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Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers

2025-10-07T14:46:56Z

Leondz: Leondz moved page Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers to Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Venue Papers: includes non-conference papers

#REDIRECT [[Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Venue Papers]]

Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Venue Papers

2025-10-07T14:46:56Z

Leondz: Leondz moved page Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers to Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Venue Papers: includes non-conference papers

The author list for a submission should include all (and only) individuals who made substantial
contributions to the presented work. Any changes to the author list must follow the guidelines
outlined below.

=== 0. Definitions ===

'''Submission deadline''' The official cut-off time at which a manuscript (or re-submission) must be uploaded to be considered for review.

'''Review process''' (for conference submissions) The interval beginning at the submission deadline and ending at the final decision (acceptance or rejection by the venue).

'''Final decision''' The programme-chair or journal-editor outcome on a manuscript (accept, reject, assign to venue). For papers routed through ACL Rolling Review (ARR), the final-decision date is the venue-assignment decision.

'''Camera-ready''' The last date by which the accepted paper, formatted to venue specifications, must be delivered for publication. “Post camera-ready” refers to any time after this date.

'''Resubmission''' A manuscript submitted again as a new entry after (a) rejection, (b) a “major revisions” outcome, or (c) expiry of an ARR commitment window. Resubmissions reset authorship alteration rules as described in Section 4.

'''ARR commitment''' The six-month period during which an ARR-reviewed paper can be committed to a venue without re-review.

'''First author''' The author listed first on the manuscript; typically the primary contributor. Under this policy, the first author position cannot change after the submission deadline.

'''Corresponding author'''
A designated author responsible for all communication with the venue. A manuscript must keep at least one and no more than two corresponding authors at all times.

'''Top-level domain (TLD) +1''' The final segment of an Internet domain name (e.g., .edu, .ac.uk, .org) plus the domain immediately below. Email-address changes that keep the same TLD+1 (3-g) are treated differently from those that introduce a new TLD+1 (3-h).

=== 1. Role of authors and contributors ===

Referring to the ICMJE's criteria for authorship (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html), ACL adopts the following criteria:
*Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
*Drafting the work, providing and processing training and testing data and reviewing it critically for important intellectual content;
*Final approval of the version to be published;
*Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

=== 2. Responsibilities and obligations of corresponding authors ===
The corresponding authors are primarily responsible for communicating with the conference
when there are multiple authors involved in a paper. Each submission must clearly designate
the corresponding authors (mandatory for conference submissions through the submission
system). A submission usually has one corresponding author, with a maximum of two. For
papers not submitted through the submission system, such as a workshop in very exceptional
circumstances, the first author will be assumed as the corresponding author.

The corresponding author has the following responsibilities and obligations:
# Reaching a consensus among all co-authors regarding their name placement before submitting the paper.
# Ensuring that each co-author updates their personal information and publication data on the designated platform or system of the conference as required. This ensures fair anonymous reviews by the Program Committee without any COI issues. Failure to do so may affect the fairness of the committee's selection of papers, resulting in desk rejection upon discovery of inaccurate authorship information.
# Maintaining well consistent communication with the conference organizers throughout the manuscript submission, review, and publication stages, while adhering to all conference administrative requirements. The conference organizers include but not limited to Program Committee Chairs, (Senior) Area Chairs, Publication Chairs and other conference organizers related to paper review, rebuttal, publication and other processes.
# Seeking opinions from all co-authors before submitting the camera-ready paper to ensure there are no objections.
# Responding to post-publication inquiries about the work. In case of allegations of plagiarism, the corresponding author and co-authors must cooperate with the ACL Executive Board or committee related to suspected plagiarism investigation.

=== 3. Categories of Authorship Alteration ===
* a. Incorporating new authors.
* b. Removing existing authors.
* c. Switching the corresponding author.
* d. Switching the first author.
* e. Rearranging the current author sequence apart from first author.
* f. Changing author name.
* g. Changing/adding email for corresponding authors (same or new top-level domain +1)
* h. Changing or adding author email address (new top-level domain +1)
* i. Adding author affiliation
* j. Removing author affiliation
* k. Rectifying errors in author names and their information, including spelling errors caused by code corruption.

=== 4. Protocols for Authorship Alterations ===

==== a. Timeline ====

For papers submitted through the ACL Rolling Review (ARR) process, the review period begins at the submission deadline for the paper’s ARR cycle and ends with the final decision by a venue.

* Submission deadline: The deadline for the paper’s ARR cycle
* Review process: The period from the submission deadline until the final decision
* Final decision: The venue’s acceptance decision following the commitment deadline
* Commitment deadline: The date by which authors must commit their reviewed paper to a specific venue.
* Camera-ready deadline: The final deadline set by the venue for submitting the accepted paper.

==== b. Before the submission deadline: ====

All changes listed in Section 3 (3(a)–3(k)) are permitted.

==== c. After the submission deadline: ====

Authors may not be added (3(a)), and the first author may not be changed.

==== d. During the review process: ====

Only the following changes are allowed to allow for reliable communication:
* 3(c): Corresponding author
* 3(f) and 3(k): Changing the author name
* 3(g): Changing or adding email address (corresponding authors only)

In addition:
* 3(b): Author removal is allowed only under strict constraints (see below)

All other changes are not permitted during this stage.

==== e. Between the final decision and camera ready: ====

The following changes are permitted:
* 3(b): Remove an author
* 3(c): Change corresponding author
* 3(e): Rearranging author order
* 3(f) and 3(k): Change in author name
* 3(g): Update email for corresponding author
* 3(i) and (j): Update affiliation

However:
* Authors may not be added (3(a))
* The first author may not be changed (3(d)).

==== f. After the camera-ready deadline: ====

Only the following changes are permitted:
* 3(b): Remove an author
* 3(c): Change corresponding author
* 3(f) and 3(k): Updating author name
* 3(g): Updating corresponding author email
* 3(j): Update affiliation
* All other alterations are not allowed after the camera-ready deadline.

==== g. Clarification on Re-submissions: ====

Re-submissions, such as those made after a rejection, major revision request, or after the expiration of an ARR commitment, are treated as new submissions for the purposes of authorship and may include any alterations under 3(a)–3(k). In these cases, we encourage authors to justify the authorship changes through a confidential comment to the editor as part of their submission form. The alteration constraints (Sections 8–10) apply only after the initial review process has begun.

==== h. Alteration constraints ====

'''3(b) Removal of authors'''

Removing an author is allowed under the following conditions:
* The change is initiated by one of the authors.
* The change requires explicit approval from the program chairs, editor, or ACL Publication Ethics Committee (PEC).

Approval will only be granted if:
# The chairs/editor/PEC are satisfied that:
## The removal is appropriate, and
## It does not violate the authorship criteria outlined in Section 1.
# One of the following conditions is met:
## The author to be removed consents, or
## No co-authors object to the removal within a reasonable time (i.e., seven days after notification).

Removed authors may appeal via the ACL Publication Ethics Committee.

'''3(c) Changing the corresponding author'''

A paper must have at least one and no more than two corresponding authors at any time.

'''3(f) Legal Name Changes'''

Name changes under 3(f) are permissible only under the [[ACL Name Change Policy]].

=== 5. Effect, interpretation and recourse ===

The policy applies from the date it is approved by the ACL Executive.
The authority to interpret this policy belongs to the ACL Publication Ethics Committee and the ACL Executive Board.
In case of any disputes or requests for exceptions, appeals are to be filed with the ACL Publication Ethics Committee, which will follow its process for review [[Process for ACL Publication Ethics Review]].

<hr/>
''This policy version proposed 2025.06, approved 2025.09.22, published 2025.10.06''

Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Venue Papers

2025-10-07T14:40:31Z

Leondz: /* 5. Effect, interpretation and recourse */

Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Venue Papers

2025-10-07T14:39:59Z

Leondz:

The author list for a submission should include all (and only) individuals who made substantial
contributions to the presented work. Any changes to the author list must follow the guidelines
outlined below.

=== 0. Definitions ===

'''Submission deadline''' The official cut-off time at which a manuscript (or re-submission) must be uploaded to be considered for review.

'''Review process''' (for conference submissions) The interval beginning at the submission deadline and ending at the final decision (acceptance or rejection by the venue).

'''Final decision''' The programme-chair or journal-editor outcome on a manuscript (accept, reject, assign to venue). For papers routed through ACL Rolling Review (ARR), the final-decision date is the venue-assignment decision.

'''Camera-ready''' The last date by which the accepted paper, formatted to venue specifications, must be delivered for publication. “Post camera-ready” refers to any time after this date.

'''Resubmission''' A manuscript submitted again as a new entry after (a) rejection, (b) a “major revisions” outcome, or (c) expiry of an ARR commitment window. Resubmissions reset authorship alteration rules as described in Section 4.

'''ARR commitment''' The six-month period during which an ARR-reviewed paper can be committed to a venue without re-review.

'''First author''' The author listed first on the manuscript; typically the primary contributor. Under this policy, the first author position cannot change after the submission deadline.

'''Corresponding author'''
A designated author responsible for all communication with the venue. A manuscript must keep at least one and no more than two corresponding authors at all times.

'''Top-level domain (TLD) +1''' The final segment of an Internet domain name (e.g., .edu, .ac.uk, .org) plus the domain immediately below. Email-address changes that keep the same TLD+1 (3-g) are treated differently from those that introduce a new TLD+1 (3-h).

=== 1. Role of authors and contributors ===

Referring to the ICMJE's criteria for authorship (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html), ACL adopts the following criteria:
*Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
*Drafting the work, providing and processing training and testing data and reviewing it critically for important intellectual content;
*Final approval of the version to be published;
*Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

=== 2. Responsibilities and obligations of corresponding authors ===
The corresponding authors are primarily responsible for communicating with the conference
when there are multiple authors involved in a paper. Each submission must clearly designate
the corresponding authors (mandatory for conference submissions through the submission
system). A submission usually has one corresponding author, with a maximum of two. For
papers not submitted through the submission system, such as a workshop in very exceptional
circumstances, the first author will be assumed as the corresponding author.

The corresponding author has the following responsibilities and obligations:
# Reaching a consensus among all co-authors regarding their name placement before submitting the paper.
# Ensuring that each co-author updates their personal information and publication data on the designated platform or system of the conference as required. This ensures fair anonymous reviews by the Program Committee without any COI issues. Failure to do so may affect the fairness of the committee's selection of papers, resulting in desk rejection upon discovery of inaccurate authorship information.
# Maintaining well consistent communication with the conference organizers throughout the manuscript submission, review, and publication stages, while adhering to all conference administrative requirements. The conference organizers include but not limited to Program Committee Chairs, (Senior) Area Chairs, Publication Chairs and other conference organizers related to paper review, rebuttal, publication and other processes.
# Seeking opinions from all co-authors before submitting the camera-ready paper to ensure there are no objections.
# Responding to post-publication inquiries about the work. In case of allegations of plagiarism, the corresponding author and co-authors must cooperate with the ACL Executive Board or committee related to suspected plagiarism investigation.

=== 3. Categories of Authorship Alteration ===
* a. Incorporating new authors.
* b. Removing existing authors.
* c. Switching the corresponding author.
* d. Switching the first author.
* e. Rearranging the current author sequence apart from first author.
* f. Changing author name.
* g. Changing/adding email for corresponding authors (same or new top-level domain +1)
* h. Changing or adding author email address (new top-level domain +1)
* i. Adding author affiliation
* j. Removing author affiliation
* k. Rectifying errors in author names and their information, including spelling errors caused by code corruption.

=== 4. Protocols for Authorship Alterations ===

==== a. Timeline ====

For papers submitted through the ACL Rolling Review (ARR) process, the review period begins at the submission deadline for the paper’s ARR cycle and ends with the final decision by a venue.

* Submission deadline: The deadline for the paper’s ARR cycle
* Review process: The period from the submission deadline until the final decision
* Final decision: The venue’s acceptance decision following the commitment deadline
* Commitment deadline: The date by which authors must commit their reviewed paper to a specific venue.
* Camera-ready deadline: The final deadline set by the venue for submitting the accepted paper.

==== b. Before the submission deadline: ====

All changes listed in Section 3 (3(a)–3(k)) are permitted.

==== c. After the submission deadline: ====

Authors may not be added (3(a)), and the first author may not be changed.

==== d. During the review process: ====

Only the following changes are allowed to allow for reliable communication:
* 3(c): Corresponding author
* 3(f) and 3(k): Changing the author name
* 3(g): Changing or adding email address (corresponding authors only)

In addition:
* 3(b): Author removal is allowed only under strict constraints (see below)

All other changes are not permitted during this stage.

==== e. Between the final decision and camera ready: ====

The following changes are permitted:
* 3(b): Remove an author
* 3(c): Change corresponding author
* 3(e): Rearranging author order
* 3(f) and 3(k): Change in author name
* 3(g): Update email for corresponding author
* 3(i) and (j): Update affiliation

However:
* Authors may not be added (3(a))
* The first author may not be changed (3(d)).

==== f. After the camera-ready deadline: ====

Only the following changes are permitted:
* 3(b): Remove an author
* 3(c): Change corresponding author
* 3(f) and 3(k): Updating author name
* 3(g): Updating corresponding author email
* 3(j): Update affiliation
* All other alterations are not allowed after the camera-ready deadline.

==== g. Clarification on Re-submissions: ====

Re-submissions, such as those made after a rejection, major revision request, or after the expiration of an ARR commitment, are treated as new submissions for the purposes of authorship and may include any alterations under 3(a)–3(k). In these cases, we encourage authors to justify the authorship changes through a confidential comment to the editor as part of their submission form. The alteration constraints (Sections 8–10) apply only after the initial review process has begun.

==== h. Alteration constraints ====

'''3(b) Removal of authors'''

Removing an author is allowed under the following conditions:
* The change is initiated by one of the authors.
* The change requires explicit approval from the program chairs, editor, or ACL Publication Ethics Committee (PEC).

Approval will only be granted if:
# The chairs/editor/PEC are satisfied that:
## The removal is appropriate, and
## It does not violate the authorship criteria outlined in Section 1.
# One of the following conditions is met:
## The author to be removed consents, or
## No co-authors object to the removal within a reasonable time (i.e., seven days after notification).

Removed authors may appeal via the ACL Publication Ethics Committee.

'''3(c) Changing the corresponding author'''

A paper must have at least one and no more than two corresponding authors at any time.

'''3(f) Legal Name Changes'''

Name changes under 3(f) are permissible only under the [[ACL Name Change Policy]].

=== 5. Effect, interpretation and recourse ===

The policy applies from the date it is approved by the ACL Executive.
The authority to interpret this policy belongs to the ACL Publication Ethics Committee and the ACL Executive Board.
In case of any disputes or requests for exceptions, appeals are to be filed with the ACL Publication Ethics Committee, which will follow its process for review https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/Process_for_ACL_Publication_Ethics_Review .

<hr/>
''This policy version proposed 2025.06, approved 2025.09.22, published 2025.10.06''

Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Venue Papers

2025-10-07T14:39:19Z

Leondz: include section on effect, interpretation, recourse

The author list for a submission should include all (and only) individuals who made substantial
contributions to the presented work. Any changes to the author list must follow the guidelines
outlined below.

=== 0. Definitions ===

'''Submission deadline''' The official cut-off time at which a manuscript (or re-submission) must be uploaded to be considered for review.

'''Review process''' (for conference submissions) The interval beginning at the submission deadline and ending at the final decision (acceptance or rejection by the venue).

'''Final decision''' The programme-chair or journal-editor outcome on a manuscript (accept, reject, assign to venue). For papers routed through ACL Rolling Review (ARR), the final-decision date is the venue-assignment decision.

'''Camera-ready''' The last date by which the accepted paper, formatted to venue specifications, must be delivered for publication. “Post camera-ready” refers to any time after this date.

'''Resubmission''' A manuscript submitted again as a new entry after (a) rejection, (b) a “major revisions” outcome, or (c) expiry of an ARR commitment window. Resubmissions reset authorship alteration rules as described in Section 4.

'''ARR commitment''' The six-month period during which an ARR-reviewed paper can be committed to a venue without re-review.

'''First author''' The author listed first on the manuscript; typically the primary contributor. Under this policy, the first author position cannot change after the submission deadline.

'''Corresponding author'''
A designated author responsible for all communication with the venue. A manuscript must keep at least one and no more than two corresponding authors at all times.

'''Top-level domain (TLD) +1''' The final segment of an Internet domain name (e.g., .edu, .ac.uk, .org) plus the domain immediately below. Email-address changes that keep the same TLD+1 (3-g) are treated differently from those that introduce a new TLD+1 (3-h).

=== 1. Role of authors and contributors ===

Referring to the ICMJE's criteria for authorship (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html), ACL adopts the following criteria:
*Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
*Drafting the work, providing and processing training and testing data and reviewing it critically for important intellectual content;
*Final approval of the version to be published;
*Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

=== 2. Responsibilities and obligations of corresponding authors ===
The corresponding authors are primarily responsible for communicating with the conference
when there are multiple authors involved in a paper. Each submission must clearly designate
the corresponding authors (mandatory for conference submissions through the submission
system). A submission usually has one corresponding author, with a maximum of two. For
papers not submitted through the submission system, such as a workshop in very exceptional
circumstances, the first author will be assumed as the corresponding author.

The corresponding author has the following responsibilities and obligations:
# Reaching a consensus among all co-authors regarding their name placement before submitting the paper.
# Ensuring that each co-author updates their personal information and publication data on the designated platform or system of the conference as required. This ensures fair anonymous reviews by the Program Committee without any COI issues. Failure to do so may affect the fairness of the committee's selection of papers, resulting in desk rejection upon discovery of inaccurate authorship information.
# Maintaining well consistent communication with the conference organizers throughout the manuscript submission, review, and publication stages, while adhering to all conference administrative requirements. The conference organizers include but not limited to Program Committee Chairs, (Senior) Area Chairs, Publication Chairs and other conference organizers related to paper review, rebuttal, publication and other processes.
# Seeking opinions from all co-authors before submitting the camera-ready paper to ensure there are no objections.
# Responding to post-publication inquiries about the work. In case of allegations of plagiarism, the corresponding author and co-authors must cooperate with the ACL Executive Board or committee related to suspected plagiarism investigation.

