IEEE Policies

IEEE APSCON 2026 is committed to providing an inclusive and harassment-free environment in all interactions regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, race, or religion. This commitment extends to all IEEE APSCON 2026 sponsored events and services (webinars, committee meetings, networking functions, online forums, chat rooms, and social media) and any interaction regardless of affiliation or position. As a community that aims to share ideas and freedom of thought and expression, it is essential that the interaction between attendees take place in an environment that recognizes the inherent worth of every person by being respectful of all. IEEE APSCON 2026 does not tolerate harassment in any form. Harassment is any form of behavior intended to exclude, intimidate, or cause discomfort. Harassment includes, but is not limited to, the use of abusive or degrading language, intimidation, stalking, harassing photography or recording, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.

Anyone who experiences, observes, or has knowledge of threatening behavior is encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Conference Manager. All information shared will be kept confidential. In cases where a public response is deemed necessary, the identities of victims and reporters will remain confidential unless those individuals consent otherwise.

IEEE APSCON 2026 reserves the right to take appropriate action to foster an inclusive and respectful environment. Attendees violating these rules may be asked to leave the conference without a refund, at the sole discretion of the conference organizers. In addition, attendees are subject to the IEEE Code of Ethics .

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Please contact the Conference Manager if you experience, observe, or have knowledge of behavior in violation of the Code of Conduct or have any questions about the Code of Conduct and Inclusivity & Diversity at IEEE APSCON 2026.

We, the members of the IEEE, in recognition of the importance of our technologies in affecting the quality of life throughout the world, and in accepting a personal obligation to our profession, its members, and the communities we serve, do hereby commit ourselves to the highest ethical and professional conduct and agree:

1. to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, to strive to comply with ethical design and sustainable development practices, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment;
2. to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest whenever possible, and to disclose them to affected parties when they do exist;
3. to be honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates based on available data;
4. to reject bribery in all its forms;
5. to improve the understanding by individuals and society of the capabilities and societal implications of conventional and emerging technologies, including intelligent systems;
6. to maintain and improve our technical competence and to undertake technological tasks for others only if qualified by training or experience, or after full disclosure of pertinent limitations;
7. to seek, accept, and offer honest criticism of technical work, to acknowledge and correct errors, and to credit properly the contributions of others;
8. to treat fairly all persons and to not engage in acts of discrimination based on race, religion, gender, disability, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression;
9. to avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by false or malicious action;
10. to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional development and to support them in following this code of ethics.

Changes to the IEEE Code of Ethics will be made only after the following conditions are met:

1. Proposed changes shall have been published in THE INSTITUTE at least three (3) months in advance of final consideration by the Board of Directors, with a request for comment, and
2. All IEEE Major Boards shall have the opportunity to discuss proposed changes prior to final action by the Board of Directors, and
3. An affirmative vote of two-thirds of the votes of the members of the Board of Directors present at the time of the vote, provided a quorum is present, shall be required for changes to be made.

IEEE prohibits Discrimination, Harassment and Bullying against any person for any reason, for example, because of age, ancestry, color, disability or handicap, national origin, race, religion, gender, sexual or affectional orientation, gender identity, appearance, matriculation, political affiliation, marital status, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law. IEEE employees, volunteers, members, and other constituents of the IEEE, when and where ever those individuals are conducting IEEE business or participating in IEEE events or activities, shall maintain an environment free of Discrimination, including Harassment, Bullying, and Retaliation. Discrimination or harassment of participants will not be condoned or tolerated in any form. Conference participants violating this rule may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference committee.

See IEEE Policies, Section 9.26 - IEEE Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment (PDF, 45 KB) for the complete Policy.

IEEE believes that science, technology, and engineering are fundamental human activities, for which openness, international collaboration, and the free flow of talent and ideas are essential. Its meetings, conferences, and other events seek to enable engaging, thought-provoking conversations that support IEEE’s core mission of advancing technology for humanity. Accordingly, IEEE is committed to providing a safe, productive, and welcoming environment to all participants, including staff and vendors, at IEEE-related events. IEEE has no tolerance for discrimination, harassment, or bullying in any form at IEEE-related events. All participants have the right to pursue shared interests without harassment or discrimination in an environment that supports diversity and inclusion. Participants are expected to adhere to these principles and respect the rights of others. IEEE seeks to provide a secure environment at its events. Participants should report any behavior inconsistent with the principles outlined here, to on site staff, security or venue personnel, or to eventconduct@ieee.org.

