper in one of the IFAC Journals, following
recommendation by the IPC and the agreement of the Journal editor.
In a special section or a standalone paper in one of the IFAC Affiliate Journals,
following recommendation by the IPC and the agreement of the Journal editor,
provided that the paper is not being considered for publication in one of the
IFAC Journals.
As a paper submitted independently to the author to one of the IFAC Journals
or IFAC Affiliated Journals.
As a paper submitted independently by the author to a non-IFAC Journal,
provided that neither any of the IFAC Journals nor IFAC Affiliated Journals have
shown interest on the paper within three months after the end of the meeting. In
this case, the paper must carry a reference to the IFAC meeting where it was
originally presented and, if the paper has appeared on the website www.IFAC-
PapersOnLine.net, also a reference to this publication.
The copyright of all papers submitted to IFAC meetings must be transferred to IFAC at
the time of the final paper submission. The IFAC Secretariat will provide appropriate
Copyright Transfer forms to the organizers for distribution to the authors or,
alternatively, IFAC will set up an electronic Copyright Transfer mechanism on the
IFAC- PapersOnline site.
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3. Editorial tasks
3.1 Initial tasks
The following actions must be carried out by the event Editor as soon as the event has
been approved by IFAC:
Read, sign and return the Publications Agreement letter from the IFAC
Secretariat accepting the conditions for preprint and proceedings production.
Contact the Editor-in-Chief of IFAC-PapersOnLine in order to get up-to-date
instructions for authors and organizers. Any instructions that may have been
passed on from previous meetings must be discarded.
The current Editor-in-Chief of IFAC-PapersOnLine is:
Prof. Juan A. de la Puente
ETSI Telecomunicacin
Universidad Politcnica de Madrid, UPM
E-28040 Madrid, Spain
Tel: +34 913 367 342
Fax: +34 913 367 333
E-mail: [email protected]
Make sure that a submission handling system that is approved by IFAC is used.
Contact the Editor-in-Chief for a list of IFAC-approved submission systems.
3.2 First announcement and call for papers
The editor must check that the call for papers includes:
The official IFAC Copyright conditions statement.
Pointers to up-to-date instructions for authors.
Instructions for draft paper submission.
The last version of the IFAC Copyright conditions statement and the instructions for
authors can be found on the IFAC web site (www.ifac-control.org).
Notice that full draft papers must be reviewed by the IPC in order to be acceptable for
publication on IFAC-PapersOnLine. Abstract-based review is only acceptable if no
publications are to be produced (e.g. IFAC may agree that papers presented at some
workshops are not published).
Although some meetings have accepted in the past draft papers in free style, it is highly
recommended that compliance to IFAC paper layout and file format be requested from
the beginning. In this way, both authors and reviewers can have a closer idea of the
appearance and extension of the final paper. Moreover, possible difficulties with layout
or format conformance are better detected at this stage, with time ahead for solving
them before the final submission is done.
Notice that this implies that only PDF files complying with the IFAC style rules and PDF
requirements are admissible. This must be explicitly stated in the Call for Papers.
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3.3 Paper review and selection
The paper review and selection process is the responsibility of the IPC. The outcome of
this process is a list of accepted papers and a set of review comments to be sent to the
authors, possibly requesting them to make some modifications before submitting the
final version of the papers.
3.4 Final paper submission
Paper files
Paper files must be submitted as PDF files. The organizers must provide the means for
the authors to submit their paper files in a convenient way, e.g. by setting up a web site
where paper files can be uploaded or by using a professional conference management
service.
The instructions for final paper submission must include the requirement that the paper
files comply with the IFAC standards and PDF file properties, as detailed in the
instructions to authors. Paper file compliance is the authors responsibility, as it is very
difficult, and most often impossible, to modify an incorrect PDF file after it has been
produced. To this purpose, a submission system that validates the PDF properties of
the file at the time of submission must be used. Contact the Editor-in-Chief of IFAC-
PapersOnLine for a list of validated submission systems.
Copyright forms
The copyright of all papers must be transferred to IFAC before they can be accepted
for presentation at the event. Authors must either fill in a copy of the IFAC Copyright
Transfer Form or use an electronic transfer form as provided for the event. No paper
may be included in IFAC-PapersOnLine unless its Copyright Transfer Form has been
received.
3.5 Preprints and other material
The organizers of an IFAC event may provide preprints, i.e. collections of the accepted
papers for distribution to the meeting participants, either in printed (e.g. a preprints
volume) or electronic (e.g. a CD or DVD with PDF files) form. Preprints and other
associate materials can be also sold or distributed outside the meeting, provided they
do not carry any text or mark that enables them to be considered a publication or cited
in any way. In particular, the event organizers must ensure that the preprints do not
have any of the following:
ISBN (International Standard Book Number) or any related identification
number;
Bar code;
DOI (Digital Object Identifier);
Cataloguing details;
The words "published by!"
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3.6 Publishing the papers
The final collection of presented papers is published on the PapersOnLine site.