=== 3. Categories of Authorship Alteration ===
* a. Incorporating new authors.
* b. Removing existing authors.
* c. Switching the corresponding author.
* d. Switching the first author.
* e. Rearranging the current author sequence apart from first author.
* f. Changing author name.
* g. Changing/adding email for corresponding authors (same or new top-level domain +1)
* h. Changing or adding author email address (new top-level domain +1)
* i. Adding author affiliation
* j. Removing author affiliation
* k. Rectifying errors in author names and their information, including spelling errors caused by code corruption.

=== 4. Protocols for Authorship Alterations ===

==== a. Timeline ====

For papers submitted through the ACL Rolling Review (ARR) process, the review period begins at the submission deadline for the paper’s ARR cycle and ends with the final decision by a venue.

* Submission deadline: The deadline for the paper’s ARR cycle
* Review process: The period from the submission deadline until the final decision
* Final decision: The venue’s acceptance decision following the commitment deadline
* Commitment deadline: The date by which authors must commit their reviewed paper to a specific venue.
* Camera-ready deadline: The final deadline set by the venue for submitting the accepted paper.

==== b. Before the submission deadline: ====

All changes listed in Section 3 (3(a)–3(k)) are permitted.

==== c. After the submission deadline: ====

Authors may not be added (3(a)), and the first author may not be changed.

==== d. During the review process: ====

Only the following changes are allowed to allow for reliable communication:
* 3(c): Corresponding author
* 3(f) and 3(k): Changing the author name
* 3(g): Changing or adding email address (corresponding authors only)

In addition:
* 3(b): Author removal is allowed only under strict constraints (see below)

All other changes are not permitted during this stage.

==== e. Between the final decision and camera ready: ====

The following changes are permitted:
* 3(b): Remove an author
* 3(c): Change corresponding author
* 3(e): Rearranging author order
* 3(f) and 3(k): Change in author name
* 3(g): Update email for corresponding author
* 3(i) and (j): Update affiliation

However:
* Authors may not be added (3(a))
* The first author may not be changed (3(d)).

==== f. After the camera-ready deadline: ====

Only the following changes are permitted:
* 3(b): Remove an author
* 3(c): Change corresponding author
* 3(f) and 3(k): Updating author name
* 3(g): Updating corresponding author email
* 3(j): Update affiliation
* All other alterations are not allowed after the camera-ready deadline.

==== g. Clarification on Re-submissions: ====

Re-submissions, such as those made after a rejection, major revision request, or after the expiration of an ARR commitment, are treated as new submissions for the purposes of authorship and may include any alterations under 3(a)–3(k). In these cases, we encourage authors to justify the authorship changes through a confidential comment to the editor as part of their submission form. The alteration constraints (Sections 8–10) apply only after the initial review process has begun.

==== h. Alteration constraints ====

'''3(b) Removal of authors'''

Removing an author is allowed under the following conditions:
* The change is initiated by one of the authors.
* The change requires explicit approval from the program chairs, editor, or ACL Publication Ethics Committee (PEC).

Approval will only be granted if:
# The chairs/editor/PEC are satisfied that:
## The removal is appropriate, and
## It does not violate the authorship criteria outlined in Section 1.
# One of the following conditions is met:
## The author to be removed consents, or
## No co-authors object to the removal within a reasonable time (i.e., seven days after notification).

Removed authors may appeal via the ACL Publication Ethics Committee.

'''3(c) Changing the corresponding author'''

A paper must have at least one and no more than two corresponding authors at any time.

'''3(f) Legal Name Changes'''

Name changes under 3(f) are permissible only under the [[ACL Name Change Policy]].

=== Effect, interpretation and recourse ===

The policy applies from the date it is approved by the ACL Executive.
The authority to interpret this policy belongs to the ACL Publication Ethics Committee and the ACL Executive Board.
In case of any disputes or requests for exceptions, appeals are to be filed with the ACL Publication Ethics Committee, which will follow its process for review https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/Process_for_ACL_Publication_Ethics_Review .

<hr/>
''This policy version proposed 2025.06, approved 2025.09.22, published 2025.10.06''

Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Venue Papers

2025-10-07T14:35:48Z

Leondz: 2025.06 update

The author list for a submission should include all (and only) individuals who made substantial
contributions to the presented work. Any changes to the author list must follow the guidelines
outlined below.

=== 0. Definitions ===

'''Submission deadline''' The official cut-off time at which a manuscript (or re-submission) must be uploaded to be considered for review.

'''Review process''' (for conference submissions) The interval beginning at the submission deadline and ending at the final decision (acceptance or rejection by the venue).

'''Final decision''' The programme-chair or journal-editor outcome on a manuscript (accept, reject, assign to venue). For papers routed through ACL Rolling Review (ARR), the final-decision date is the venue-assignment decision.

'''Camera-ready''' The last date by which the accepted paper, formatted to venue specifications, must be delivered for publication. “Post camera-ready” refers to any time after this date.

'''Resubmission''' A manuscript submitted again as a new entry after (a) rejection, (b) a “major revisions” outcome, or (c) expiry of an ARR commitment window. Resubmissions reset authorship alteration rules as described in Section 4.

'''ARR commitment''' The six-month period during which an ARR-reviewed paper can be committed to a venue without re-review.

'''First author''' The author listed first on the manuscript; typically the primary contributor. Under this policy, the first author position cannot change after the submission deadline.

'''Corresponding author'''
A designated author responsible for all communication with the venue. A manuscript must keep at least one and no more than two corresponding authors at all times.

'''Top-level domain (TLD) +1''' The final segment of an Internet domain name (e.g., .edu, .ac.uk, .org) plus the domain immediately below. Email-address changes that keep the same TLD+1 (3-g) are treated differently from those that introduce a new TLD+1 (3-h).

=== 1. Role of authors and contributors ===

Referring to the ICMJE's criteria for authorship (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html), ACL adopts the following criteria:
*Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
*Drafting the work, providing and processing training and testing data and reviewing it critically for important intellectual content;
*Final approval of the version to be published;
*Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

=== 2. Responsibilities and obligations of corresponding authors ===
The corresponding authors are primarily responsible for communicating with the conference
when there are multiple authors involved in a paper. Each submission must clearly designate
the corresponding authors (mandatory for conference submissions through the submission
system). A submission usually has one corresponding author, with a maximum of two. For
papers not submitted through the submission system, such as a workshop in very exceptional
circumstances, the first author will be assumed as the corresponding author.

The corresponding author has the following responsibilities and obligations:
# Reaching a consensus among all co-authors regarding their name placement before submitting the paper.
# Ensuring that each co-author updates their personal information and publication data on the designated platform or system of the conference as required. This ensures fair anonymous reviews by the Program Committee without any COI issues. Failure to do so may affect the fairness of the committee's selection of papers, resulting in desk rejection upon discovery of inaccurate authorship information.
# Maintaining well consistent communication with the conference organizers throughout the manuscript submission, review, and publication stages, while adhering to all conference administrative requirements. The conference organizers include but not limited to Program Committee Chairs, (Senior) Area Chairs, Publication Chairs and other conference organizers related to paper review, rebuttal, publication and other processes.
# Seeking opinions from all co-authors before submitting the camera-ready paper to ensure there are no objections.
# Responding to post-publication inquiries about the work. In case of allegations of plagiarism, the corresponding author and co-authors must cooperate with the ACL Executive Board or committee related to suspected plagiarism investigation.

=== 3. Categories of Authorship Alteration ===
* a. Incorporating new authors.
* b. Removing existing authors.
* c. Switching the corresponding author.
* d. Switching the first author.
* e. Rearranging the current author sequence apart from first author.
* f. Changing author name.
* g. Changing/adding email for corresponding authors (same or new top-level domain +1)
* h. Changing or adding author email address (new top-level domain +1)
* i. Adding author affiliation
* j. Removing author affiliation
* k. Rectifying errors in author names and their information, including spelling errors caused by code corruption.

=== 4. Protocols for Authorship Alterations ===

==== a. Timeline ====

For papers submitted through the ACL Rolling Review (ARR) process, the review period begins at the submission deadline for the paper’s ARR cycle and ends with the final decision by a venue.

* Submission deadline: The deadline for the paper’s ARR cycle
* Review process: The period from the submission deadline until the final decision
* Final decision: The venue’s acceptance decision following the commitment deadline
* Commitment deadline: The date by which authors must commit their reviewed paper to a specific venue.
* Camera-ready deadline: The final deadline set by the venue for submitting the accepted paper.

==== b. Before the submission deadline: ====

All changes listed in Section 3 (3(a)–3(k)) are permitted.

==== c. After the submission deadline: ====

Authors may not be added (3(a)), and the first author may not be changed.

==== d. During the review process: ====

Only the following changes are allowed to allow for reliable communication:
* 3(c): Corresponding author
* 3(f) and 3(k): Changing the author name
* 3(g): Changing or adding email address (corresponding authors only)

In addition:
* 3(b): Author removal is allowed only under strict constraints (see below)

All other changes are not permitted during this stage.

==== e. Between the final decision and camera ready: ====

The following changes are permitted:
* 3(b): Remove an author
* 3(c): Change corresponding author
* 3(e): Rearranging author order
* 3(f) and 3(k): Change in author name
* 3(g): Update email for corresponding author
* 3(i) and (j): Update affiliation

However:
* Authors may not be added (3(a))
* The first author may not be changed (3(d)).

==== f. After the camera-ready deadline: ====

Only the following changes are permitted:
* 3(b): Remove an author
* 3(c): Change corresponding author
* 3(f) and 3(k): Updating author name
* 3(g): Updating corresponding author email
* 3(j): Update affiliation
* All other alterations are not allowed after the camera-ready deadline.

==== g. Clarification on Re-submissions: ====

Re-submissions, such as those made after a rejection, major revision request, or after the expiration of an ARR commitment, are treated as new submissions for the purposes of authorship and may include any alterations under 3(a)–3(k). In these cases, we encourage authors to justify the authorship changes through a confidential comment to the editor as part of their submission form. The alteration constraints (Sections 8–10) apply only after the initial review process has begun.

==== h. Alteration constraints ====

'''3(b) Removal of authors'''

Removing an author is allowed under the following conditions:
* The change is initiated by one of the authors.
* The change requires explicit approval from the program chairs, editor, or ACL Publication Ethics Committee (PEC).

Approval will only be granted if:
# The chairs/editor/PEC are satisfied that:
## The removal is appropriate, and
## It does not violate the authorship criteria outlined in Section 1.
# One of the following conditions is met:
## The author to be removed consents, or
## No co-authors object to the removal within a reasonable time (i.e., seven days after notification).

Removed authors may appeal via the ACL Publication Ethics Committee.

'''3(c) Changing the corresponding author'''

A paper must have at least one and no more than two corresponding authors at any time.

'''3(f) Legal Name Changes'''

Name changes under 3(f) are permissible only under the [[ACL Name Change Policy]].

<hr/>
''This policy version proposed 2025.06, approved 2025.09, published 2025.10.06''

ACL Policy on Publication Ethics

2025-05-06T12:30:02Z

Leondz: markup fix

<hr/>

''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-06-15, 2025-04-25; Authored by Cahill, A., Derczynski, L., & Jaidka, K.''

<hr/>

It is important for members of the ACL community, especially authors and reviewers, to understand ACL’s position on publication ethics, which is described in this document.

ACL is a scientific and professional society for people working on computational problems involving human language. Since the ACL deals with reviewing and publishing research, it is important to be clear about what publication practices are considered ethical.

This policy draws upon multiple authoritative sources, including [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Policy], [https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy], [https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy], [https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM 2024 Policy], the [https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) guidelines], [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX], and others. [[#References]] are provided below.

The goal of this policy is to provide a fair publication process and to prevent harm, as defined by [https://publicationethics.org/ ACM/COPE]. Subsections below provide [[#Definitions]], outline the [[#Scope]], define the [[#Policies]], and provide references for other issues.

See also [[Process for ACL Publication Ethics Review]].

== Members ==

=== Co-chairs ===
* Aoife Cahill (2024 - )
* Leon Derczynski (2024 - )
* Kokil Jaidka (2024 - )

=== General members ===
Svetlana Churina (2024 - )

== Definitions ==

'''Reviewer'''

Reviewer refers to people writing peer reviews of manuscripts submitted for consideration to ACL venues.

'''Editor'''

Editor refers to people involved in making a decision about a submitted manuscript’s rejection, acceptance, scheduling, or format, but not writing direct (i.e. non-meta) reviews. Editors include action editors, area chairs, senior area chairs, programme chairs, and similar roles.

'''Convener'''

A person who arranges meetings of groups or committees, for example conferences or workshops.

'''Author'''

Any person named in the “Authors” field of a submission.

'''Works'''

Author-created material submitted for review or created for presentation. This includes manuscripts as well as appendices, presentations, code, datasets, videos, images, etc.

'''Conflict of interest'''

The ACL definitions of a conflict of interest are detailed at the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]] page.

'''ACL Venues'''

The superset of ACL submission, reviewing, and publication venues, including: ACL Rolling Review; ACL main conference; ACL Regional body main conferences; ACL SIG conferences; workshops at these conferences; TACL; CL.

'''Generative tools'''

Here we include text and image generation tools, commonly referred to as generative AI tools, trained on massive datasets to generate multimedia outputs. These can be privacy-preserving or non-privacy preserving. An example of a non-privacy preserving tool is a text or image generation tool, that stores input data for a commercial purpose, and is typically hosted on remote servers managed by third-party companies. An example of a privacy-preserving tool is a text and image generation tool that doesn’t store input data.

== Scope ==

This policy applies to works submitted to, reviewed by, published at, and presented at ACL venues. This includes all default versions of works in the ACL Anthology at any time (usually the most recent revision).

== Policies ==

=== Conflicts of Interest ===

Authors, reviewers, and editors must confidentially disclose all relevant affiliations and relationships that may constitute conflicts of interest at the time of submission. Review and publication must follow the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]].

=== Authorship ===

Following existing [[Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers|ACL policies]] and the [https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html Vancouver Convention on Authorship], authorship of ACL papers must be based on the following 4 criteria:

a. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

b. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

c. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

d. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who meet some but not all of the four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve authorship status for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criteria (b) or (c). Persons who have contributed to one point must be invited to participate in the others; for example, someone who comes up with or conducts experiments must be invited to draft/revise and approve the final document.

Authors must follow the [https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers] as well as venue-specific policies.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Authorship ====

Authors are responsible for all content submitted. Authors should familiarize themselves with the ACL policy on [[#Plagiarism]] detailed below, based on the [https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE guidelines].

Generative AI tools and technologies may not be listed as authors of a submission, and any use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content should instead be fully disclosed in the Acknowledgements section - for instance, “Section 3 was written with inputs from ChatGPT.”

If and when required to use LLMs to support their research, authors are encouraged to use ethically-sourced and open models. Guidelines for appropriate use of generative assistance follow.

a. Assistance purely with the language of the paper. This covers models used for paraphrasing or polishing the author’s original content, rather than for suggesting new content—similar to tools like grammar checkers, spell checkers, dictionaries, and synonym tools. The use of tools that only assist with proofreading, like grammar or spell checkers, does not need to be disclosed.

b. Short-form input assistance. This covers predictive keyboards or tools that offer suggestions during typing, that might be powered by generative language models. The use of such tools does not need to be disclosed.

c. Literature search. This covers search assistants, e.g., to identify relevant literature. The usual requirements for citation accuracy and thoroughness of literature reviews apply.

d. Low-novelty text. This covers the automatic generation of text about pre-existing ideas. Authors should specify where such automatically generated text was used, and convince the reviewers that the generation was checked to be accurate and is accompanied by relevant and appropriate citations. If the generation copies text from existing work, the publication ethics policy applies to that text. Authors need (for example) to acknowledge all relevant citations: both the source of the text used and the source of the idea(s).

e. New ideas. This covers when generative model output reads to the authors as new research ideas that would deserve co-authorship or acknowledgment from a human colleague (e.g., topics to discuss, framing of the problem), which the authors then develop themselves. As with all new ideas, the authors should conduct a literature search to determine relevant prior work and cite to ensure proper credit. The authors should disclose if models were used in this manner.

f. New ideas + new text: ACL does not consider a generative model to be an entity that can fulfill the requirements of co-authorship.

==== Prior Publication ====

These guidelines recognize that it is common in technical publishing for material to be presented at various stages of its evolution. As one example, this can take the form of publishing early ideas in a workshop, more developed work in a conference, and fully developed contributions as journal articles. This publication process is an important means of scientific communication. The editor of a publication may choose to re-publish existing material for a variety of reasons, including promoting wider distribution and serving readers by aggregating special material in a single publication. This practice continues to be recognized and accepted by the ACL. At the same time, the ACL requires that this evolutionary process be fully referenced by the author.

Authors submitting articles must disclose whether there are prior publications, e.g., conference articles, by the authors that are similar, whether published or submitted. They must also include information that very clearly states how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s). Such articles should be cited in the submitted article in a manner that maintains author anonymity.

Note the point below on [[#Text Re-use]], where there is a limit to how much material may be re-used across papers.

==== Consent of Content Holders ====

The ACL assumes that material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination for the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the ACL, to determine if disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties. If prior consent is required, authors must obtain permission before article submission.

==== Plagiarism ====

ACL defines plagiarism as using someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and considered a serious breach of professional conduct.

