Research papers submission guidelines

All papers will be submitted and processed according to exactly the same schedule, as detailed in the Call for Papers. The important dates are summarized below. At least one author of each accepted paper must register for VLDB 2001 by 10 June 2001.

All authors should submit their paper to the region in which the first author of the paper works at the time of submitting the paper, or where most of the work was carried out. Members of any of the VLDB 2001 program committees will use their own geographic area. The regions are set out below. Anyone requiring advice on where to submit a paper should contact the coordinating program chairperson, Stefano Ceri (ceri@elet.polimi.it).

In the proceedings, all papers will be laid out according to the same CRC format. Submissions for refereeing may either be in a good approximation to the final CRC format or in an 11-point double spaced format. (For details see Formatting Instructions)

Page limit: All submitted papers should be a maximum of twelve US letter or A4 pages when presented in the two-column CRC format used in VLDB proceedings. Accepted papers will have to be reduced to 10 pages in CRC format. Submissions in the format of 11-point double spaced pages must not exceed 25 pages. In both cases, this includes all parts of the paper: title, abstract, body, bibliography and appendices. Any paper exceeding this size will not be refereed, but will be rejected outright.

It is the author's responsibility to make the papers readable, relevant and interesting before submission for consideration by referees. This includes legibility of diagrams and quality of English.

Duplicate submissions are not allowed for VLDB conferences. A VLDB conference submission is considered to be a duplicate submission if there is another paper with all of the following properties:

1. the paper and VLDB submission have at least one author in common
2. the paper is more than 4 pages long, when formatted for the VLDB Proceedings
3. the main technical content of the paper substantially overlaps that of the VLDB submission
4. the paper is published or under consideration to be published in a refereed journal or proceedings (electronic or printed) that is generally available (e.g., not limited to conference attendees)

Authors submitting papers to VLDB conferences are expected to agree to the following terms:

If an author has any questions about the policy regarding overlapping publications, they should contact the coordinating program chairperson, Stefano Ceri (ceri@elet.polimi.it).

Once a paper has been prepared the authors must register their intention to submit it by recording the abstract in the relevant database by 19 February 2001. An interface will be provided for recording abstracts. By doing so, authors obtain a reference code that will be used to identify the paper and to enable the allocation of referees. Without a registered abstract, papers may not be processed correctly.

When the abstract is registered, the form will also solicit information about the contact author. The information will be used for VLDB administration purposes, e.g., to notify authors of the outcome of the submission. If an author has to make a change on the contact information, he should e-mail the area program chair. We expect that in virtually all cases this information will be stable over the period of paper processing.

Papers must be electronically submitted. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the submitted material is on time (no extensions will be given), complies with the size constraints (long papers will not be refereed) and is legible on arrival. Every paper should have a cover page (not counted in the page count) that:

• Identifies the contact author
• Gives his or her address for correspondence (e-mail, conventional mail and telephone)
• States the reference number (see Registering an Abstract)
• Indicates the topic area ("core data technology" or "information systems infrastructure") and the category ("research", "vision", or "application/experience")
• Gives the title and full list of authors (marking any author that is on any VLDB'01 program committee). Indicates the topics relevant to the paper, selected among those present in this list.

This cover page is redundant information if the abstract has been registered using the database as requested (see Registering an Abstract). However we would like this extra information for the accuracy of the administrative details relating to your paper.

Papers must be in PDF. It is essential that they print without difficulty on a variety of printers using Adobe Acrobat Reader. Therefore, authors must be sure that any special fonts are included, etc. It is the absolute responsibility of the authors to ensure that the submitted papers will print easily. Authors should upload the PDF of papers in the relevant geographic server by 26 February 2001. The file must be named with the full reference (in lower case) allocated when the abstract was submitted (see Registering an Abstract).

Authors will be notified of the outcome of the refereeing process by 13 May 2001. We will use the information given when the abstract was registered (see Registering an Abstract).

This will be required by 10 June 2001. Details are specified here.