Therefore there is no physical Proceedings volume, but a set of files which can be read
or downloaded from the site. The event Editor must compile the collection of the final
PDF files, excluding the papers that are not presented at the meeting, on an
appropriate digital support as instructed by the Editor-in-Chief of IFAC-PapersOnLine.
The Editor must also supply:
Front matter files in PDF format, including:
o An introduction file containing:
! A cover page with the meeting title, location, dates, and Editor
name(s)
! A preface or presentation, as appropriate
! A list of the NOC and IPC members
o A file with the technical programme of the event, including the titles and
authors of all the papers included in the Proceedings.
o A file with an alphabetic index of authors.
A plain text file for each paper, with the references contained in the paper.
See appendix C for a complete specification of the contents of the Proceedings
package. The package with the materials for publication must be sent by the event
Editor to the Editor-in-Chief of IFAC PapersOnLine as soon as it is available, preferably
at the time of the meeting, or at most one month later.
4. Special cases
4.1 Industrial papers
An IFAC event may accept industrial papers, which are only reviewed on the basis of
abstracts, and are not published on IFAC PapersOnLine.
4.2 Workshops
The organizers of a Workshop may decide not to publish the papers on PapersOnLine.
In this case, no other publication of the meeting may be done. If preprints are
distributed to the attendants, they may not be considered a publication, and the
regulations in section 3.5 apply.
Although it is not required, IFAC recommends that Workshops publish their papers on
IFAC PapersOnLine. In this case, all the regulations for IFAC publications apply to
Workshops as well, including the requirement that full draft papers must be peer-
reviewed.
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Appendix A IFAC paper style and layout
All papers submitted to IFAC technical meetings must comply with the new paper
layout which is available on the IFAC web site. A summary of its main characteristics
follows:
Paper length and file size
Regular papers:
1
6 pages, 1.5 MB
Plenary papers: 12 pages, 3.0 MB
Keynote papers: 18 pages, 4.5 MB
Page size and margins
A4 paper (210 ! 297 mm)
Margins:
o First page: top 35 mm, bottom 25 mm, left/right 15 mm.
o Other pages: top 25 mm, bottom 25 mm, left/right 15 mm.
Main text is two columns, with a 5 mm gap between columns.
No headers, footers, or page numbers.
Title page
The title page must contain the following items, centred on the page with a left and right
margin of 30 mm (i.e. a maximum width of 150 mm):
Title, with a maximum of 10 words, 14 pt Times boldface.
Author names, 10 pt Times boldface.
Author affiliations, 10 pt Times italic.
An abstract with 50100 words.
A list of 510 keywords, preferably taken from the official IFAC keyword list.
The abstract and keywords should be separated from the previous and following text
by a pair of full width (150 mm) horizontal lines and an 8 pt vertical space.
The rest of the title page is body text, formatted in two columns as detailed below.

1
Lecture or poster presentation, contributed or invited papers.
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Text format
Times Roman 10 pt, or equivalent font, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
All paragraphs must be justified, if possible.
Single line spacing.
The first line of a paragraph should not be indented.
8 pt additional vertical space between paragraphs.
Avoid hyphenation at the end of a line.
Section headings
Section headings must be centred, in capital letters, and numbered consecutively,
starting with 1.
Sub-section headings should be in capital and lower-case italic letters, numbered
1.1, 1.2, etc, and left justified, with second and subsequent lines indented.
Tables
All tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals.
Headings should be placed above tables, underlined and centred.
Leave one line space between the heading and the table.
Illustrations
All photographs, schemas, graphs and diagrams are to be referred to as figures.
Lettering and symbols should be clearly defined either in the caption or in a legend
provided as part of the figure.
Figures should be placed at the top or bottom of a column wherever possible, as
close as possible to the first reference to them in the paper.
Figures should be restricted to single-column width unless this would make them
illegible.
The figure number and caption should be typed below the illustration, left justified,
with subsequent lines indented.
Equations
Equations should be numbered with Arabic numerals.
SI units should be used for physical magnitudes. All non-standard abbreviations or
symbols must be defined when first mentioned, or a glossary provided.
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References
In the text the surname of the author and the year of publication of the reference
should be given.
Two or more references by the same authors published in the same year should be
differentiated by letters a,b,c etc.
For references with more than two authors, text citations should be shortened to
the first name followed by et al.
Only essential references, which are directly referred to in the text, should be
included in the reference list.
References must be listed in alphabetical order at the end of the paper. References
to the same author(s) should be in chronological order.
Journal references should include:
o authors surname and initials;
o initials and surnames of remaining authors;
o year of publication (in brackets);
o article title (where provided);
o abbreviated journal title (in italics);
o volume number and page numbers.
References to books should include:
o authors surname and initials;
o initials and surnames of remaining authors;
o year of publication (in brackets);
o book title (in italics);
o name of the publisher and place of publication.
References to multi-author works should include after the year of publication:
o chapter title (where provided);
o "In:" followed by book title (in italics);
o initials and name(s) of editors(s) in brackets;
o volume number and pages;
o name of the publisher and place of publication.