Plagiarism manifests itself in a variety of forms, including:

a. verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying (including translation), or intentionally paraphrasing substantive portions of prior or under-review work without proper attribution

b. using automated tools that rephrase existing work as one's own text without proper attribution to the original author(s)

c. self-plagiarism, or copying elements of another prior or under-review work, such as equations, tables, charts, illustrations, presentations, or photographs that are not common knowledge, or copying or intentionally paraphrasing sentences without proper or complete source citation, even if the works have a common author

d. verbatim copying of portions of another's work with incorrect source citation

Whether a prior article has been formally published is not a factor in determining plagiarism—work not formally published may still be plagiarized. This includes content provided online in preprints, tutorials, manuals, and essays, as well as offline content in any form. The representation of any other person's material as one's own work is plagiarism.

==== Text Re-use ====

An article submitted for publication to ACL should be original work submitted to a single ACL venue.

Recycling of material in a new document happens when the material in the new document is identical, or substantially equivalent in both form and content, to that of the source. At times, it may be necessary for authors to recycle portions of their own previously published work or to include another author’s material.

When an author recycles text, charts, photographs, or other graphics from his/her own previously published material, the author shall:

a. Adhere to all copyright policies, clearly indicate all recycled material and provide a full reference to the original publication of the material (anonymized if necessary).

b. If the previously published or submitted material is used as a basis for a new submission, clearly indicate how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s).

Due to the volume of submissions received with duplicated content, the overlap threshold is now 10%. This means that there must be no more than a 10% (e.g., in terms of number of tokens) overlap between: (a) the text that a manuscript, at any point in the publication process, presents as original; (b) any other works submitted to ACL venues or published anywhere; and (c) concurrent submissions under review at ACL venues. Author’s own pre-prints are excluded from this limitation. See also the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]].

==== Electronic Posting ====

Authors submitting manuscripts for review should be aware of the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]]. The policy applies to authors who post part or all of a submitted manuscript on a Web site.

==== Dual Submission ====

Authors should follow the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]]. Articles submitted for consideration should not have been published previously and should not be concurrently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must disclose all prior publication(s) and current submissions when submitting an article. At the venue chairs’ discretion, some forms of submission articles may be exempted from this rule.

==== Author Conduct ====

Authors should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process. Attempts by authors to deanonymize reviewers, editors, or any works, or otherwise compromise the fairness of the review process are not permitted. Authors are expected to follow the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]] for Authors.

Violating the expected behavior standards of a venue, which requires that interactions be free from harassment, bullying, discrimination, and retaliation across all forms of presentation as outlined in the Scope, may be referred to the [[Professional_Conduct_Committee|ACL Professional Conduct Committee]].

==== Co-ordinated disclosure ====

Works describing new ways of making models or other technologies behave in an unintended and potentially harmful way, e.g. papers documenting security vulnerabilities or weaknesses, may only be published at ACL venues as part of co-ordinated disclosure. This requires that authors attempt to contact the technology developers first, and give a reasonable but limited amount of time for them to address the problem and notify their communities of the problem, before openly publishing the weakness anywhere. An example of the process is given in this [https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/engaging-security-researchers-embracing-see-something-say-something-culture CISA blog post].

For these kinds of works within the scope of the policy:

a. Only cases where a specific and previously unpublished adversarial technique is used to elicit a harm are covered by this policy. For example, if some model behaves badly "out of the box", without using an adversarial technique, then there's no vulnerability.

b. At least 30 days be given between notifying the technology developers and the first publication (e.g. on preprint server or the ACL Anthology). This period may run concurrently with the review process.

c. The disclosure process must be documented.

d. Documentation of disclosure should include at a minimum who was contacted, by which means they were contacted, on which dates, and on which dates there was a response (if any).

e. Works detailing new (i.e. previously not public) security weaknesses/failures without any documentation of co-ordinated disclosure may be in breach of policy.

f. This policy may not be applied to works published before this policy comes into effect (April 25th 2025), even if a work in scope appears to have contravened it.

=== Content of Submitted, Published, or Presented Material ===

This subsection applies to all ACL works and serves as guidelines for relevant decisions made by the person responsible for the publication, as well as the PEC for issues raised post-publication.

==== Content Guidelines ====

The discussion of technical matters will continue to be the primary function of forums provided by ACL. The following guidelines clarify the characteristics of allowable content in ACL works:

a. Technical, i.e. empirical and theoretical, articles accepted for inclusion in ACL publications shall comprise scientific content.

b. Any nontechnical content or material in an article accepted for publication is expected to be essential to the technical content of that article (for example, content that extends, supports, or provides relevant background). Author(s) shall state how the nontechnical content or material contributes to the article.

c. Acknowledgments of data consent and approval by stakeholders or subjects is allowed. Acknowledgments of contributors who are not authors of the article, such as in a footnote or an acknowledgments section, shall be limited to statements relative to funding sources, as well as technical or material contributions from individuals or organizations. Acknowledgments for technical or material contributions (such as developing instrumentation for collecting data) should briefly explain how such contributions are essential to the article's technical content.

d. If any political opinions are expressed which also follow this policy and this set of guidelines, an Acknowledgments section must clarify that these are the opinions of the author(s), and no endorsement by ACL, its officials, or its members is implied. For political opinions beyond these guidelines, see (b) above.

e. Submissions should follow the [https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines].

f. Automatically generated text follows the policy given in the Authorship section above.

g. For content about broader impact, see below.

Examples of unallowable content include changes to the content of the paper during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content; conjecture, unless relevant to the presented research supported by citations; illegal content; potentially harmful content, unless preceded by a warning and gap (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]); toxic content/inflammatory writing/hate speech unless it is a necessary scientific example (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]).

==== Societal Impact ====

Technical developments can profoundly impact society. Social conditions also shape the course of technical developments. It is, therefore, often appropriate to include discussions of the social aspects related to the technical content in the author’s work. It is also possible that the discussion of pertinent interrelated social, economic, and technical aspects leads to political conclusions on the author's part. Like other aspects of the paper’s content, discussions of social impact will be subject to peer review and may be referred to the ACL PEC process.

Discussions of societal impact should adhere to the following guidelines:

a. '''Relevance:''' The subject matter should be relevant to the ACL fields of interest and their impact on society. If the relevance or appropriateness is not self-evident from the author’s presentation, it should be made clear by adding a suitable introductory statement.

b. '''Implications:''' Implications, including political conclusions, where discussed, should be contextualized to their relevance to a specific research problem.

c. '''Limitations:''' Limitations and perspectives counter to the authors’ conclusions must be made clear if they are not self-evident. Inferences from the findings, whether technical (e.g., LLM’s beam search algorithms as a source of bias) or sociopolitical (e.g., race or culture as a source of differences in findings) should be appropriately hedged.

==== Harmful Content ====

The term ‘harmful’ refers to content that creates a risk of harm (e.g., hate speech as a cause of harm). In practice, whether a form of content presents a hazard depends on a range of intersecting factors, including the nature of the content; the immediate and broader context; the historical setting; where it comes from; who it is directed at; and who encounters it. Small differences in these factors can make a substantial difference, and not all content that presents a risk of harm will actually inflict harm in every case. We adopt the position that harmful content both constitutes harm in-of-itself (i.e., it is harmful because of its intrinsic features) and causes harm because of the substantial risk of detrimental effects on individuals, groups, or societies ([https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/ Kirk et al. 2022]).

Examples of harmful material include hate speech, misinformation, depictions of crime and violence, and accounts of trauma.

Harmful material may only be included in works if:

a. It is legal to do so in the ACL jurisdiction (USA)

b. It is relevant to the technical content of the submission

c. Doing so enhances the exposition of the content

d. Inclusion follows guidelines for handling and presenting harmful content (see [https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/ Kirk et al., 2022])

e. It is preceded by a warning and consumers are provided sufficient opportunities to avoid the harmful content.

=== Reviewing ===

Peer review assists editors in making publication decisions and, through the communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers are expected to follow the [[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Guidelines for Reviewers]].

==== Reviewer Conduct ====

a. Reviewers and editors are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of any paper and additional materials submitted as part of the review process.

b. Any reviewer or editor who identifies a conflict of interest should notify the venue chairs and decline to review the manuscript.

c. c. Any selected reviewer who is unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and decline to participate in the review process.

d. Collusion, where the reviewer or editor might deliberately collude with authors or others to manipulate the review process unfairly, is forbidden.

e. Reviewers and editors must not attempt to manipulate citations, which includes asking authors to cite the reviewer’s or editor’s work (or that of their associates) unnecessarily.

f. Reviewers and editors must never disclose or reveal any personal information about authors with the intention to target them (doxxing), which could undermine the anonymity and integrity of the review process.

g. Reviewers and editors must not participate in any form of bullying, harassment, discrimination, or retaliation towards authors or other participants in the review process.

h. Reviewers and editors must not use confidential information from a reviewed manuscript for personal advantage before the information is publicly available, including leveraging research ideas or data.

i. Secondary reviewers, if any, should first be officially added to the reviewing system before they are invited to provide a review, and they must similarly treat the manuscript as a confidential document.

j. Reviewers and editors must report observed discrepancies or signs of potential author, reviewer, or editor misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, data misuse, or duplicate submission to the designated channels.

k. Reviewers should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process.

l. Reviewers and editors must complete their work to a high professional standard. Examples of low-quality work include but are not limited to: conflicting information, such as negative review comments with a high positive score; unsubstantiated score values; high confidence on insubstantial commentary.

m. Reviewers and editors must follow venue-specific reviewing guidelines.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Peer Review ====

The reviewer has to read the paper fully and write the content and argument of the review by themselves, subject to the secondary reviewer policy described above, and it is not permitted to use generative assistance to create the first draft. This requirement extends to the meta-review, and the reviewer has to write any meaningful argumentation in the meta-review by themselves.

Generative assistance should be used responsibly. For instance, it is reasonable to use writing assistance to paraphrase the review, e.g. to help reviewers who are not native speakers of English. It is also reasonable to use tools that help to check proofs.

Neither reviewers nor editors should upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a non-privacy preserving generative tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and intellectual property rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, neither reviewers nor editors may upload their peer review report into a non-privacy preserving generative tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

=== Convening ===

Reasonable efforts should be made by editors and, in conference and workshop settings, conveners, to provide discussion that includes differing viewpoints as adjudicated feasible. This must also be taken into consideration by the ACL venue program chairs.

== Other Issues ==

Issues not covered by existing policy but going against policy goals can be referred to the PEC. The PEC may add policy and take measures regarding issues not covered by policy but going against policy goals. Referred cases may be sent onwards to the appropriate committee.

== Handling of Articles from Authors in Embargoed Countries ==

As a US-based organization, policy on handling works from authors in embargoed countries follows the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control ([https://ofac.treasury.gov/ OFAC]).

== References ==
[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance]

[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/review-acl23/#faq-can-i-use-ai-writing-assistants-to-write-my-review|ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance (FAQ)]]

[[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL Anti-Harassment Policy]]

[[ACL_Author_Guidelines|ACL Author Guidelines]]

[https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines]

[[ACL_Policies_for_Review_and_Citation|ACL Policies for Review and Citation]]

[[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Reviewer Guidelines]]

[[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|Double Submission Policy for Conferences]]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy on Authorship]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism-overview ACM Policy on Plagiarism, Misrepresentation, and Falsification]

[[Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers|Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers]]

[https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE)]

[https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics#3-duties-of-reviewers Elsevier: Duties of Reviewers]

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41262-020-00217-3 Journal of Brand Management: Editorial Guidelines and Expectations of Authors]

[https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Submission and Peer Review Policies]

[https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/PSPB/opsmanual.pdf IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual]

[https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM Code of Conduct]

[https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html ICMJE: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors]

[https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE: Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers]

[https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/ Kirk, H. R., Birhane, A., Vidgen, B., & Derczynski, L. (2022). Handling and Presenting Harmful Text in NLP Research. In Findings of EMNLP. Association for Computational Linguistics.]

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX: Instructions for Presenters]

<hr />

Canonical PDF of the policy: [[:file: ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf | ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf]]

ACL Policy on Publication Ethics

2025-05-05T06:22:55Z

Leondz: add co-ord desc effect date

<hr/>

''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-06-15, 2025-04-25; Authored by Cahill, A., Derczynski, L., & Jaidka, K.''

<hr/>

It is important for members of the ACL community, especially authors and reviewers, to understand ACL’s position on publication ethics, which is described in this document.

ACL is a scientific and professional society for people working on computational problems involving human language. Since the ACL deals with reviewing and publishing research, it is important to be clear about what publication practices are considered ethical.

This policy draws upon multiple authoritative sources, including [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Policy], [https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy], [https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy], [https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM 2024 Policy], the [https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) guidelines], [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX], and others. [[#References]] are provided below.

The goal of this policy is to provide a fair publication process and to prevent harm, as defined by [https://publicationethics.org/ ACM/COPE]. Subsections below provide [[#Definitions]], outline the [[#Scope]], define the [[#Policies]], and provide references for other issues.

See also [[Process for ACL Publication Ethics Review]].

== Members ==

=== Co-chairs ===
* Aoife Cahill (2024 - )
* Leon Derczynski (2024 - )
* Kokil Jaidka (2024 - )

=== General members ===
Svetlana Churina (2024 - )

== Definitions ==

'''Reviewer'''

Reviewer refers to people writing peer reviews of manuscripts submitted for consideration to ACL venues.

'''Editor'''

Editor refers to people involved in making a decision about a submitted manuscript’s rejection, acceptance, scheduling, or format, but not writing direct (i.e. non-meta) reviews. Editors include action editors, area chairs, senior area chairs, programme chairs, and similar roles.

'''Convener'''

A person who arranges meetings of groups or committees, for example conferences or workshops.

'''Author'''

Any person named in the “Authors” field of a submission.

'''Works'''

Author-created material submitted for review or created for presentation. This includes manuscripts as well as appendices, presentations, code, datasets, videos, images, etc.

'''Conflict of interest'''

The ACL definitions of a conflict of interest are detailed at the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]] page.

'''ACL Venues'''

The superset of ACL submission, reviewing, and publication venues, including: ACL Rolling Review; ACL main conference; ACL Regional body main conferences; ACL SIG conferences; workshops at these conferences; TACL; CL.

'''Generative tools'''

Here we include text and image generation tools, commonly referred to as generative AI tools, trained on massive datasets to generate multimedia outputs. These can be privacy-preserving or non-privacy preserving. An example of a non-privacy preserving tool is a text or image generation tool, that stores input data for a commercial purpose, and is typically hosted on remote servers managed by third-party companies. An example of a privacy-preserving tool is a text and image generation tool that doesn’t store input data.

== Scope ==

This policy applies to works submitted to, reviewed by, published at, and presented at ACL venues. This includes all default versions of works in the ACL Anthology at any time (usually the most recent revision).

== Policies ==

=== Conflicts of Interest ===

Authors, reviewers, and editors must confidentially disclose all relevant affiliations and relationships that may constitute conflicts of interest at the time of submission. Review and publication must follow the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]].

=== Authorship ===

Following existing [[Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers|ACL policies]] and the [https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html Vancouver Convention on Authorship], authorship of ACL papers must be based on the following 4 criteria:

a. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

b. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

c. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

d. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who meet some but not all of the four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve authorship status for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criteria (b) or (c). Persons who have contributed to one point must be invited to participate in the others; for example, someone who comes up with or conducts experiments must be invited to draft/revise and approve the final document.

Authors must follow the [https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers] as well as venue-specific policies.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Authorship ====

Authors are responsible for all content submitted. Authors should familiarize themselves with the ACL policy on [[#Plagiarism]] detailed below, based on the [https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE guidelines].

Generative AI tools and technologies may not be listed as authors of a submission, and any use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content should instead be fully disclosed in the Acknowledgements section - for instance, “Section 3 was written with inputs from ChatGPT.”

If and when required to use LLMs to support their research, authors are encouraged to use ethically-sourced and open models. Guidelines for appropriate use of generative assistance follow.

a. Assistance purely with the language of the paper. This covers models used for paraphrasing or polishing the author’s original content, rather than for suggesting new content—similar to tools like grammar checkers, spell checkers, dictionaries, and synonym tools. The use of tools that only assist with proofreading, like grammar or spell checkers, does not need to be disclosed.

b. Short-form input assistance. This covers predictive keyboards or tools that offer suggestions during typing, that might be powered by generative language models. The use of such tools does not need to be disclosed.

c. Literature search. This covers search assistants, e.g., to identify relevant literature. The usual requirements for citation accuracy and thoroughness of literature reviews apply.

d. Low-novelty text. This covers the automatic generation of text about pre-existing ideas. Authors should specify where such automatically generated text was used, and convince the reviewers that the generation was checked to be accurate and is accompanied by relevant and appropriate citations. If the generation copies text from existing work, the publication ethics policy applies to that text. Authors need (for example) to acknowledge all relevant citations: both the source of the text used and the source of the idea(s).

e. New ideas. This covers when generative model output reads to the authors as new research ideas that would deserve co-authorship or acknowledgment from a human colleague (e.g., topics to discuss, framing of the problem), which the authors then develop themselves. As with all new ideas, the authors should conduct a literature search to determine relevant prior work and cite to ensure proper credit. The authors should disclose if models were used in this manner.

f. New ideas + new text: ACL does not consider a generative model to be an entity that can fulfill the requirements of co-authorship.

==== Prior Publication ====

These guidelines recognize that it is common in technical publishing for material to be presented at various stages of its evolution. As one example, this can take the form of publishing early ideas in a workshop, more developed work in a conference, and fully developed contributions as journal articles. This publication process is an important means of scientific communication. The editor of a publication may choose to re-publish existing material for a variety of reasons, including promoting wider distribution and serving readers by aggregating special material in a single publication. This practice continues to be recognized and accepted by the ACL. At the same time, the ACL requires that this evolutionary process be fully referenced by the author.