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• Peer review is essential to discourse. Authors are encouraged to have the first formal publication of their results be a peer reviewed article.
• Financial support of the work being reported and of the authors should be clearly acknowledged in the article, as well as any potential conflict of interest.
• Methods and materials should be described in sufficient detail to permit evaluation and replication.
• All data should be presented upon request by an editor, to facilitate the review process.
• When submitting an article, authors shall disclose whether or not the article has been published previously or if it is still under active consideration by another publication. In addition, if an author submits an article to a non-IEEE publication while that article is under review by IEEE, the author shall immediately notify IEEE about the additional submission.
• When submitting an article, authors shall disclose if the article reports on research using human subjects or animals and, if so, the authors shall adhere to the requirements as specified in Subsection 8.1.1.E.
• Upon request from IEEE, each author shall confirm having met the conditions of authorship as defined in Subsection 8.2.1.A.1.
• Authors have an obligation to correct errors promptly.
• IEEE defines plagiarism as the use of someone else’s work (for example, use of text, prior ideas, processes, results, or algorithms) without explicitly acknowledging the original author and/or source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and is considered a serious breach of professional conduct, with potentially severe ethical and legal consequences. Subsection 8.2.4.D provides detailed guidelines for a) handling allegations of plagiarism, b) applying appropriate corrective actions when findings of plagiarism have been reached, and c) referencing previously published material.
• The use of content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) in an article (including but not limited to text, figures, images, and code) shall be disclosed in the acknowledgments section of any article submitted to an IEEE publication. The AI system used shall be identified, and specific sections of the article that use AI-generated content shall be identified and accompanied by a brief explanation regarding the level at which the AI system was used to generate the content. The use of AI systems for editing and grammar enhancement is common practice and, as such, is generally outside the intent of the above policy. In this case, disclosure as noted above is recommended.
• Fabrication or falsification of any aspect of an article is unacceptable.
• Except as indicated in IEEE Policies, Subsection 6.4 (Multiple Publication of Original Technical Material in IEEE Periodicals) and Subsection 8.1.7 of this Manual, authors should only submit original work that has neither appeared elsewhere for publication, nor which is under review for another publication. If authors have used their own previously published work(s) as a basis for a new submission, they are required to cite the previous work(s) and very briefly indicate how the new submission offers substantive novel contributions beyond those of the previously published work(s). Subsection 8.2.4.G provides guidelines for handling instances of inappropriate multiple submission and prior publication.
• Authors should not discuss any aspect of an article under evaluation with reviewers of the submitted article.
• Only those articles of a researcher’s publication record that are directly relevant to the subject matter of the article under consideration should be included in the bibliography. Furthermore, an article shall be appropriately labelled as “submitted” when still in the review process or “accepted” when it has been accepted for publication but has not yet been published.
• The IEEE assumes that the material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination to the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the IEEE, to determine whether disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties and, if so, to obtain it. If authors make use of charts, photographs, or other graphical or textual material from previously published material, the authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to use the material in the article.
• An author, in offering an article for presentation at an IEEE conference, or accepting an invitation to present an article, is expected to be present at the meeting to deliver the article. In the event that circumstances unknown at the time of submission of an article preclude its presentation by an author, the program chair should be informed on time, and appropriate substitute arrangements should be made. IEEE reserves the right to exclude an article from distribution after the conference (e.g., not placed on IEEE Xplore) if the article is not presented at the conference.
• Once an article has gone through the review process and a decision for final acceptance has been rendered, the corresponding author provides the final version of the article and supporting materials for publication. Any substantial and unauthorized changes made to the accepted article during this final stage of the publication process must be communicated in writing to the Editor*, who then will decide if a re-review is necessary. This includes addition or removal of any citations. Failure of such notification may be considered as author misconduct, and at the discretion of the Editor* may be reported as such to the Vice President - Publication Services and Products.

Authors of IEEE publications are responsible for all content that appears in their article. Any material that is produced by artificial intelligence tools, including, but not limited to, any of the variety of generative AI programs, must be checked for accuracy and potential plagiarism by the author prior to submission.  An AI tool may be cited in references and bibliographies but only used as a source if the author has independently verified the accuracy of the content.  In an article, the authors must acknowledge intellectual content generated by an AI tool, including but not limited to text, images, videos, audio signals, graphics, and computer code. An AI tool may be used to improve the language of human-generated text in an article without acknowledgment if the tool does not change the meaning or add new intellectual content to the text. Data generated by an AI tool to simulate or emulate a process must be clearly labeled as generated by AI. For articles where an AI tool is the subject, it is recommended that the source code and curated data be made available. As stated above in the IEEE Principles of Ethical Publishing, referees of IEEE publications provide an invaluable service to editors of IEEE periodicals and conference technical program chairs. Confidentiality is a requirement of the peer review process. Thus, when handling a manuscript before final publication, referees and editors should not utilize an AI tool that violates the IEEE commitment to confidentiality.  Perceived violations of these guiding principles by authors, editors, conference technical program committee chairs, referees, or others involved in the publication process should ultimately be reported to the Vice President – Publications Services and Products.  The process for making such allegations is addressed in this manual, and may be done directly to the Vice President, directly to the IEEE Publishing Ethics Team, through a reporting chain beginning with a publication editor or conference technical program committee chair, or through the IEEE Ethics Reporting Line, http://www.ieee-ethics-reporting.org/. Subsequent action is at the discretion of the Vice President, who may initiate an investigation through the PSPB Publishing Conduct Committee or other means and determine possible sanctions. (See also Section 8 for further information.) Revisions to the above subsection, IEEE Principles of Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence Publishing, require the review and approval of the IEEE Board of Directors, using the process in accordance with IEEE Bylaw I-300.4(6).

• The manuscript in question will be immediately rejected
• Other manuscripts of the same authors/co-authors currently under review will be returned
• The authors/co-authors will be prohibited from new submissions to the Journal for at least one calendar year.