This “conference proceedings (ITIC)” series is a key supplement to the oral presentation of papers at the technical sessions of the Tamil Internet Conference(s). The long term objective of the conference organizers is to raise the quality of scholarly research work presented, discussed, and archived in the proceedings through a strict “peer-review” process on the abstracts received for oral presentation and on the full-length version of the paper submitted for inclusion in the conference proceedings series. This peer-review process is an important well-coordinated effort amongst the three key parties: conference organizers (publishers/editors), reviewers, and the authors of the work themselves.

Details on the Proceedings Publication Series

Name of the Journal:
ITIC Proceedings
Proceedings of the International Tamil Internet Conference(s)

Publisher /Ownership:
INFITT 
(International Forum for Information Technology in Tamil)

Frequency of the Publication
Annual

Serial Registration:
This publication is registered with INFITT as the Publisher with the International Serial Standard Number ISSN : 2313-4887

Serial Management :
The serial publication is managed jointly by two teams,
Serial Editor(s) who ensure uniform coverage, consistency, and quality amongst all volumes of the series

Volume Editor(s), also named Conference Program Committee CPC -Chair(s)
who implement a strict peer-review process in the paper selection and in the preparation of the written version of the papers presented at the annual Conferences The CPC Chair is assisted by the members of the CPC in the review process.
The Editors and Conference Program Committee Members are well-recognized experts leading active research groups in the area of Tamil Computing, information technology, and/or Natural Language Processing with special reference to Tamil.

Publication History :
Proceedings published since 1997, 19 volumes till date, vol. 20 scheduled for publication in Dec. 2021
Nearly 1000 research papers have been presented in 19 Conferences held till date.

Publication costs :
INFITT does not charge any fee to the contributing authors whose papers are archived in the ITIC Proceedings series.
Authors of contributed papers retain the copyrights for their work with INFITT given rights to publish the work in print and e-media.

Plans are currently underway to place the ITIC Proceedings under “OPEN ACCESS” as per the terms defined in Creative Commons Licence CC:BY 4.0)

The Finance related to the organization of the Tamil Internet Conference each year is managed through one or more of the following independent resources; i) sponsorship by educational institutions and private companies; ii) conference registration fee to be paid by the conference delegates /attendees (authors of papers presented in the technical sessions of the conference enjoy “free” registration and iii) ad-hoc grants from the parent organization INFITT for the conference. A part of the conference budget is allocated for the preparation of the serial publication TIC Proceedings and for the content archiving in the dedicated web portal.

Access :
The content of the TIC Proceedings is available (with options to download PDF of the individual papers) online at the URL ITIC archives (uttamam.org/infitt_papers.php)
The archives portal is provided FREE ACCESS 24/7 to anyone across the globe without formal registration of any kind.

Publication Policies on Ethics and Malpractices

INFITT organizes Tamil Internet Conference(s) at regular intervals, usually once a year, with venues alternating between India (Tamilnadu) and abroad. Three months before the conference, a call-for-papers CFP is released to the public, listing various topics to be addressed and inviting abstracts of papers for possible presentation in one of the technical sessions of the conference. As with the international journals, all abstracts submitted for oral presentation are subjected to a rigorous peer-review process.

In the following sections, we have elaborated on the obligations of all key parties with respect to the ethical issues required to maintain high standards of professional publications and also to avoid malpractices of any kind, including any plagiarism by authors or prejudices from the reviewers or editors. Our publication ethics and publication malpractice statement is largely based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (COPE / Committee On Publication Ethics, 2011).

Editors’ responsibilities

Publication decisions
The editor is responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal will be published. The editor will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will be based on the paper’s importance, originality, and clarity, and the study’s validity, and its relevance to the journal’s scope. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be considered.

Confidentiality
The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the members of the editorial board for their own research purposes without the author’s explicit written consent.

Arbitration of complaints (misconduct, plagiarism, and prejudices) Wherever there are concerns of malpractices by the author (lack of adequate citation to earlier work or plagiarism), the reviewer should alert the editor or seek a revision of the manuscript. Similarly, if any author feels that the review process is not fair, he/she shall have the right to appeal to the editor. In this situation, the series editors, in close collaboration with the volume editor and members of the CPC review the complaints and suggest suitable follow-up actions. Plagiarism will lead to the rejection of the paper. If there are signs of any bias or prejudice in the review by any reviewer, the volume editor shall send the paper for a “third” review by another independent expert (in a fully blind review process).

Reviewers’ responsibilities

Reviewers play a very important role in assisting the volume editors in making relevant editorial decisions.

Peer Review Process
The peer-reviewing process assists the editor and the editorial board in making editorial decisions and may also serve the author in improving the paper. During the peer-review process, the reviewers examine the relevance of the paper within the scope of the conference, originality, novelty of the work, sound analysis of the data and clear presentation, and last but not least the authenticity of the work without any signs of plagiarism. 

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and withdraw from the review
process.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgment of sources
Reviewers should identify cases in which relevant published work referred to in the paper has not been cited in the reference section. They should point out whether observations or arguments derived from other publications are accompanied by the respective source. Reviewers will notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of
the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the papers.

Authors’ duties

Reporting standards
Authors of original research reports should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention
Authors could be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the paper for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least ten
years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.

Originality, plagiarism, and acknowledgment of sources
Authors will submit only entirely original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work should also be cited.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
In general, papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the same paper to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Manuscripts that have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere cannot be submitted. In addition, manuscripts under review by the journal should not be resubmitted to copyrighted publications. However, by submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retain the rights to the published
material. In case of publication, they permit the use of their work under a CC-BY license [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/], which allows others to copy, distribute and transmit the work as well as to adapt the work and to make commercial use of it.

Authorship of the paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors.
The corresponding author ensures that all contributing co-authors and no uninvolved persons are included in the author list. The corresponding author will also verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
All authors should include a statement disclosing any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and to cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper in form of an erratum.

References
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (2011, March 7). Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
https://www.publicationethics.org