Authors submitting articles must disclose whether there are prior publications, e.g., conference articles, by the authors that are similar, whether published or submitted. They must also include information that very clearly states how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s). Such articles should be cited in the submitted article in a manner that maintains author anonymity.

Note the point below on [[#Text Re-use]], where there is a limit to how much material may be re-used across papers.

==== Consent of Content Holders ====

The ACL assumes that material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination for the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the ACL, to determine if disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties. If prior consent is required, authors must obtain permission before article submission.

==== Plagiarism ====

ACL defines plagiarism as using someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and considered a serious breach of professional conduct.

Plagiarism manifests itself in a variety of forms, including:

a. verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying (including translation), or intentionally paraphrasing substantive portions of prior or under-review work without proper attribution

b. using automated tools that rephrase existing work as one's own text without proper attribution to the original author(s)

c. self-plagiarism, or copying elements of another prior or under-review work, such as equations, tables, charts, illustrations, presentations, or photographs that are not common knowledge, or copying or intentionally paraphrasing sentences without proper or complete source citation, even if the works have a common author

d. verbatim copying of portions of another's work with incorrect source citation

Whether a prior article has been formally published is not a factor in determining plagiarism—work not formally published may still be plagiarized. This includes content provided online in preprints, tutorials, manuals, and essays, as well as offline content in any form. The representation of any other person's material as one's own work is plagiarism.

==== Text Re-use ====

An article submitted for publication to ACL should be original work submitted to a single ACL venue.

Recycling of material in a new document happens when the material in the new document is identical, or substantially equivalent in both form and content, to that of the source. At times, it may be necessary for authors to recycle portions of their own previously published work or to include another author’s material.

When an author recycles text, charts, photographs, or other graphics from his/her own previously published material, the author shall:

a. Adhere to all copyright policies, clearly indicate all recycled material and provide a full reference to the original publication of the material (anonymized if necessary).

b. If the previously published or submitted material is used as a basis for a new submission, clearly indicate how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s).

Due to the volume of submissions received with duplicated content, the overlap threshold is now 10%. This means that there must be no more than a 10% (e.g., in terms of number of tokens) overlap between: (a) the text that a manuscript, at any point in the publication process, presents as original; (b) any other works submitted to ACL venues or published anywhere; and (c) concurrent submissions under review at ACL venues. Author’s own pre-prints are excluded from this limitation. See also the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]].

==== Electronic Posting ====

Authors submitting manuscripts for review should be aware of the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]]. The policy applies to authors who post part or all of a submitted manuscript on a Web site.

==== Dual Submission ====

Authors should follow the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]]. Articles submitted for consideration should not have been published previously and should not be concurrently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must disclose all prior publication(s) and current submissions when submitting an article. At the venue chairs’ discretion, some forms of submission articles may be exempted from this rule.

==== Author Conduct ====

Authors should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process. Attempts by authors to deanonymize reviewers, editors, or any works, or otherwise compromise the fairness of the review process are not permitted. Authors are expected to follow the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]] for Authors.

Violating the expected behavior standards of a venue, which requires that interactions be free from harassment, bullying, discrimination, and retaliation across all forms of presentation as outlined in the Scope, may be referred to the [[Professional_Conduct_Committee|ACL Professional Conduct Committee]].

==== Co-ordinated disclosure ====

Works describing new ways of making models or other technologies behave in an unintended and potentially harmful way, e.g. papers documenting security vulnerabilities or weaknesses, may only be published at ACL venues as part of co-ordinated disclosure. This requires that authors attempt to contact the technology developers first, and give a reasonable but limited amount of time for them to address the problem and notify their communities of the problem, before openly publishing the weakness anywhere. An example of the process is given in this [https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/engaging-security-researchers-embracing-see-something-say-something-culture CISA blog post].

For these kinds of works within the scope of the policy:

a. Only cases where a specific and previously unpublished adversarial technique is used to elicit a harm are covered by this policy. For example, if some model behaves badly "out of the box", without using an adversarial technique, then there's no vulnerability.

b. At least 30 days be given between notifying the technology developers and the first publication (e.g. on preprint server or the ACL Anthology). This period may run concurrently with the review process.

c. The disclosure process must be documented.

d. Documentation of disclosure should include at a minimum who was contacted, by which means they were contacted, on which dates, and on which dates there was a response (if any).

e. Works detailing new (i.e. previously not public) security weaknesses/failures without any documentation of co-ordinated disclosure may be in breach of policy.

f. This policy may not be applied to works published before this policy comes into effect (April 25th 2025), even if a work in scope appears to have contravened it.

=== Content of Submitted, Published, or Presented Material ===

This subsection applies to all ACL works and serves as guidelines for relevant decisions made by the person responsible for the publication, as well as the PEC for issues raised post-publication.

==== Content Guidelines ====

The discussion of technical matters will continue to be the primary function of forums provided by ACL. The following guidelines clarify the characteristics of allowable content in ACL works:

a. Technical, i.e. empirical and theoretical, articles accepted for inclusion in ACL publications shall comprise scientific content.

b. Any nontechnical content or material in an article accepted for publication is expected to be essential to the technical content of that article (for example, content that extends, supports, or provides relevant background). Author(s) shall state how the nontechnical content or material contributes to the article.

c. Acknowledgments of data consent and approval by stakeholders or subjects is allowed. Acknowledgments of contributors who are not authors of the article, such as in a footnote or an acknowledgments section, shall be limited to statements relative to funding sources, as well as technical or material contributions from individuals or organizations. Acknowledgments for technical or material contributions (such as developing instrumentation for collecting data) should briefly explain how such contributions are essential to the article's technical content.

d. If any political opinions are expressed which also follow this policy and this set of guidelines, an Acknowledgments section must clarify that these are the opinions of the author(s), and no endorsement by ACL, its officials, or its members is implied. For political opinions beyond these guidelines, see (b) above.

e. Submissions should follow the [https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines].

f. Automatically generated text follows the policy given in the Authorship section above.

g. For content about broader impact, see below.

Examples of unallowable content include changes to the content of the paper during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content; conjecture, unless relevant to the presented research supported by citations; illegal content; potentially harmful content, unless preceded by a warning and gap (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]); toxic content/inflammatory writing/hate speech unless it is a necessary scientific example (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]).

==== Societal Impact ====

Technical developments can profoundly impact society. Social conditions also shape the course of technical developments. It is, therefore, often appropriate to include discussions of the social aspects related to the technical content in the author’s work. It is also possible that the discussion of pertinent interrelated social, economic, and technical aspects leads to political conclusions on the author's part. Like other aspects of the paper’s content, discussions of social impact will be subject to peer review and may be referred to the ACL PEC process.

Discussions of societal impact should adhere to the following guidelines:

a. '''Relevance:''' The subject matter should be relevant to the ACL fields of interest and their impact on society. If the relevance or appropriateness is not self-evident from the author’s presentation, it should be made clear by adding a suitable introductory statement.

b. '''Implications:''' Implications, including political conclusions, where discussed, should be contextualized to their relevance to a specific research problem.

c. '''Limitations:''' Limitations and perspectives counter to the authors’ conclusions must be made clear if they are not self-evident. Inferences from the findings, whether technical (e.g., LLM’s beam search algorithms as a source of bias) or sociopolitical (e.g., race or culture as a source of differences in findings) should be appropriately hedged.

==== Harmful Content ====

The term ‘harmful’ refers to content that creates a risk of harm (e.g., hate speech as a cause of harm). In practice, whether a form of content presents a hazard depends on a range of intersecting factors, including the nature of the content; the immediate and broader context; the historical setting; where it comes from; who it is directed at; and who encounters it. Small differences in these factors can make a substantial difference, and not all content that presents a risk of harm will actually inflict harm in every case. We adopt the position that harmful content both constitutes harm in-of-itself (i.e., it is harmful because of its intrinsic features) and causes harm because of the substantial risk of detrimental effects on individuals, groups, or societies ([Kirk et al. 2022 https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/]).

Examples of harmful material include hate speech, misinformation, depictions of crime and violence, and accounts of trauma.

Harmful material may only be included in works if:

a. It is legal to do so in the ACL jurisdiction (USA)

b. It is relevant to the technical content of the submission

c. Doing so enhances the exposition of the content

d. Inclusion follows guidelines for handling and presenting harmful content (see [Kirk et al., 2022 https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/])

e. It is preceded by a warning and consumers are provided sufficient opportunities to avoid the harmful content.

=== Reviewing ===

Peer review assists editors in making publication decisions and, through the communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers are expected to follow the [[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Guidelines for Reviewers]].

==== Reviewer Conduct ====

a. Reviewers and editors are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of any paper and additional materials submitted as part of the review process.

b. Any reviewer or editor who identifies a conflict of interest should notify the venue chairs and decline to review the manuscript.

c. c. Any selected reviewer who is unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and decline to participate in the review process.

d. Collusion, where the reviewer or editor might deliberately collude with authors or others to manipulate the review process unfairly, is forbidden.

e. Reviewers and editors must not attempt to manipulate citations, which includes asking authors to cite the reviewer’s or editor’s work (or that of their associates) unnecessarily.

f. Reviewers and editors must never disclose or reveal any personal information about authors with the intention to target them (doxxing), which could undermine the anonymity and integrity of the review process.

g. Reviewers and editors must not participate in any form of bullying, harassment, discrimination, or retaliation towards authors or other participants in the review process.

h. Reviewers and editors must not use confidential information from a reviewed manuscript for personal advantage before the information is publicly available, including leveraging research ideas or data.

i. Secondary reviewers, if any, should first be officially added to the reviewing system before they are invited to provide a review, and they must similarly treat the manuscript as a confidential document.

j. Reviewers and editors must report observed discrepancies or signs of potential author, reviewer, or editor misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, data misuse, or duplicate submission to the designated channels.

k. Reviewers should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process.

l. Reviewers and editors must complete their work to a high professional standard. Examples of low-quality work include but are not limited to: conflicting information, such as negative review comments with a high positive score; unsubstantiated score values; high confidence on insubstantial commentary.

m. Reviewers and editors must follow venue-specific reviewing guidelines.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Peer Review ====

The reviewer has to read the paper fully and write the content and argument of the review by themselves, subject to the secondary reviewer policy described above, and it is not permitted to use generative assistance to create the first draft. This requirement extends to the meta-review, and the reviewer has to write any meaningful argumentation in the meta-review by themselves.

Generative assistance should be used responsibly. For instance, it is reasonable to use writing assistance to paraphrase the review, e.g. to help reviewers who are not native speakers of English. It is also reasonable to use tools that help to check proofs.

Neither reviewers nor editors should upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a non-privacy preserving generative tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and intellectual property rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, neither reviewers nor editors may upload their peer review report into a non-privacy preserving generative tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

=== Convening ===

Reasonable efforts should be made by editors and, in conference and workshop settings, conveners, to provide discussion that includes differing viewpoints as adjudicated feasible. This must also be taken into consideration by the ACL venue program chairs.

== Other Issues ==

Issues not covered by existing policy but going against policy goals can be referred to the PEC. The PEC may add policy and take measures regarding issues not covered by policy but going against policy goals. Referred cases may be sent onwards to the appropriate committee.

== Handling of Articles from Authors in Embargoed Countries ==

As a US-based organization, policy on handling works from authors in embargoed countries follows the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control ([https://ofac.treasury.gov/ OFAC]).

== References ==
[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance]

[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/review-acl23/#faq-can-i-use-ai-writing-assistants-to-write-my-review|ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance (FAQ)]]

[[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL Anti-Harassment Policy]]

[[ACL_Author_Guidelines|ACL Author Guidelines]]

[https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines]

[[ACL_Policies_for_Review_and_Citation|ACL Policies for Review and Citation]]

[[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Reviewer Guidelines]]

[[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|Double Submission Policy for Conferences]]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy on Authorship]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism-overview ACM Policy on Plagiarism, Misrepresentation, and Falsification]

[[Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers|Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers]]

[https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE)]

[https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics#3-duties-of-reviewers Elsevier: Duties of Reviewers]

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41262-020-00217-3 Journal of Brand Management: Editorial Guidelines and Expectations of Authors]

[https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Submission and Peer Review Policies]

[https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/PSPB/opsmanual.pdf IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual]

[https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM Code of Conduct]

[https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html ICMJE: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors]

[https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE: Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers]

[https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/ Kirk, H. R., Birhane, A., Vidgen, B., & Derczynski, L. (2022). Handling and Presenting Harmful Text in NLP Research. In Findings of EMNLP. Association for Computational Linguistics.]

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX: Instructions for Presenters]

<hr />

Canonical PDF of the policy: [[:file: ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf | ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf]]

Process for ACL Publication Ethics Review

2025-05-05T06:14:58Z

Leondz: /* General members */

<hr/>
''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-11-19; Authored by Cahill, A., Derczynski, L., & Jaidka, K. ''

<hr/>
The ACL Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) ensures a fair publication process and addresses violations of the [[ACL Policy on Publication Ethics]]. This document outlines the implementation of the policy, including the committee's structure, processes, and sanctions.

If you would like to submit a formal complaint, you may do so by filling up our incident report form:
https://forms.gle/N5wyS7SYNPB1hf498

== Members ==

=== Co-chairs ===
* Aoife Cahill (2024 - )
* Leon Derczynski (2024 - )
* Kokil Jaidka (2024 - )

=== General members ===
* Svetlana Churina (2024 - )
* Arkaitz Zubiaga (2025 - )
* Emiel van Miltenburg (2025 - )

== Background ==

In 2024, ACL formed the PEC to establish clear guidelines and processes to address ethical violations in reviewing and publishing research. The committee's responsibilities include creating a formal process for handling violations, providing a framework for addressing unforeseen issues, and promoting engagement and transparency with the community.

== Definitions ==

Refer to the [[ACL Policy on Publication Ethics]] for definitions of:
Reviewer, Editor, Convener, Author, Works, Conflict of Interest, ACL Venues, and Generative Tools.

'''Publication Ethics Committee (PEC):'''
The ACL body responsible for addressing publication ethics complaints.

'''Professional Conduct Committee (PCC):'''
Handles anti-harassment policy complaints.

'''Ethics Committee (AEC):'''
Manages general ethical policies for ACL membership.

== Ongoing/Outstanding Activities ==
* Recruit a group of ACL members to serve on the PEC Committee
* Work with ACL conference and workshop organizers to link to the policy on the main submission pages so that by submitting to an ACL venue, authors accept and agree to follow the ACL publication ethics policy.
* Develop guidelines for responses to publication ethics violations.
* Liaise with conveners of ACL events on ad hoc publication ethics issues that may arise in the lead-up to the event.
* Institute a tracking system for potential ethics violations.
* Coordinate with the AEC on the dissemination of PEC policies.

== Publication Ethics Committee ==

The PEC will be led by three co-chairs who are appointed by and responsible to the Executive Committee and who will serve three-year renewable terms. The chair(s) would typically be selected from current or former PEC members. It is preferred to change at most one PEC
co-chair per year.

The Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) will consist of at least 4, and up to 12 members from the ACL, who will each commit to serving 3-year renewable terms. The PEC co-chairs manage the membership. The PEC will designate a member to liaise with the ACL office staff, leveraging
their roles for logistical support at conferences and in managing possible sanctions. The committee will operate under the authority of the ACL Executive Committee and will be accountable to it. Membership in the PEC is voluntary.

It is preferable for PEC members to be relatively senior in their fields to act without fear of retribution and to come from various geographical locations and institutions to reflect the diverse perspectives of the membership. The committee should have enough active members at any time to allow for at least three members to discuss any given case, even after accounting for those who must recuse themselves due to conflicts of interest. If caseloads become too high, the committee membership may be expanded.
The ACL Executive Committee may remove members found to be breaching confidentiality or handling complaints capriciously.
The responsibilities of the PEC chairs include:

* Recruiting new members.
* Organizing orientation sessions for new members.
* Ensuring that each case handled by the PEC is appropriately managed and comprehensively documented. For detailed steps in the process, see below.

== Privacy ==

The Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) will take measures to protect the privacy of both Complainants and Respondents as much as is feasible and reasonable. In cases where formal sanctions are applied, the existence of these sanctions (though not the details of the complaint)
may be disclosed to other event organizers as outlined below:

* Information will not be shared beyond the necessary members of the PEC, the Respondent, any ACL Executive members approached by the Complainant, or essential ACL staff, except in cases where formal action is necessary as specified or if the case is to be referred to another committee.
* The Respondent will be formally notified of the complaint by the PEC after an initial review ensures that the complaint is not obviously specious.
* At the time of notification, the Respondent will also be informed that the case handling details are confidential and accessible only to the PEC, with certain exceptions as noted.
* While the Committee cannot mandate that the Complainant or Respondent maintain confidentiality regarding the complaint, any sharing should be done with adherence to the ACL publication ethics policies.

== Examples of Misconduct ==

Instances of author misconduct covered in this implementation include, but are not limited to:
* Manuscript preparation practices:
**intentionally including misleading information,
**edits to the author order without the agreement of all co-authors,
**submissions without the agreement of all co-authors,
**failure to disclose affiliations
**failure to report the use of generative AI, e.g., “ChatGPT was used to paraphrase the language in Section 3.”
* During and after the review process:
**Making significant changes to the paper's content during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content as described in the ACL Publication Ethics policy.
**Manipulating the peer-review process, for instance, by lobbying for reviewers who are close colleagues, relatives, or have other forms of potential conflict of interest.
**Engaging in any behavior that may hinder the integrity of the review process.
**Failing to adhere to content revisions or requirements set by reviewers and editors that are necessary for the acceptance of the paper.

