Code of conduct for ISWC

The International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) is organized by the Semantic Web Science Association (SWSA) as a forum to encourage rich interactions and promote the free exchange of ideas to benefit the community. SWSA welcomes conference participants that foster inclusion and respect to all members of the community.

Conference Behavior

Our association is dedicated to providing a respectful and inclusive conference experience for everyone. Respectful behavior is always assumed and expected of community members during all conference events, on-line discussions about conference topics, and networking events held after hours. Conference participants are expected to interact with others in a respectful and courteous manner, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender presentation, physical appearance, religious affiliation, creed, marital status, differing abilities, medical conditions, personal characteristics, or technology choices.

Abusive, racist, sexist, homophobic, intimidating, harassing, or threatening behavior towards any other conference participant or directed at any organizer, student volunteer, sponsor, conference staff or locals, will not be tolerated.

SWSA disapproves of offensive actions, aggressive acts, or comments that intimidate or disparage others. SWSA will not tolerate any kind of harassment, including but not limited to:

Verbal attacks, accusations, bullying, or offensive comments
Aggressive or intimidatory questioning
Sustained disruption during presentations and other events
Unwelcome sexual attention
Inappropriate physical contact
Deliberate intimidation or stalking both in person and on-line
Sexual and racist images and materials in public spaces
Ignoring, encouraging, or advocating any of the above behaviours

SWSA expects all community members to endorse this code of conduct, and to actively prevent and discourage any undesired behaviors. Everyone should feel empowered to politely engage when themselves or others are disrespected, and to raise awareness and understanding of this code of conduct. Conference participants asked to stop any unacceptable behavior are expected to comply immediately.

To report any behavior that makes you or others uncomfortable please contact (by email or in person) any of the SWSA members, who are committed to treat such reports confidentially.

Those violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of SWSA.

Sponsors are also subject to code of conduct in events, images, and other materials.

This code of conduct complements all legal rights that apply to particular situations.

Policy on Plagiarism

Double submission is strictly forbidden in the conference series. ISWC will not accept research papers that, at the time of submission, are under review for or have already been published in, or accepted for publication, in a journal or another conference. Prior submissions to workshops are fine as long as the authors still hold sufficient rights to publish overlapping content in the Springer proceedings. The conference organizers may share information on submissions with other venues to ensure that this rule is not violated.

ISWC also condemns any form of plagiarism which includes both bad practice (like bad paraphrasing, inadvertent non-acknowledgement of sources of text or graphics) and malpractice (deliberate taking of other people’s materials without acknowledging the sources). The conference organizers may use software tools as well as share information on submissions with other venues to ensure that this rule is not violated; see also https://www.springernature.com/gp/authors/book-authors-code-of-conduct.

The Semantic Web Science Association (SWSA) committee, which is responsible for the organization of the International Semantic Web Conference series, decided the following consequences for authors violating these rules.

Repercussions for violating the ethics policy may include, but not be limited to the following measures: all authors being banned from submitting any work (e.g., papers, demos, tutorials, etc.) or from serving in any role (e.g., PC, SPC, invited speaker, etc.) at the conference and associated events (e.g., workshop, tutorials, etc.) for multiple years, with a duration depending on the severity of the infraction. Repeat offenders may be banned permanently. Additionally, SWSA may share the name of offenders with the steering committee of other venues, and notify the supervisors (e.g., department heads, managers, etc.) of the authors.

SWSA recommends all authors to be careful with conference ethical guidelines, which are critical to the health of the Semantic Web research community.