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Appendix B IFAC PDF specifications
PDF (Portable Document Format) is an open standard, developed by Adobe Systems,
which has become the preferred format for electronic publishing on the Internet. PDF
enables documents to be stored in a platform and device independent format, ensuring
that the appearance of the document is the same when read on different computer
systems. PDF documents can be read on a variety of freely available viewers, including
Adobe Reader

, Ghostview, and Xpdf, among others.

PDF has evolved with time, and different versions of the standard have been produced.
Furthermore, there are optional settings that may affect portability, and some of the
enhanced characteristics that have been added to the basic PDF format can make it
difficult to read PDF files on some computer platforms. In order to ensure that the
paper files stored in the IFAC PapersOnLine site can be read with the highest quality
on all computer platforms, and that IFAC papers can be efficiently searched, PDF files
containing papers submitted to IFAC meetings are required to comply with a set of
specifications, which are listed below. Some PDF characteristics are required for the
file to be published in IFAC PapersOnLine, while others are recommended for best
quality presentation.
Required PDF file properties
A4 paper size (210 ! 297 mm).
PDF version 1.4 (Acrobat 5) or higher.
All fonts must be embedded in the file. This also applies to so-called base 14 fonts
(Times, Helvetica, Courier, Symbol and ZapfDingbats) or their equivalent (Times
New Roman, Arial, Courier New, etc.).
Only scalable fonts can be accepted. Type 3 (bitmap) fonts should not be used.
Fonts that require non-English language support are not allowed.
The file must contain searchable text. Files resulting from scanning printed papers
are not acceptable.
All security settings (passwords, print or copy restrictions) must be removed.
There must be no links or bookmarks in the file.
Recommended PDF properties
Subset all fonts if less than a 100% of the characters are used.
The file should be optimized for a faster viewing on the web.
The print Resolution should be set to 600 dpi.
Color/Grayscale Images: Bicubic Downsampling at 300dpi.
Compression for Color Images: JPEG/Medium Quality.
Monochrome Images: Bicubic Downsampling at 600dpi.
Compression for Monochrome Images: CCITT Group 4.
Compress Text and Line Art: Yes.
The file settings can be checked by opening the Document properties window in
Adobe Reader

.
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Appendix C PapersOnLine package
The full package that the event Editor must send to the Editor-in-Chief of IFAC-
PapersOnLine consists of a number of files stored in a suitable computer readable
media (such as a CD-ROM or DVD). The IFAC web site contains a package with
samples of every kind of file.
Manifest
The package must contain a manifest, i.e. a text file with the list of all the other files in
the package. Paper files must be listed in the order they should appear in the
Proceedings.
Front matter files
The equivalent of the front matter in printed proceedings must be included in the
following PDF files:
InvitationAndIntroduction.pdf
o Cover page with the name, location, and dates of the event, names of
the editors, as well as the IFAC logo and other institutional data.
o Copyright statement and other publication data.
o Names of the main organizers and sponsors, as needed
o List of the NOC and IPC members.
o Foreword or preface, as the editors may find it suitable.
TechnicalProgram.pdf
o Ordered list of all papers included in the Proceedings, including paper
titles and authors. The papers may be grouped into sessions or topics
as appropriate.
AuthorIndex.pdf
o Alphabetic list of authors.
Paper files
Each paper must be provided as a separate PDF file complying with the requirements
listed in appendix B.
All files should be numbered with a four digit unique numerical identifier, i.e. ####.pdf
where #### is a zero padded 4 digit number such as 0123.pdf or 0003.pdf.
Reference files
A plain text file must be provided for each paper with all the references made in the
paper. Non-ASCII characters should be avoided, but if it is necessary to include some
characters not included in the basic ASCII set, the Unicode UTF-8 must be used.
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Appendix D IFAC Copyright conditions
The material submitted for presentation at an IFAC meeting (Congress, Symposium,
Conference, Workshop) must be original, not published or being considered elsewhere.
All papers accepted for presentation will appear in the Preprints of the meeting and will
be distributed to the participants. Papers duly presented at the IFAC Congress,
Symposia, Conferences and Workshops will be hosted on-line on the www.IFAC-
PapersOnLine.net website. The presented papers will be further screened for possible
publication in the IFAC Journals (Automatica, Control Engineering Practice, Annual
Reviews in Control, Journal of Process Control , Engineering Applications of Artificial
Intelligence, and Mechatronics), or in IFAC affiliated journals. All papers presented will
be recorded as an IFAC Publication.
Copyright of material presented at an IFAC meeting is held by IFAC. Authors will be
required to transfer copyrights electronically. The IFAC Journals and, after these, IFAC
affiliated journals have priority access to all contributions presented. However, if the
author is not contacted by an editor of these journals, within three months after the
meeting, he/she is free to submit an expanded version of the presented material for
journal publication elsewhere. In this case, the paper must carry a reference to the
IFAC meeting where it was originally presented and, if the paper has appeared on the
website www.IFAC-PapersOnLine.net, also a reference to this publication.
April 2007