Instances of reviewer misconduct covered in this implementation include, but are not limited to:
* Discussions outside the proper ACL-assigned channels.
* Suggesting unnecessary citations to the reviewer’s work to increase the number of citations of their own or others’ work to improve citation metrics.
* Doxxing
* Failure to recuse in cases where a potential conflict of interest might exist.
* Use of generative assistance in peer review, beyond what is permitted by the policy

== Handling Complaints ==

Specific protocols govern handling complaints in the Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) to ensure fairness and due process. The PEC should act promptly and fairly to resolve the issue. The PEC will typically handle communications with all parties online. Any PEC member with a conflict of interest, such as being a current or prior collaborator, colleague, friend, or co-author of the Complainant or Respondent, must recuse themselves. This includes possible or perceived conflicts.

A Complainant may approach any available PEC member. Event organizers, ACL office staff, and ideally, ACL Executive and Chapter Board members should know the PEC members to facilitate referrals. A file management system is provided in Appendix A of this document. A
timeline and process overview is provided in Appendix B of this document. A PEC member assists the Complainant in:

* '''Notification of a potential issue:''' A complainant fills out the incident report form, noting any evidence. This form may be updated over time as needed.
* '''Preliminary Assessment:''' ACL Publication Ethics committee chairs assess the report to determine if the allegations have merit and warrant a full investigation.
* '''Deciding the appropriate course of action:''' PEC chairs determine the next steps, which may involve:
** Taking no further action. If no action is taken, the incident report will not be maintained.
** Formal consideration by the PEC.
** For actions involving formal consideration, if a full investigation is deemed necessary, an impartial committee is formed, possibly including members of ARR and venue-appointed ethics or conduct committee members.
* '''Notification:''' The Respondent is notified of the allegations and allowed to respond. All parties involved are expected to cooperate fully with the investigation. Investigations are to be conducted confidentially to protect all parties. Responses by the Respondents are expected within two weeks of notification by the PEC. Best efforts will be made to find contact information for respondents should the contact information provided not function at the time of notification. In case of non-response, the PEC will proceed assuming a blank respondent statement.
* '''Gathering evidence:''' The committee gathers evidence, such as emails, draft manuscripts, and review comments, and Respondent identity where applicable.
* '''Deliberation:''' At least three members of the PEC, including a co-chair if available, will convene to examine the evidence and determine whether the publication ethics policy has been violated. The PEC may dismiss a complaint as unfounded or vexatious. If deemed vexatious, the PEC will reach out to the PCC to determine whether there is a case of harassment that should be investigated.
* '''Provisional decision and feedback:''' A provisional decision is made within three weeks. The Respondent is informed and may provide a rebuttal with additional information or context within two weeks. Decisions may be “upheld”, “not upheld”, or “no further action.”
* '''Consideration of the rebuttal:''' The committee decides after considering the rebuttal.
* '''Gathering feedback on the provisional recommendations and sanctions:''' The PEC recommends a decision and sanctions, if any. Decisions involving sanctions are circulated to the ACL Executive Committee for feedback and comment within two weeks.
* '''Final decision and communication:''' The decision by the ACL PEC is communicated to the Respondent and Complainant and documented while preserving their anonymity on the ACL wiki. A list of people currently with sanctions involving future submissions or reviewing is updated and confidentially shared with event conveners.
* '''Follow-up:''' The Respondent adheres to the sanctions instituted by the PEC. A deputized PEC member ensures that the decision is followed by following up with the authors if needed.
* '''Documentation:''' All documentation, including the incident report, evidence, the Respondent’s statement, and the outcome report, is electronically documented by the PEC, except when the complaint is dismissed as unfounded or vexatious. In cases of vexatious complaints, an incident report documenting the misuse of the policy is maintained instead. Documentation would be stored for 5 years, and deleted thereafter.

== Sanctions ==

If, following its investigation, the Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) concludes that sanctions against a Respondent are justified, it will notify the ACL Executive of its recommendations. The Executive will vote on the PEC’s recommendation, ideally within two weeks. If approved, the Respondent will be informed accordingly. In all deliberations regarding sanctions, the PEC should consider the severity of the offense and relevant documented prior history of the Respondent(s).

In general, conduct that violates the ACL’s publication ethics policy may lead to sanctions from the ACL including post-publication redaction or removal of a paper, ineligibility to publish at future ACL events, and ineligibility to serve on the ACL Exec or Chapter Boards or to
become an ACL Fellow or Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Sanctions may include, but are not limited to, the following:

* In some cases of publication-related misconduct, the authors may be required to revise their paper to adhere to the PEC guidelines, accompanied with a list of revisions and a version with tracked changes. Alternatively, in the case of serious infractions, the paper may be removed.
* In the cases of publication-related misconduct that require revision, the PEC will coordinate with the ACL Anthology staff to ensure that the revised material is posted on the ACL Anthology website. In these cases, and departing from ACL Anthology’s standard practice, the original version may be removed.
* A formal reprimand from the ACL Executive — a letter from the Executive to the Respondent stating that their behavior has violated publication ethics policies, with a warning that future violations will result in more severe sanctions.
* Prohibition from submitting work to ACL venues for a period of at least one year, but never exceeding five years per case.
* Prohibition from reviewing and editing for, or convening ACL events for a period of at least one year, but never exceeding five years per case.
* PEC can recommend that a review or meta-review be ignored, without immediate Exec review.
* Individuals may also be barred from serving on the ACL Executive Committee, Chapter Boards, or SIG Boards, becoming an ACL Fellow, or receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award for at least one year, but never exceeding five years per case. In such cases, the Nominating Committee must inquire with the ACL office staff whether any proposed candidates are barred from these honors. This check should be conducted only when the member is a contender for Fellow or LTA recognition. The ACL office staff will only confirm the ineligibility for the award without disclosing any details of the complaint.
* A Respondent who disregards a sanction may face additional sanctions.

== Extended Process for Considering Cases of Uncovered Issues ==

For cases of publication ethics violations deemed to not be covered in the current policy, pending a policy update or clarification, provisional consequences may be applied based on the PEC’s chairs’ discretion.

* Identification and Documentation: When an incident is identified that is not clearly within the current scope of publication ethics policies, yet falls under the purview of the PEC, it will be documented by the committee chairs and a preliminary assessment will be expediently made to determine its potential impact on the integrity of the publication or conference. Committee members with a conflict of interest will recuse themselves.
* Consultation and Policy Review: Committee members will consult with well-established publication guidelines, prior policies, and cases discussed in the ACL guidelines, as well as senior members of the ACL executive committee lacking a conflict of interest. Committee members will consider if there is a broader ethical principle that the incident may violate.
* Interim Measures: If the policy violation poses an ongoing risk, interim measures may be taken to mitigate this. The provisional and final consequences applied may comprise some or all of the sanctions identified above, as deemed appropriate by the ACL
publication ethics members.
* Policy Development: If deemed necessary, committee members will develop and propose new policies or amendments to existing ones to address the gap. These will be vetted by the ACL executive committee.
* Adjudication: Once policies are clarified or established, the incident is adjudicated according to the new understanding or the newly established policy.
* Record Keeping: When a policy is amended, the ACL community should be informed of the identified policy gap, the amendments, and the steps taken to address it without revealing confidential details of the specific incident. The ACL publication ethics committee will maintain a confidential record of the misconduct and the actions taken.

== Appeals ==

A Complainant or Respondent dissatisfied with the outcome of a case may appeal to the ACL Executive Committee, which has the discretion to order a new investigation by other committee members and/or by an external consultant.

== Training and Resources ==

PEC co-chairs will provide virtual training for new members and ensure policies are linked to submission pages.

== References ==

[[ACL Conflict-of-interest policy]]
[[Anti-Harassment Policy]]
[[ACL Policy on Publication Ethics]]

Process for ACL Publication Ethics Review

2025-05-05T06:14:41Z

Leondz: /* General members */

<hr/>
''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-11-19; Authored by Cahill, A., Derczynski, L., & Jaidka, K. ''

<hr/>
The ACL Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) ensures a fair publication process and addresses violations of the [[ACL Policy on Publication Ethics]]. This document outlines the implementation of the policy, including the committee's structure, processes, and sanctions.

If you would like to submit a formal complaint, you may do so by filling up our incident report form:
https://forms.gle/N5wyS7SYNPB1hf498

== Members ==

=== Co-chairs ===
* Aoife Cahill (2024 - )
* Leon Derczynski (2024 - )
* Kokil Jaidka (2024 - )

=== General members ===
Svetlana Churina (2024 - )
Arkaitz Zubiaga (2025 - )
Emiel van Miltenburg (2025 - )

== Background ==

In 2024, ACL formed the PEC to establish clear guidelines and processes to address ethical violations in reviewing and publishing research. The committee's responsibilities include creating a formal process for handling violations, providing a framework for addressing unforeseen issues, and promoting engagement and transparency with the community.

== Definitions ==

Refer to the [[ACL Policy on Publication Ethics]] for definitions of:
Reviewer, Editor, Convener, Author, Works, Conflict of Interest, ACL Venues, and Generative Tools.

'''Publication Ethics Committee (PEC):'''
The ACL body responsible for addressing publication ethics complaints.

'''Professional Conduct Committee (PCC):'''
Handles anti-harassment policy complaints.

'''Ethics Committee (AEC):'''
Manages general ethical policies for ACL membership.

== Ongoing/Outstanding Activities ==
* Recruit a group of ACL members to serve on the PEC Committee
* Work with ACL conference and workshop organizers to link to the policy on the main submission pages so that by submitting to an ACL venue, authors accept and agree to follow the ACL publication ethics policy.
* Develop guidelines for responses to publication ethics violations.
* Liaise with conveners of ACL events on ad hoc publication ethics issues that may arise in the lead-up to the event.
* Institute a tracking system for potential ethics violations.
* Coordinate with the AEC on the dissemination of PEC policies.

== Publication Ethics Committee ==

The PEC will be led by three co-chairs who are appointed by and responsible to the Executive Committee and who will serve three-year renewable terms. The chair(s) would typically be selected from current or former PEC members. It is preferred to change at most one PEC
co-chair per year.

The Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) will consist of at least 4, and up to 12 members from the ACL, who will each commit to serving 3-year renewable terms. The PEC co-chairs manage the membership. The PEC will designate a member to liaise with the ACL office staff, leveraging
their roles for logistical support at conferences and in managing possible sanctions. The committee will operate under the authority of the ACL Executive Committee and will be accountable to it. Membership in the PEC is voluntary.

It is preferable for PEC members to be relatively senior in their fields to act without fear of retribution and to come from various geographical locations and institutions to reflect the diverse perspectives of the membership. The committee should have enough active members at any time to allow for at least three members to discuss any given case, even after accounting for those who must recuse themselves due to conflicts of interest. If caseloads become too high, the committee membership may be expanded.
The ACL Executive Committee may remove members found to be breaching confidentiality or handling complaints capriciously.
The responsibilities of the PEC chairs include:

* Recruiting new members.
* Organizing orientation sessions for new members.
* Ensuring that each case handled by the PEC is appropriately managed and comprehensively documented. For detailed steps in the process, see below.

== Privacy ==

The Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) will take measures to protect the privacy of both Complainants and Respondents as much as is feasible and reasonable. In cases where formal sanctions are applied, the existence of these sanctions (though not the details of the complaint)
may be disclosed to other event organizers as outlined below:

* Information will not be shared beyond the necessary members of the PEC, the Respondent, any ACL Executive members approached by the Complainant, or essential ACL staff, except in cases where formal action is necessary as specified or if the case is to be referred to another committee.
* The Respondent will be formally notified of the complaint by the PEC after an initial review ensures that the complaint is not obviously specious.
* At the time of notification, the Respondent will also be informed that the case handling details are confidential and accessible only to the PEC, with certain exceptions as noted.
* While the Committee cannot mandate that the Complainant or Respondent maintain confidentiality regarding the complaint, any sharing should be done with adherence to the ACL publication ethics policies.

== Examples of Misconduct ==

Instances of author misconduct covered in this implementation include, but are not limited to:
* Manuscript preparation practices:
**intentionally including misleading information,
**edits to the author order without the agreement of all co-authors,
**submissions without the agreement of all co-authors,
**failure to disclose affiliations
**failure to report the use of generative AI, e.g., “ChatGPT was used to paraphrase the language in Section 3.”
* During and after the review process:
**Making significant changes to the paper's content during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content as described in the ACL Publication Ethics policy.
**Manipulating the peer-review process, for instance, by lobbying for reviewers who are close colleagues, relatives, or have other forms of potential conflict of interest.
**Engaging in any behavior that may hinder the integrity of the review process.
**Failing to adhere to content revisions or requirements set by reviewers and editors that are necessary for the acceptance of the paper.

Instances of reviewer misconduct covered in this implementation include, but are not limited to:
* Discussions outside the proper ACL-assigned channels.
* Suggesting unnecessary citations to the reviewer’s work to increase the number of citations of their own or others’ work to improve citation metrics.
* Doxxing
* Failure to recuse in cases where a potential conflict of interest might exist.
* Use of generative assistance in peer review, beyond what is permitted by the policy

== Handling Complaints ==

Specific protocols govern handling complaints in the Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) to ensure fairness and due process. The PEC should act promptly and fairly to resolve the issue. The PEC will typically handle communications with all parties online. Any PEC member with a conflict of interest, such as being a current or prior collaborator, colleague, friend, or co-author of the Complainant or Respondent, must recuse themselves. This includes possible or perceived conflicts.

A Complainant may approach any available PEC member. Event organizers, ACL office staff, and ideally, ACL Executive and Chapter Board members should know the PEC members to facilitate referrals. A file management system is provided in Appendix A of this document. A
timeline and process overview is provided in Appendix B of this document. A PEC member assists the Complainant in:

* '''Notification of a potential issue:''' A complainant fills out the incident report form, noting any evidence. This form may be updated over time as needed.
* '''Preliminary Assessment:''' ACL Publication Ethics committee chairs assess the report to determine if the allegations have merit and warrant a full investigation.
* '''Deciding the appropriate course of action:''' PEC chairs determine the next steps, which may involve:
** Taking no further action. If no action is taken, the incident report will not be maintained.
** Formal consideration by the PEC.
** For actions involving formal consideration, if a full investigation is deemed necessary, an impartial committee is formed, possibly including members of ARR and venue-appointed ethics or conduct committee members.
* '''Notification:''' The Respondent is notified of the allegations and allowed to respond. All parties involved are expected to cooperate fully with the investigation. Investigations are to be conducted confidentially to protect all parties. Responses by the Respondents are expected within two weeks of notification by the PEC. Best efforts will be made to find contact information for respondents should the contact information provided not function at the time of notification. In case of non-response, the PEC will proceed assuming a blank respondent statement.
* '''Gathering evidence:''' The committee gathers evidence, such as emails, draft manuscripts, and review comments, and Respondent identity where applicable.
* '''Deliberation:''' At least three members of the PEC, including a co-chair if available, will convene to examine the evidence and determine whether the publication ethics policy has been violated. The PEC may dismiss a complaint as unfounded or vexatious. If deemed vexatious, the PEC will reach out to the PCC to determine whether there is a case of harassment that should be investigated.
* '''Provisional decision and feedback:''' A provisional decision is made within three weeks. The Respondent is informed and may provide a rebuttal with additional information or context within two weeks. Decisions may be “upheld”, “not upheld”, or “no further action.”
* '''Consideration of the rebuttal:''' The committee decides after considering the rebuttal.
* '''Gathering feedback on the provisional recommendations and sanctions:''' The PEC recommends a decision and sanctions, if any. Decisions involving sanctions are circulated to the ACL Executive Committee for feedback and comment within two weeks.
* '''Final decision and communication:''' The decision by the ACL PEC is communicated to the Respondent and Complainant and documented while preserving their anonymity on the ACL wiki. A list of people currently with sanctions involving future submissions or reviewing is updated and confidentially shared with event conveners.
* '''Follow-up:''' The Respondent adheres to the sanctions instituted by the PEC. A deputized PEC member ensures that the decision is followed by following up with the authors if needed.
* '''Documentation:''' All documentation, including the incident report, evidence, the Respondent’s statement, and the outcome report, is electronically documented by the PEC, except when the complaint is dismissed as unfounded or vexatious. In cases of vexatious complaints, an incident report documenting the misuse of the policy is maintained instead. Documentation would be stored for 5 years, and deleted thereafter.

== Sanctions ==

If, following its investigation, the Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) concludes that sanctions against a Respondent are justified, it will notify the ACL Executive of its recommendations. The Executive will vote on the PEC’s recommendation, ideally within two weeks. If approved, the Respondent will be informed accordingly. In all deliberations regarding sanctions, the PEC should consider the severity of the offense and relevant documented prior history of the Respondent(s).

In general, conduct that violates the ACL’s publication ethics policy may lead to sanctions from the ACL including post-publication redaction or removal of a paper, ineligibility to publish at future ACL events, and ineligibility to serve on the ACL Exec or Chapter Boards or to
become an ACL Fellow or Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Sanctions may include, but are not limited to, the following:

* In some cases of publication-related misconduct, the authors may be required to revise their paper to adhere to the PEC guidelines, accompanied with a list of revisions and a version with tracked changes. Alternatively, in the case of serious infractions, the paper may be removed.
* In the cases of publication-related misconduct that require revision, the PEC will coordinate with the ACL Anthology staff to ensure that the revised material is posted on the ACL Anthology website. In these cases, and departing from ACL Anthology’s standard practice, the original version may be removed.
* A formal reprimand from the ACL Executive — a letter from the Executive to the Respondent stating that their behavior has violated publication ethics policies, with a warning that future violations will result in more severe sanctions.
* Prohibition from submitting work to ACL venues for a period of at least one year, but never exceeding five years per case.
* Prohibition from reviewing and editing for, or convening ACL events for a period of at least one year, but never exceeding five years per case.
* PEC can recommend that a review or meta-review be ignored, without immediate Exec review.
* Individuals may also be barred from serving on the ACL Executive Committee, Chapter Boards, or SIG Boards, becoming an ACL Fellow, or receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award for at least one year, but never exceeding five years per case. In such cases, the Nominating Committee must inquire with the ACL office staff whether any proposed candidates are barred from these honors. This check should be conducted only when the member is a contender for Fellow or LTA recognition. The ACL office staff will only confirm the ineligibility for the award without disclosing any details of the complaint.
* A Respondent who disregards a sanction may face additional sanctions.