Each submission must classify the paper along two orthogonal dimensions, the topic area ("Core DB Technology" or "IS Infrastructure") and its category ("Research", "Vision" or "Application/Experience").

Core DB Technology Area
Papers in the Core Data Technology area report on technology that is meant to be incorporated in the DB system itself. This includes DB engine functions, such as query languages, data models, query processing, views, integrity constraints, triggers, access methods, and transactions -- in centralized, distributed, replicated, parallel, mobile, and wireless environments. It also includes extended data types, such as multimedia, spatial, and temporal data, and system engineering issues, such as performance, high availability, security, manageability, and ease-of-use.

Information Systems Infrastructures Area
Papers in the Information Systems Infrastructures area report on methods, issues, and problems faced during the design, development and deployment of innovative solutions for information management. Examples include digital libraries, E-commerce, scientific and engineering systems, computer-supported cooperative work, federated DBs, data warehousing and other types of enterprise knowledge management. IS Infrastructure also covers middleware and tools that exploit DB technology but are typically not part of a DB system itself. Examples include workflow, TP monitors, application servers, services in support of E-commerce, mediators and other web-oriented data facilities, meta-data repositories, data and process modeling, user interfaces and data visualization, data translation and migration, data cleaning, multi-agent systems, mediators, and system management. The above examples are meant to be suggestive. Papers on other topics that fit the conference's goals are welcome.

Research Category
Papers in the Research category contain significant and original research results. Papers reporting and evaluating new architectures, structures, methods, systems and models are encouraged, particularly where these are carefully validated against realistic criteria, such as typical test loads and data volumes. Papers should develop and demonstrate the value of new ideas that are relevant to the future development of databases and their applications. They may make their contribution by developing new implementation methods, new design techniques, new theoretical results, new algorithms, or in any other way that makes databases more powerful, more effective, more widely applicable or easier to use. Developments in specialized databases or applications are also of interest to the VLDB community.

Vision Category
Papers in the Vision category provide a medium for discussion of expected technological, economic and social developments and their impact on databases. These papers are inevitably speculative, however they are expected to present clearly a scientifically and technically convincing argument of relevance to the database community.
They are normally written by authors very experienced in the database industry or in database research, or else with some other deep experience which they bring to bear on database issues. Papers in this category help to formulate directions in which the database industry or database research should develop. Insight and perspective are particularly highly valued.

Application and Experience Category
Papers in the Application/Experience category provide a forum for discussion of experiences in implementing DBMSs or in applying DBMS technology in challenging situations. Reports of industrial experience of using databases are particularly welcome. Papers in this category are written by authors who have been involved in building major Database Management Systems or in managing the use of databases in demanding applications. It is hoped that such papers will have one or both of the following effects:

• Demonstrating the effectiveness of new database methods or technology so that others may appreciate its value and possibly re-use the approach in their own context.
• Demonstrating the deficiencies in our current understanding and technology as a challenge to researchers and implementers.

The VLDB encourages Broadening by soliciting papers that are (1) on a broader range of topics than those considered by previous database conferences; (2) on riskier and more novel challenges, as opposed to incremental improvements on existing results; (3) from a broader range of contributors (e.g., from across the spectrum of developing and deploying database technology and from those outside the field who pose new requirements and challenges); and (4) in novel formats such as reports on case studies, systems development and testing, and product evaluations relative to new application requirements. A VLDB submission is considered to contribute to broadening the database field if it addresses issues beyond conventional database topics and technology. It must contribute to expanding database technology or methods beyond conventional databases and applications to the full scope of data management—its applicability, its challenges, and its future directions.

VLDB 2001 adopts a novel tool in the evaluation of papers, in order to discourage incremental research of scarce relevance ("delta papers"). The Specificity Factor (SpF) is a single-digit rating specified by reviewers for every paper. A larger Spf indicates the paper is more specific, and thus appeals to a smaller portion of the community. While more specific papers should not be rejected out of hand, they need to be particularly compelling to be selected over less specific alternative papers.