== Extended Process for Considering Cases of Uncovered Issues ==

For cases of publication ethics violations deemed to not be covered in the current policy, pending a policy update or clarification, provisional consequences may be applied based on the PEC’s chairs’ discretion.

* Identification and Documentation: When an incident is identified that is not clearly within the current scope of publication ethics policies, yet falls under the purview of the PEC, it will be documented by the committee chairs and a preliminary assessment will be expediently made to determine its potential impact on the integrity of the publication or conference. Committee members with a conflict of interest will recuse themselves.
* Consultation and Policy Review: Committee members will consult with well-established publication guidelines, prior policies, and cases discussed in the ACL guidelines, as well as senior members of the ACL executive committee lacking a conflict of interest. Committee members will consider if there is a broader ethical principle that the incident may violate.
* Interim Measures: If the policy violation poses an ongoing risk, interim measures may be taken to mitigate this. The provisional and final consequences applied may comprise some or all of the sanctions identified above, as deemed appropriate by the ACL
publication ethics members.
* Policy Development: If deemed necessary, committee members will develop and propose new policies or amendments to existing ones to address the gap. These will be vetted by the ACL executive committee.
* Adjudication: Once policies are clarified or established, the incident is adjudicated according to the new understanding or the newly established policy.
* Record Keeping: When a policy is amended, the ACL community should be informed of the identified policy gap, the amendments, and the steps taken to address it without revealing confidential details of the specific incident. The ACL publication ethics committee will maintain a confidential record of the misconduct and the actions taken.

== Appeals ==

A Complainant or Respondent dissatisfied with the outcome of a case may appeal to the ACL Executive Committee, which has the discretion to order a new investigation by other committee members and/or by an external consultant.

== Training and Resources ==

PEC co-chairs will provide virtual training for new members and ensure policies are linked to submission pages.

== References ==

[[ACL Conflict-of-interest policy]]
[[Anti-Harassment Policy]]
[[ACL Policy on Publication Ethics]]

Process for ACL Publication Ethics Review

2025-05-05T06:13:59Z

Leondz: Edits approved 2025-04-25; formatting

<hr/>
''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-11-19; Authored by Cahill, A., Derczynski, L., & Jaidka, K. ''

<hr/>
The ACL Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) ensures a fair publication process and addresses violations of the [[ACL Policy on Publication Ethics]]. This document outlines the implementation of the policy, including the committee's structure, processes, and sanctions.

If you would like to submit a formal complaint, you may do so by filling up our incident report form:
https://forms.gle/N5wyS7SYNPB1hf498

== Members ==

=== Co-chairs ===
* Aoife Cahill (2024 - )
* Leon Derczynski (2024 - )
* Kokil Jaidka (2024 - )

=== General members ===
Svetlana Churina (2024 - )

== Background ==

In 2024, ACL formed the PEC to establish clear guidelines and processes to address ethical violations in reviewing and publishing research. The committee's responsibilities include creating a formal process for handling violations, providing a framework for addressing unforeseen issues, and promoting engagement and transparency with the community.

== Definitions ==

Refer to the [[ACL Policy on Publication Ethics]] for definitions of:
Reviewer, Editor, Convener, Author, Works, Conflict of Interest, ACL Venues, and Generative Tools.

'''Publication Ethics Committee (PEC):'''
The ACL body responsible for addressing publication ethics complaints.

'''Professional Conduct Committee (PCC):'''
Handles anti-harassment policy complaints.

'''Ethics Committee (AEC):'''
Manages general ethical policies for ACL membership.

== Ongoing/Outstanding Activities ==
* Recruit a group of ACL members to serve on the PEC Committee
* Work with ACL conference and workshop organizers to link to the policy on the main submission pages so that by submitting to an ACL venue, authors accept and agree to follow the ACL publication ethics policy.
* Develop guidelines for responses to publication ethics violations.
* Liaise with conveners of ACL events on ad hoc publication ethics issues that may arise in the lead-up to the event.
* Institute a tracking system for potential ethics violations.
* Coordinate with the AEC on the dissemination of PEC policies.

== Publication Ethics Committee ==

The PEC will be led by three co-chairs who are appointed by and responsible to the Executive Committee and who will serve three-year renewable terms. The chair(s) would typically be selected from current or former PEC members. It is preferred to change at most one PEC
co-chair per year.

The Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) will consist of at least 4, and up to 12 members from the ACL, who will each commit to serving 3-year renewable terms. The PEC co-chairs manage the membership. The PEC will designate a member to liaise with the ACL office staff, leveraging
their roles for logistical support at conferences and in managing possible sanctions. The committee will operate under the authority of the ACL Executive Committee and will be accountable to it. Membership in the PEC is voluntary.

It is preferable for PEC members to be relatively senior in their fields to act without fear of retribution and to come from various geographical locations and institutions to reflect the diverse perspectives of the membership. The committee should have enough active members at any time to allow for at least three members to discuss any given case, even after accounting for those who must recuse themselves due to conflicts of interest. If caseloads become too high, the committee membership may be expanded.
The ACL Executive Committee may remove members found to be breaching confidentiality or handling complaints capriciously.
The responsibilities of the PEC chairs include:

* Recruiting new members.
* Organizing orientation sessions for new members.
* Ensuring that each case handled by the PEC is appropriately managed and comprehensively documented. For detailed steps in the process, see below.

== Privacy ==

The Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) will take measures to protect the privacy of both Complainants and Respondents as much as is feasible and reasonable. In cases where formal sanctions are applied, the existence of these sanctions (though not the details of the complaint)
may be disclosed to other event organizers as outlined below:

* Information will not be shared beyond the necessary members of the PEC, the Respondent, any ACL Executive members approached by the Complainant, or essential ACL staff, except in cases where formal action is necessary as specified or if the case is to be referred to another committee.
* The Respondent will be formally notified of the complaint by the PEC after an initial review ensures that the complaint is not obviously specious.
* At the time of notification, the Respondent will also be informed that the case handling details are confidential and accessible only to the PEC, with certain exceptions as noted.
* While the Committee cannot mandate that the Complainant or Respondent maintain confidentiality regarding the complaint, any sharing should be done with adherence to the ACL publication ethics policies.

== Examples of Misconduct ==

Instances of author misconduct covered in this implementation include, but are not limited to:
* Manuscript preparation practices:
**intentionally including misleading information,
**edits to the author order without the agreement of all co-authors,
**submissions without the agreement of all co-authors,
**failure to disclose affiliations
**failure to report the use of generative AI, e.g., “ChatGPT was used to paraphrase the language in Section 3.”
* During and after the review process:
**Making significant changes to the paper's content during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content as described in the ACL Publication Ethics policy.
**Manipulating the peer-review process, for instance, by lobbying for reviewers who are close colleagues, relatives, or have other forms of potential conflict of interest.
**Engaging in any behavior that may hinder the integrity of the review process.
**Failing to adhere to content revisions or requirements set by reviewers and editors that are necessary for the acceptance of the paper.

Instances of reviewer misconduct covered in this implementation include, but are not limited to:
* Discussions outside the proper ACL-assigned channels.
* Suggesting unnecessary citations to the reviewer’s work to increase the number of citations of their own or others’ work to improve citation metrics.
* Doxxing
* Failure to recuse in cases where a potential conflict of interest might exist.
* Use of generative assistance in peer review, beyond what is permitted by the policy

== Handling Complaints ==

Specific protocols govern handling complaints in the Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) to ensure fairness and due process. The PEC should act promptly and fairly to resolve the issue. The PEC will typically handle communications with all parties online. Any PEC member with a conflict of interest, such as being a current or prior collaborator, colleague, friend, or co-author of the Complainant or Respondent, must recuse themselves. This includes possible or perceived conflicts.

A Complainant may approach any available PEC member. Event organizers, ACL office staff, and ideally, ACL Executive and Chapter Board members should know the PEC members to facilitate referrals. A file management system is provided in Appendix A of this document. A
timeline and process overview is provided in Appendix B of this document. A PEC member assists the Complainant in:

* '''Notification of a potential issue:''' A complainant fills out the incident report form, noting any evidence. This form may be updated over time as needed.
* '''Preliminary Assessment:''' ACL Publication Ethics committee chairs assess the report to determine if the allegations have merit and warrant a full investigation.
* '''Deciding the appropriate course of action:''' PEC chairs determine the next steps, which may involve:
** Taking no further action. If no action is taken, the incident report will not be maintained.
** Formal consideration by the PEC.
** For actions involving formal consideration, if a full investigation is deemed necessary, an impartial committee is formed, possibly including members of ARR and venue-appointed ethics or conduct committee members.
* '''Notification:''' The Respondent is notified of the allegations and allowed to respond. All parties involved are expected to cooperate fully with the investigation. Investigations are to be conducted confidentially to protect all parties. Responses by the Respondents are expected within two weeks of notification by the PEC. Best efforts will be made to find contact information for respondents should the contact information provided not function at the time of notification. In case of non-response, the PEC will proceed assuming a blank respondent statement.
* '''Gathering evidence:''' The committee gathers evidence, such as emails, draft manuscripts, and review comments, and Respondent identity where applicable.
* '''Deliberation:''' At least three members of the PEC, including a co-chair if available, will convene to examine the evidence and determine whether the publication ethics policy has been violated. The PEC may dismiss a complaint as unfounded or vexatious. If deemed vexatious, the PEC will reach out to the PCC to determine whether there is a case of harassment that should be investigated.
* '''Provisional decision and feedback:''' A provisional decision is made within three weeks. The Respondent is informed and may provide a rebuttal with additional information or context within two weeks. Decisions may be “upheld”, “not upheld”, or “no further action.”
* '''Consideration of the rebuttal:''' The committee decides after considering the rebuttal.
* '''Gathering feedback on the provisional recommendations and sanctions:''' The PEC recommends a decision and sanctions, if any. Decisions involving sanctions are circulated to the ACL Executive Committee for feedback and comment within two weeks.
* '''Final decision and communication:''' The decision by the ACL PEC is communicated to the Respondent and Complainant and documented while preserving their anonymity on the ACL wiki. A list of people currently with sanctions involving future submissions or reviewing is updated and confidentially shared with event conveners.
* '''Follow-up:''' The Respondent adheres to the sanctions instituted by the PEC. A deputized PEC member ensures that the decision is followed by following up with the authors if needed.
* '''Documentation:''' All documentation, including the incident report, evidence, the Respondent’s statement, and the outcome report, is electronically documented by the PEC, except when the complaint is dismissed as unfounded or vexatious. In cases of vexatious complaints, an incident report documenting the misuse of the policy is maintained instead. Documentation would be stored for 5 years, and deleted thereafter.

== Sanctions ==

If, following its investigation, the Publication Ethics Committee (PEC) concludes that sanctions against a Respondent are justified, it will notify the ACL Executive of its recommendations. The Executive will vote on the PEC’s recommendation, ideally within two weeks. If approved, the Respondent will be informed accordingly. In all deliberations regarding sanctions, the PEC should consider the severity of the offense and relevant documented prior history of the Respondent(s).

In general, conduct that violates the ACL’s publication ethics policy may lead to sanctions from the ACL including post-publication redaction or removal of a paper, ineligibility to publish at future ACL events, and ineligibility to serve on the ACL Exec or Chapter Boards or to
become an ACL Fellow or Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Sanctions may include, but are not limited to, the following:

* In some cases of publication-related misconduct, the authors may be required to revise their paper to adhere to the PEC guidelines, accompanied with a list of revisions and a version with tracked changes. Alternatively, in the case of serious infractions, the paper may be removed.
* In the cases of publication-related misconduct that require revision, the PEC will coordinate with the ACL Anthology staff to ensure that the revised material is posted on the ACL Anthology website. In these cases, and departing from ACL Anthology’s standard practice, the original version may be removed.
* A formal reprimand from the ACL Executive — a letter from the Executive to the Respondent stating that their behavior has violated publication ethics policies, with a warning that future violations will result in more severe sanctions.
* Prohibition from submitting work to ACL venues for a period of at least one year, but never exceeding five years per case.
* Prohibition from reviewing and editing for, or convening ACL events for a period of at least one year, but never exceeding five years per case.
* PEC can recommend that a review or meta-review be ignored, without immediate Exec review.
* Individuals may also be barred from serving on the ACL Executive Committee, Chapter Boards, or SIG Boards, becoming an ACL Fellow, or receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award for at least one year, but never exceeding five years per case. In such cases, the Nominating Committee must inquire with the ACL office staff whether any proposed candidates are barred from these honors. This check should be conducted only when the member is a contender for Fellow or LTA recognition. The ACL office staff will only confirm the ineligibility for the award without disclosing any details of the complaint.
* A Respondent who disregards a sanction may face additional sanctions.

== Extended Process for Considering Cases of Uncovered Issues ==

For cases of publication ethics violations deemed to not be covered in the current policy, pending a policy update or clarification, provisional consequences may be applied based on the PEC’s chairs’ discretion.

* Identification and Documentation: When an incident is identified that is not clearly within the current scope of publication ethics policies, yet falls under the purview of the PEC, it will be documented by the committee chairs and a preliminary assessment will be expediently made to determine its potential impact on the integrity of the publication or conference. Committee members with a conflict of interest will recuse themselves.
* Consultation and Policy Review: Committee members will consult with well-established publication guidelines, prior policies, and cases discussed in the ACL guidelines, as well as senior members of the ACL executive committee lacking a conflict of interest. Committee members will consider if there is a broader ethical principle that the incident may violate.
* Interim Measures: If the policy violation poses an ongoing risk, interim measures may be taken to mitigate this. The provisional and final consequences applied may comprise some or all of the sanctions identified above, as deemed appropriate by the ACL
publication ethics members.
* Policy Development: If deemed necessary, committee members will develop and propose new policies or amendments to existing ones to address the gap. These will be vetted by the ACL executive committee.
* Adjudication: Once policies are clarified or established, the incident is adjudicated according to the new understanding or the newly established policy.
* Record Keeping: When a policy is amended, the ACL community should be informed of the identified policy gap, the amendments, and the steps taken to address it without revealing confidential details of the specific incident. The ACL publication ethics committee will maintain a confidential record of the misconduct and the actions taken.

== Appeals ==

A Complainant or Respondent dissatisfied with the outcome of a case may appeal to the ACL Executive Committee, which has the discretion to order a new investigation by other committee members and/or by an external consultant.

== Training and Resources ==

PEC co-chairs will provide virtual training for new members and ensure policies are linked to submission pages.

== References ==

[[ACL Conflict-of-interest policy]]
[[Anti-Harassment Policy]]
[[ACL Policy on Publication Ethics]]

ACL Policy on Publication Ethics

2025-05-05T06:08:59Z

Leondz: 2025 04 25 updates; point added, Co-ordinated disclosure, plus clarifying edits

<hr/>

''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-06-15, 2025-04-25; Authored by Cahill, A., Derczynski, L., & Jaidka, K.''

<hr/>

It is important for members of the ACL community, especially authors and reviewers, to understand ACL’s position on publication ethics, which is described in this document.

ACL is a scientific and professional society for people working on computational problems involving human language. Since the ACL deals with reviewing and publishing research, it is important to be clear about what publication practices are considered ethical.

This policy draws upon multiple authoritative sources, including [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Policy], [https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy], [https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy], [https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM 2024 Policy], the [https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) guidelines], [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX], and others. [[#References]] are provided below.

The goal of this policy is to provide a fair publication process and to prevent harm, as defined by [https://publicationethics.org/ ACM/COPE]. Subsections below provide [[#Definitions]], outline the [[#Scope]], define the [[#Policies]], and provide references for other issues.

See also [[Process for ACL Publication Ethics Review]].

== Members ==

=== Co-chairs ===
* Aoife Cahill (2024 - )
* Leon Derczynski (2024 - )
* Kokil Jaidka (2024 - )

=== General members ===
Svetlana Churina (2024 - )

== Definitions ==

'''Reviewer'''

Reviewer refers to people writing peer reviews of manuscripts submitted for consideration to ACL venues.

'''Editor'''

Editor refers to people involved in making a decision about a submitted manuscript’s rejection, acceptance, scheduling, or format, but not writing direct (i.e. non-meta) reviews. Editors include action editors, area chairs, senior area chairs, programme chairs, and similar roles.

'''Convener'''

A person who arranges meetings of groups or committees, for example conferences or workshops.

'''Author'''

Any person named in the “Authors” field of a submission.

'''Works'''

Author-created material submitted for review or created for presentation. This includes manuscripts as well as appendices, presentations, code, datasets, videos, images, etc.

'''Conflict of interest'''

The ACL definitions of a conflict of interest are detailed at the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]] page.

'''ACL Venues'''

The superset of ACL submission, reviewing, and publication venues, including: ACL Rolling Review; ACL main conference; ACL Regional body main conferences; ACL SIG conferences; workshops at these conferences; TACL; CL.

'''Generative tools'''

Here we include text and image generation tools, commonly referred to as generative AI tools, trained on massive datasets to generate multimedia outputs. These can be privacy-preserving or non-privacy preserving. An example of a non-privacy preserving tool is a text or image generation tool, that stores input data for a commercial purpose, and is typically hosted on remote servers managed by third-party companies. An example of a privacy-preserving tool is a text and image generation tool that doesn’t store input data.

== Scope ==

This policy applies to works submitted to, reviewed by, published at, and presented at ACL venues. This includes all default versions of works in the ACL Anthology at any time (usually the most recent revision).

== Policies ==

=== Conflicts of Interest ===

Authors, reviewers, and editors must confidentially disclose all relevant affiliations and relationships that may constitute conflicts of interest at the time of submission. Review and publication must follow the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]].

=== Authorship ===

Following existing [[Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers|ACL policies]] and the [https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html Vancouver Convention on Authorship], authorship of ACL papers must be based on the following 4 criteria:

a. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

b. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

c. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

d. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who meet some but not all of the four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve authorship status for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criteria (b) or (c). Persons who have contributed to one point must be invited to participate in the others; for example, someone who comes up with or conducts experiments must be invited to draft/revise and approve the final document.

Authors must follow the [https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers] as well as venue-specific policies.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Authorship ====

Authors are responsible for all content submitted. Authors should familiarize themselves with the ACL policy on [[#Plagiarism]] detailed below, based on the [https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE guidelines].

Generative AI tools and technologies may not be listed as authors of a submission, and any use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content should instead be fully disclosed in the Acknowledgements section - for instance, “Section 3 was written with inputs from ChatGPT.”

If and when required to use LLMs to support their research, authors are encouraged to use ethically-sourced and open models. Guidelines for appropriate use of generative assistance follow.

a. Assistance purely with the language of the paper. This covers models used for paraphrasing or polishing the author’s original content, rather than for suggesting new content—similar to tools like grammar checkers, spell checkers, dictionaries, and synonym tools. The use of tools that only assist with proofreading, like grammar or spell checkers, does not need to be disclosed.

b. Short-form input assistance. This covers predictive keyboards or tools that offer suggestions during typing, that might be powered by generative language models. The use of such tools does not need to be disclosed.

c. Literature search. This covers search assistants, e.g., to identify relevant literature. The usual requirements for citation accuracy and thoroughness of literature reviews apply.

d. Low-novelty text. This covers the automatic generation of text about pre-existing ideas. Authors should specify where such automatically generated text was used, and convince the reviewers that the generation was checked to be accurate and is accompanied by relevant and appropriate citations. If the generation copies text from existing work, the publication ethics policy applies to that text. Authors need (for example) to acknowledge all relevant citations: both the source of the text used and the source of the idea(s).

e. New ideas. This covers when generative model output reads to the authors as new research ideas that would deserve co-authorship or acknowledgment from a human colleague (e.g., topics to discuss, framing of the problem), which the authors then develop themselves. As with all new ideas, the authors should conduct a literature search to determine relevant prior work and cite to ensure proper credit. The authors should disclose if models were used in this manner.

f. New ideas + new text: ACL does not consider a generative model to be an entity that can fulfill the requirements of co-authorship.

==== Prior Publication ====

These guidelines recognize that it is common in technical publishing for material to be presented at various stages of its evolution. As one example, this can take the form of publishing early ideas in a workshop, more developed work in a conference, and fully developed contributions as journal articles. This publication process is an important means of scientific communication. The editor of a publication may choose to re-publish existing material for a variety of reasons, including promoting wider distribution and serving readers by aggregating special material in a single publication. This practice continues to be recognized and accepted by the ACL. At the same time, the ACL requires that this evolutionary process be fully referenced by the author.

Authors submitting articles must disclose whether there are prior publications, e.g., conference articles, by the authors that are similar, whether published or submitted. They must also include information that very clearly states how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s). Such articles should be cited in the submitted article in a manner that maintains author anonymity.

Note the point below on [[#Text Re-use]], where there is a limit to how much material may be re-used across papers.

==== Consent of Content Holders ====

The ACL assumes that material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination for the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the ACL, to determine if disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties. If prior consent is required, authors must obtain permission before article submission.

==== Plagiarism ====

ACL defines plagiarism as using someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and considered a serious breach of professional conduct.

Plagiarism manifests itself in a variety of forms, including:

a. verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying (including translation), or intentionally paraphrasing substantive portions of prior or under-review work without proper attribution

b. using automated tools that rephrase existing work as one's own text without proper attribution to the original author(s)

c. self-plagiarism, or copying elements of another prior or under-review work, such as equations, tables, charts, illustrations, presentations, or photographs that are not common knowledge, or copying or intentionally paraphrasing sentences without proper or complete source citation, even if the works have a common author

d. verbatim copying of portions of another's work with incorrect source citation

Whether a prior article has been formally published is not a factor in determining plagiarism—work not formally published may still be plagiarized. This includes content provided online in preprints, tutorials, manuals, and essays, as well as offline content in any form. The representation of any other person's material as one's own work is plagiarism.

==== Text Re-use ====

An article submitted for publication to ACL should be original work submitted to a single ACL venue.

Recycling of material in a new document happens when the material in the new document is identical, or substantially equivalent in both form and content, to that of the source. At times, it may be necessary for authors to recycle portions of their own previously published work or to include another author’s material.

When an author recycles text, charts, photographs, or other graphics from his/her own previously published material, the author shall:

a. Adhere to all copyright policies, clearly indicate all recycled material and provide a full reference to the original publication of the material (anonymized if necessary).

b. If the previously published or submitted material is used as a basis for a new submission, clearly indicate how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s).

Due to the volume of submissions received with duplicated content, the overlap threshold is now 10%. This means that there must be no more than a 10% (e.g., in terms of number of tokens) overlap between: (a) the text that a manuscript, at any point in the publication process, presents as original; (b) any other works submitted to ACL venues or published anywhere; and (c) concurrent submissions under review at ACL venues. Author’s own pre-prints are excluded from this limitation. See also the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]].

==== Electronic Posting ====

Authors submitting manuscripts for review should be aware of the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]]. The policy applies to authors who post part or all of a submitted manuscript on a Web site.

==== Dual Submission ====

Authors should follow the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]]. Articles submitted for consideration should not have been published previously and should not be concurrently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must disclose all prior publication(s) and current submissions when submitting an article. At the venue chairs’ discretion, some forms of submission articles may be exempted from this rule.

==== Author Conduct ====

Authors should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process. Attempts by authors to deanonymize reviewers, editors, or any works, or otherwise compromise the fairness of the review process are not permitted. Authors are expected to follow the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]] for Authors.

Violating the expected behavior standards of a venue, which requires that interactions be free from harassment, bullying, discrimination, and retaliation across all forms of presentation as outlined in the Scope, may be referred to the [[Professional_Conduct_Committee|ACL Professional Conduct Committee]].

==== Co-ordinated disclosure ====

Works describing new ways of making models or other technologies behave in an unintended and potentially harmful way, e.g. papers documenting security vulnerabilities or weaknesses, may only be published at ACL venues as part of co-ordinated disclosure. This requires that authors attempt to contact the technology developers first, and give a reasonable but limited amount of time for them to address the problem and notify their communities of the problem, before openly publishing the weakness anywhere. An example of the process is given in this [https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/engaging-security-researchers-embracing-see-something-say-something-culture CISA blog post].

For these kinds of works within the scope of the policy:

a. Only cases where a specific and previously unpublished adversarial technique is used to elicit a harm are covered by this policy. For example, if some model behaves badly "out of the box", without using an adversarial technique, then there's no vulnerability.

b. At least 30 days be given between notifying the technology developers and the first publication (e.g. on preprint server or the ACL Anthology). This period may run concurrently with the review process.

c. The disclosure process must be documented.

d. Documentation of disclosure should include at a minimum who was contacted, by which means they were contacted, on which dates, and on which dates there was a response (if any).

e. Works detailing new (i.e. previously not public) security weaknesses/failures without any documentation of co-ordinated disclosure may be in breach of policy.

f. This policy may not be applied to works published before this policy comes into effect (date tba), even if a work in scope appears to have contravened it.

=== Content of Submitted, Published, or Presented Material ===

This subsection applies to all ACL works and serves as guidelines for relevant decisions made by the person responsible for the publication, as well as the PEC for issues raised post-publication.

==== Content Guidelines ====

The discussion of technical matters will continue to be the primary function of forums provided by ACL. The following guidelines clarify the characteristics of allowable content in ACL works:

a. Technical, i.e. empirical and theoretical, articles accepted for inclusion in ACL publications shall comprise scientific content.

b. Any nontechnical content or material in an article accepted for publication is expected to be essential to the technical content of that article (for example, content that extends, supports, or provides relevant background). Author(s) shall state how the nontechnical content or material contributes to the article.

c. Acknowledgments of data consent and approval by stakeholders or subjects is allowed. Acknowledgments of contributors who are not authors of the article, such as in a footnote or an acknowledgments section, shall be limited to statements relative to funding sources, as well as technical or material contributions from individuals or organizations. Acknowledgments for technical or material contributions (such as developing instrumentation for collecting data) should briefly explain how such contributions are essential to the article's technical content.

d. If any political opinions are expressed which also follow this policy and this set of guidelines, an Acknowledgments section must clarify that these are the opinions of the author(s), and no endorsement by ACL, its officials, or its members is implied. For political opinions beyond these guidelines, see (b) above.

e. Submissions should follow the [https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines].

f. Automatically generated text follows the policy given in the Authorship section above.

g. For content about broader impact, see below.

Examples of unallowable content include changes to the content of the paper during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content; conjecture, unless relevant to the presented research supported by citations; illegal content; potentially harmful content, unless preceded by a warning and gap (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]); toxic content/inflammatory writing/hate speech unless it is a necessary scientific example (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]).

==== Societal Impact ====

Technical developments can profoundly impact society. Social conditions also shape the course of technical developments. It is, therefore, often appropriate to include discussions of the social aspects related to the technical content in the author’s work. It is also possible that the discussion of pertinent interrelated social, economic, and technical aspects leads to political conclusions on the author's part. Like other aspects of the paper’s content, discussions of social impact will be subject to peer review and may be referred to the ACL PEC process.

Discussions of societal impact should adhere to the following guidelines:

a. '''Relevance:''' The subject matter should be relevant to the ACL fields of interest and their impact on society. If the relevance or appropriateness is not self-evident from the author’s presentation, it should be made clear by adding a suitable introductory statement.

b. '''Implications:''' Implications, including political conclusions, where discussed, should be contextualized to their relevance to a specific research problem.

c. '''Limitations:''' Limitations and perspectives counter to the authors’ conclusions must be made clear if they are not self-evident. Inferences from the findings, whether technical (e.g., LLM’s beam search algorithms as a source of bias) or sociopolitical (e.g., race or culture as a source of differences in findings) should be appropriately hedged.

==== Harmful Content ====

The term ‘harmful’ refers to content that creates a risk of harm (e.g., hate speech as a cause of harm). In practice, whether a form of content presents a hazard depends on a range of intersecting factors, including the nature of the content; the immediate and broader context; the historical setting; where it comes from; who it is directed at; and who encounters it. Small differences in these factors can make a substantial difference, and not all content that presents a risk of harm will actually inflict harm in every case. We adopt the position that harmful content both constitutes harm in-of-itself (i.e., it is harmful because of its intrinsic features) and causes harm because of the substantial risk of detrimental effects on individuals, groups, or societies ([Kirk et al. 2022 https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/]).

Examples of harmful material include hate speech, misinformation, depictions of crime and violence, and accounts of trauma.

Harmful material may only be included in works if:

a. It is legal to do so in the ACL jurisdiction (USA)

b. It is relevant to the technical content of the submission

c. Doing so enhances the exposition of the content

d. Inclusion follows guidelines for handling and presenting harmful content (see [Kirk et al., 2022 https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/])

e. It is preceded by a warning and consumers are provided sufficient opportunities to avoid the harmful content.

=== Reviewing ===

Peer review assists editors in making publication decisions and, through the communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers are expected to follow the [[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Guidelines for Reviewers]].

==== Reviewer Conduct ====

a. Reviewers and editors are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of any paper and additional materials submitted as part of the review process.

b. Any reviewer or editor who identifies a conflict of interest should notify the venue chairs and decline to review the manuscript.

c. c. Any selected reviewer who is unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and decline to participate in the review process.

d. Collusion, where the reviewer or editor might deliberately collude with authors or others to manipulate the review process unfairly, is forbidden.

e. Reviewers and editors must not attempt to manipulate citations, which includes asking authors to cite the reviewer’s or editor’s work (or that of their associates) unnecessarily.

f. Reviewers and editors must never disclose or reveal any personal information about authors with the intention to target them (doxxing), which could undermine the anonymity and integrity of the review process.

g. Reviewers and editors must not participate in any form of bullying, harassment, discrimination, or retaliation towards authors or other participants in the review process.

h. Reviewers and editors must not use confidential information from a reviewed manuscript for personal advantage before the information is publicly available, including leveraging research ideas or data.

i. Secondary reviewers, if any, should first be officially added to the reviewing system before they are invited to provide a review, and they must similarly treat the manuscript as a confidential document.

j. Reviewers and editors must report observed discrepancies or signs of potential author, reviewer, or editor misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, data misuse, or duplicate submission to the designated channels.

k. Reviewers should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process.

l. Reviewers and editors must complete their work to a high professional standard. Examples of low-quality work include but are not limited to: conflicting information, such as negative review comments with a high positive score; unsubstantiated score values; high confidence on insubstantial commentary.

m. Reviewers and editors must follow venue-specific reviewing guidelines.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Peer Review ====

The reviewer has to read the paper fully and write the content and argument of the review by themselves, subject to the secondary reviewer policy described above, and it is not permitted to use generative assistance to create the first draft. This requirement extends to the meta-review, and the reviewer has to write any meaningful argumentation in the meta-review by themselves.

Generative assistance should be used responsibly. For instance, it is reasonable to use writing assistance to paraphrase the review, e.g. to help reviewers who are not native speakers of English. It is also reasonable to use tools that help to check proofs.

Neither reviewers nor editors should upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a non-privacy preserving generative tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and intellectual property rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, neither reviewers nor editors may upload their peer review report into a non-privacy preserving generative tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

=== Convening ===

Reasonable efforts should be made by editors and, in conference and workshop settings, conveners, to provide discussion that includes differing viewpoints as adjudicated feasible. This must also be taken into consideration by the ACL venue program chairs.

== Other Issues ==

Issues not covered by existing policy but going against policy goals can be referred to the PEC. The PEC may add policy and take measures regarding issues not covered by policy but going against policy goals. Referred cases may be sent onwards to the appropriate committee.

== Handling of Articles from Authors in Embargoed Countries ==

As a US-based organization, policy on handling works from authors in embargoed countries follows the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control ([https://ofac.treasury.gov/ OFAC]).

== References ==
[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance]

[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/review-acl23/#faq-can-i-use-ai-writing-assistants-to-write-my-review|ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance (FAQ)]]

[[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL Anti-Harassment Policy]]

[[ACL_Author_Guidelines|ACL Author Guidelines]]

[https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines]

[[ACL_Policies_for_Review_and_Citation|ACL Policies for Review and Citation]]

[[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Reviewer Guidelines]]

[[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|Double Submission Policy for Conferences]]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy on Authorship]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism-overview ACM Policy on Plagiarism, Misrepresentation, and Falsification]

[[Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers|Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers]]

[https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE)]

[https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics#3-duties-of-reviewers Elsevier: Duties of Reviewers]

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41262-020-00217-3 Journal of Brand Management: Editorial Guidelines and Expectations of Authors]

[https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Submission and Peer Review Policies]

[https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/PSPB/opsmanual.pdf IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual]

[https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM Code of Conduct]

[https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html ICMJE: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors]

[https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE: Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers]

[https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/ Kirk, H. R., Birhane, A., Vidgen, B., & Derczynski, L. (2022). Handling and Presenting Harmful Text in NLP Research. In Findings of EMNLP. Association for Computational Linguistics.]

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX: Instructions for Presenters]

<hr />

Canonical PDF of the policy: [[:file: ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf | ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf]]

ACL Policy on Publication Ethics

2025-02-26T07:14:56Z

Leondz: link to process doc

<hr/>

''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-06-15; Authored by Cahill, A., Derczynski, L., & Jaidka, K.''

<hr/>

It is important for members of the ACL community, especially authors and reviewers, to understand ACL’s position on publication ethics, which is described in this document.

ACL is a scientific and professional society for people working on computational problems involving human language. Since the ACL deals with reviewing and publishing research, it is important to be clear about what publication practices are considered ethical.

This policy draws upon multiple authoritative sources, including [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Policy], [https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy], [https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy], [https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM 2024 Policy], the [https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) guidelines], [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX], and others. [[#References]] are provided below.

The goal of this policy is to provide a fair publication process and to prevent harm, as defined by [https://publicationethics.org/ ACM/COPE]. Subsections below provide [[#Definitions]], outline the [[#Scope]], define the [[#Policies]], and provide references for other issues.

See also [[Process for ACL Publication Ethics Review]].

== Members ==

=== Co-chairs ===
* Aoife Cahill (2024 - )
* Leon Derczynski (2024 - )
* Kokil Jaidka (2024 - )

=== General members ===
Svetlana Churina (2024 - )

== Definitions ==

'''Reviewer'''

Reviewer refers to people writing peer reviews of manuscripts submitted for consideration to ACL venues.

'''Editor'''

Editor refers to people involved in making a decision about a submitted manuscript’s rejection, acceptance, scheduling, or format, but not writing direct (i.e. non-meta) reviews. Editors include action editors, area chairs, senior area chairs, programme chairs, and similar roles.

'''Convener'''

A person who arranges meetings of groups or committees, for example conferences or workshops.

'''Author'''

Any person named in the “Authors” field of a submission.

'''Works'''

Author-created material submitted for review or created for presentation. This includes manuscripts as well as appendices, presentations, code, datasets, videos, images, etc.

'''Conflict of interest'''

The ACL definitions of a conflict of interest are detailed at the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]] page.

'''ACL Venues'''

ACL main conference; ACL Regional body main conferences; ACL SIG conferences; workshops at these conferences; TACL; CL.

'''Generative tools'''

Here we include text and image generation tools, commonly referred to as generative AI tools, trained on massive datasets to generate multimedia outputs. These can be privacy-preserving or non-privacy preserving. An example of a non-privacy preserving tool is a text or image generation tool, that stores input data for a commercial purpose, and is typically hosted on remote servers managed by third-party companies. An example of a privacy-preserving tool is a text and image generation tool that doesn’t store input data.

== Scope ==

This policy applies to works submitted to, reviewed by, published at, and presented at ACL venues.

== Policies ==

=== Conflicts of Interest ===

Authors, reviewers, and editors must confidentially disclose all relevant affiliations and relationships that may constitute conflicts of interest at the time of submission. Review and publication must follow the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]].

=== Authorship ===

Following existing [[Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers|ACL policies]] and the [https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html Vancouver Convention on Authorship], authorship of ACL papers must be based on the following 4 criteria:

a. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

b. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

c. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

d. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who meet some but not all of the four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve authorship status for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criteria (b) or (c). Persons who have contributed to one point must be invited to participate in the others; for example, someone who comes up with or conducts experiments must be invited to draft/revise and approve the final document.

All authors are responsible for any article submitted to, reviewed at, published, or presented in ACL venues.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Authorship ====

Authors are responsible for all content submitted. Authors should familiarize themselves with the ACL policy on [[#Plagiarism]] detailed below, based on the [https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE guidelines].

Generative AI tools and technologies may not be listed as authors of a submission, and any use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content should instead be fully disclosed in the Acknowledgements section - for instance, “Section 3 was written with inputs from ChatGPT.”

If and when required to use LLMs to support their research, authors are encouraged to use ethically-sourced and open models. Guidelines for appropriate use of generative assistance follow.

a. Assistance purely with the language of the paper. This covers models used for paraphrasing or polishing the author’s original content, rather than for suggesting new content—similar to tools like grammar checkers, spell checkers, dictionaries, and synonym tools. The use of tools that only assist with proofreading, like grammar or spell checkers, does not need to be disclosed.

b. Short-form input assistance. This covers predictive keyboards or tools that offer suggestions during typing, that might be powered by generative language models. The use of such tools does not need to be disclosed.

c. Literature search. This covers search assistants, e.g., to identify relevant literature. The usual requirements for citation accuracy and thoroughness of literature reviews apply.

d. Low-novelty text. This covers the automatic generation of text about pre-existing ideas. Authors should specify where such automatically generated text was used, and convince the reviewers that the generation was checked to be accurate and is accompanied by relevant and appropriate citations. If the generation copies text from existing work, the publication ethics policy applies to that text. Authors need (for example) to acknowledge all relevant citations: both the source of the text used and the source of the idea(s).

e. New ideas. This covers when generative model output reads to the authors as new research ideas that would deserve co-authorship or acknowledgment from a human colleague (e.g., topics to discuss, framing of the problem), which the authors then develop themselves. As with all new ideas, the authors should conduct a literature search to determine relevant prior work and cite to ensure proper credit. The authors should disclose if models were used in this manner.

f. New ideas + new text: ACL does not consider a generative model to be an entity that can fulfill the requirements of co-authorship.

==== Prior Publication ====

These guidelines recognize that it is common in technical publishing for material to be presented at various stages of its evolution. As one example, this can take the form of publishing early ideas in a workshop, more developed work in a conference, and fully developed contributions as journal articles. This publication process is an important means of scientific communication. The editor of a publication may choose to re-publish existing material for a variety of reasons, including promoting wider distribution and serving readers by aggregating special material in a single publication. This practice continues to be recognized and accepted by the ACL. At the same time, the ACL requires that this evolutionary process be fully referenced by the author.

Authors submitting articles must disclose whether there are prior publications, e.g., conference articles, by the authors that are similar, whether published or submitted. They must also include information that very clearly states how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s). Such articles should be cited in the submitted article in a manner that maintains author anonymity.

Note the point below on [[#Text Re-use]], where there is a limit to how much material may be re-used across papers.

==== Consent of Content Holders ====

The ACL assumes that material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination for the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the ACL, to determine if disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties. If prior consent is required, authors must obtain permission before article submission.

==== Plagiarism ====

ACL defines plagiarism as using someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and considered a serious breach of professional conduct.

Plagiarism manifests itself in a variety of forms, including:

a. verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying (including translation), or intentionally paraphrasing substantive portions of prior or under-review work without proper attribution

b. using automated tools that rephrase existing work as one's own text without proper attribution to the original author(s)

c. self-plagiarism, or copying elements of another prior or under-review work, such as equations, tables, charts, illustrations, presentations, or photographs that are not common knowledge, or copying or intentionally paraphrasing sentences without proper or complete source citation, even if the works have a common author

d. verbatim copying of portions of another's work with incorrect source citation

Whether a prior article has been formally published is not a factor in determining plagiarism—work not formally published may still be plagiarized. This includes content provided online in preprints, tutorials, manuals, and essays, as well as offline content in any form. The representation of any other person's material as one's own work is plagiarism.

==== Text Re-use ====

An article submitted for publication to ACL should be original work submitted to a single ACL venue.

Recycling of material in a new document happens when the material in the new document is identical, or substantially equivalent in both form and content, to that of the source. At times, it may be necessary for authors to recycle portions of their own previously published work or to include another author’s material.

When an author recycles text, charts, photographs, or other graphics from his/her own previously published material, the author shall:

a. Adhere to all copyright policies, clearly indicate all recycled material and provide a full reference to the original publication of the material (anonymized if necessary).

b. If the previously published or submitted material is used as a basis for a new submission, clearly indicate how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s).

Due to the volume of submissions received with duplicated content, the overlap threshold is now 10%. This means that there must be no more than a 10% (e.g., in terms of number of tokens) overlap between: (a) the text that a manuscript, at any point in the publication process, presents as original; (b) any other works submitted to ACL venues or published anywhere; and (c) concurrent submissions under review at ACL venues. Author’s own pre-prints are excluded from this limitation. See also the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]].

==== Electronic Posting ====

Authors submitting manuscripts for review should be aware of the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]]. The policy applies to authors who post part or all of a submitted manuscript on a Web site.

==== Dual Submission ====

Authors should follow the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]]. Articles submitted for consideration should not have been published previously and should not be concurrently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must disclose all prior publication(s) and current submissions when submitting an article. At the venue chairs’ discretion, some forms of submission articles may be exempted from this rule.

==== Author Conduct ====

Authors should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process. Attempts by authors to deanonymize reviewers, editors, or any works, or otherwise compromise the fairness of the review process are not permitted. Authors are expected to follow the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]] for Authors.

Violating the expected behavior standards of a venue, which requires that interactions be free from harassment, bullying, discrimination, and retaliation across all forms of presentation as outlined in the Scope, may be referred to the [[Professional_Conduct_Committee|ACL Professional Conduct Committee]].

=== Content of Submitted, Published, or Presented Material ===

This subsection applies to all ACL works and serves as guidelines for relevant decisions made by the person responsible for the publication, as well as the PEC for issues raised post-publication.

==== Content Guidelines ====

The discussion of technical matters will continue to be the primary function of forums provided by ACL. The following guidelines clarify the characteristics of allowable content in ACL works:

a. Technical, i.e. empirical and theoretical, articles accepted for inclusion in ACL publications shall comprise scientific content.

b. Any nontechnical content or material in an article accepted for publication is expected to be essential to the technical content of that article (for example, content that extends, supports, or provides relevant background). Author(s) shall state how the nontechnical content or material contributes to the article.

c. Acknowledgments of data consent and approval by stakeholders or subjects is allowed. Acknowledgments of contributors who are not authors of the article, such as in a footnote or an acknowledgments section, shall be limited to statements relative to funding sources, as well as technical or material contributions from individuals or organizations. Acknowledgments for technical or material contributions (such as developing instrumentation for collecting data) should briefly explain how such contributions are essential to the article's technical content.

d. If any political opinions are expressed which also follow this policy and this set of guidelines, an Acknowledgments section must clarify that these are the opinions of the author(s), and no endorsement by ACL, its officials, or its members is implied. For political opinions beyond these guidelines, see (b) above.

e. Submissions should follow the [https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines].

f. Automatically generated text follows the policy given in the Authorship section above.

g. For content about broader impact, see below.

Examples of unallowable content include changes to the content of the paper during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content; conjecture, unless relevant to the presented research supported by citations; illegal content; potentially harmful content, unless preceded by a warning and gap (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]); toxic content/inflammatory writing/hate speech unless it is a necessary scientific example (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]).

==== Societal Impact ====

Technical developments can profoundly impact society. Social conditions also shape the course of technical developments. It is, therefore, often appropriate to include discussions of the social aspects related to the technical content in the author’s work. It is also possible that the discussion of pertinent interrelated social, economic, and technical aspects leads to political conclusions on the author's part. Like other aspects of the paper’s content, discussions of social impact will be subject to peer review and may be referred to the ACL PEC process.

Discussions of societal impact should adhere to the following guidelines:

a. '''Relevance:''' The subject matter should be relevant to the ACL fields of interest and their impact on society. If the relevance or appropriateness is not self-evident from the author’s presentation, it should be made clear by adding a suitable introductory statement.

b. '''Implications:''' Implications, including political conclusions, where discussed, should be contextualized to their relevance to a specific research problem.

c. '''Limitations:''' Limitations and perspectives counter to the authors’ conclusions must be made clear if they are not self-evident. Inferences from the findings, whether technical (e.g., LLM’s beam search algorithms as a source of bias) or sociopolitical (e.g., race or culture as a source of differences in findings) should be appropriately hedged.

==== Harmful Content ====

The term ‘harmful’ refers to content that creates a risk of harm (e.g., hate speech as a cause of harm). In practice, whether a form of content presents a hazard depends on a range of intersecting factors, including the nature of the content; the immediate and broader context; the historical setting; where it comes from; who it is directed at; and who encounters it. Small differences in these factors can make a substantial difference, and not all content that presents a risk of harm will actually inflict harm in every case. We adopt the position that harmful content both constitutes harm in-of-itself (i.e., it is harmful because of its intrinsic features) and causes harm because of the substantial risk of detrimental effects on individuals, groups, or societies (Kirk et al. 2022).

Examples of harmful material include hate speech, misinformation, depictions of crime and violence, and accounts of trauma.

Harmful material may only be included in works if:

a. It is legal to do so in the ACL jurisdiction (USA)

b. It is relevant to the technical content of the submission

c. Doing so enhances the exposition of the content

d. Inclusion follows guidelines for handling and presenting harmful content (see Kirk et al., 2022)

e. It is preceded by a warning and consumers are provided sufficient opportunities to avoid the harmful content.

=== Reviewing ===

Peer review assists editors in making publication decisions and, through the communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers are expected to follow the [[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Guidelines for Reviewers]].

==== Reviewer Conduct ====

a. Reviewers and editors are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of any paper and additional materials submitted as part of the review process.

b. Any reviewer or editor who identifies a conflict of interest should notify the venue chairs and decline to review the manuscript.

c. Any selected reviewer 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 decline to participate in the review process.

d. Collusion, where the reviewer or editor might deliberately collude with authors or others to manipulate the review process unfairly, is forbidden.

e. Reviewers and editors must not attempt to manipulate citations, which includes asking authors to cite the reviewer’s or editor’s work (or that of their associates) unnecessarily.

f. Reviewers and editors must never disclose or reveal any personal information about authors with the intention to target them (doxxing), which could undermine the anonymity and integrity of the review process.

g. Reviewers and editors must not participate in any form of bullying, harassment, discrimination, or retaliation towards authors or other participants in the review process.

h. Reviewers and editors must not use confidential information from a reviewed manuscript for personal advantage before the information is publicly available, including leveraging research ideas or data.

i. Secondary reviewers, if any, should first be officially added to the reviewing system before they are invited to provide a review, and they must similarly treat the manuscript as a confidential document.

j. Reviewers and editors must report observed discrepancies or signs of potential author, reviewer, or editor misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, data misuse, or duplicate submission to the designated channels.

k. Reviewers should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Peer Review ====

The reviewer has to read the paper fully and write the content and argument of the review by themselves, subject to the secondary reviewer policy described above, and it is not permitted to use generative assistance to create the first draft. This requirement extends to the meta-review, and the reviewer has to write any meaningful argumentation in the meta-review by themselves.

Generative assistance should be used responsibly. For instance, it is reasonable to use writing assistance to paraphrase the review, e.g. to help reviewers who are not native speakers of English. It is also reasonable to use tools that help to check proofs.

Neither reviewers nor editors should upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a non-privacy preserving generative tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and intellectual property rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, neither reviewers nor editors may upload their peer review report into a non-privacy preserving generative tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

=== Convening ===

Reasonable efforts should be made by editors and, in conference and workshop settings, conveners, to provide discussion that includes differing viewpoints as adjudicated feasible. This must also be taken into consideration by the ACL venue program chairs.

== Other Issues ==

Issues not covered by existing policy but going against policy goals can be referred to the PEC. The PEC may add policy and take measures regarding issues not covered by policy but going against policy goals. Referred cases may be sent onwards to the appropriate committee.

== Handling of Articles from Authors in Embargoed Countries ==

As a US-based organization, policy on handling works from authors in embargoed countries follows the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control ([https://ofac.treasury.gov/ OFAC]).

== References ==
[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance]

[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/review-acl23/#faq-can-i-use-ai-writing-assistants-to-write-my-review|ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance (FAQ)]]

[[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL Anti-Harassment Policy]]

[[ACL_Author_Guidelines|ACL Author Guidelines]]

[https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines]

[[ACL_Policies_for_Review_and_Citation|ACL Policies for Review and Citation]]

[[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Reviewer Guidelines]]

[[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|Double Submission Policy for Conferences]]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy on Authorship]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism-overview ACM Policy on Plagiarism, Misrepresentation, and Falsification]

[[Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers|Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers]]

[https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE)]

[https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics#3-duties-of-reviewers Elsevier: Duties of Reviewers]

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41262-020-00217-3 Journal of Brand Management: Editorial Guidelines and Expectations of Authors]

[https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Submission and Peer Review Policies]

[https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/PSPB/opsmanual.pdf IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual]

[https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM Code of Conduct]

[https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html ICMJE: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors]

[https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE: Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers]

[https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/ Kirk, H. R., Birhane, A., Vidgen, B., & Derczynski, L. (2022). Handling and Presenting Harmful Text in NLP Research. In Findings of EMNLP. Association for Computational Linguistics.]

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX: Instructions for Presenters]

<hr />

Canonical PDF of the policy: [[:file: ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf | ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf]]

ACL Policy on Publication Ethics

2024-06-19T11:30:03Z

Leondz:

<hr/>

''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-06-15''

<hr/>

It is important for members of the ACL community, especially authors and reviewers, to understand ACL’s position on publication ethics, which is described in this document.

ACL is a scientific and professional society for people working on computational problems involving human language. Since the ACL deals with reviewing and publishing research, it is important to be clear about what publication practices are considered ethical.

This policy draws upon multiple authoritative sources, including [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Policy], [https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy], [https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy], [https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM 2024 Policy], the [https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) guidelines], [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX], and others. [[#References]] are provided below.

The goal of this policy is to provide a fair publication process and to prevent harm, as defined by [https://publicationethics.org/ ACM/COPE]. Subsections below provide [[#Definitions]], outline the [[#Scope]], define the [[#Policies]], and provide references for other issues.

* Aoife Cahill
* Leon Derczynski
* Kokil Jaidka

– Publication Ethics Committee co-chairs, June 2024

(Authors listed in order of surname, alphabetical)

== Definitions ==

'''Reviewer'''

Reviewer refers to people writing peer reviews of manuscripts submitted for consideration to ACL venues.

'''Editor'''

Editor refers to people involved in making a decision about a submitted manuscript’s rejection, acceptance, scheduling, or format, but not writing direct (i.e. non-meta) reviews. Editors include action editors, area chairs, senior area chairs, programme chairs, and similar roles.

'''Convener'''

A person who arranges meetings of groups or committees, for example conferences or workshops.

'''Author'''

Any person named in the “Authors” field of a submission.

'''Works'''

Author-created material submitted for review or created for presentation. This includes manuscripts as well as appendices, presentations, code, datasets, videos, images, etc.

'''Conflict of interest'''

The ACL definitions of a conflict of interest are detailed at the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]] page.

'''ACL Venues'''

ACL main conference; ACL Regional body main conferences; ACL SIG conferences; workshops at these conferences; TACL; CL.

'''Generative tools'''

Here we include text and image generation tools, commonly referred to as generative AI tools, trained on massive datasets to generate multimedia outputs. These can be privacy-preserving or non-privacy preserving. An example of a non-privacy preserving tool is a text or image generation tool, that stores input data for a commercial purpose, and is typically hosted on remote servers managed by third-party companies. An example of a privacy-preserving tool is a text and image generation tool that doesn’t store input data.

== Scope ==

This policy applies to works submitted to, reviewed by, published at, and presented at ACL venues.

== Policies ==

=== Conflicts of Interest ===

Authors, reviewers, and editors must confidentially disclose all relevant affiliations and relationships that may constitute conflicts of interest at the time of submission. Review and publication must follow the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]].

=== Authorship ===

Following existing [[Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers|ACL policies]] and the [https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html Vancouver Convention on Authorship], authorship of ACL papers must be based on the following 4 criteria:

a. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

b. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

c. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

d. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who meet some but not all of the four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve authorship status for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criteria (b) or (c). Persons who have contributed to one point must be invited to participate in the others; for example, someone who comes up with or conducts experiments must be invited to draft/revise and approve the final document.

All authors are responsible for any article submitted to, reviewed at, published, or presented in ACL venues.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Authorship ====

Authors are responsible for all content submitted. Authors should familiarize themselves with the ACL policy on [[#Plagiarism]] detailed below, based on the [https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE guidelines].

Generative AI tools and technologies may not be listed as authors of a submission, and any use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content should instead be fully disclosed in the Acknowledgements section - for instance, “Section 3 was written with inputs from ChatGPT.”

If and when required to use LLMs to support their research, authors are encouraged to use ethically-sourced and open models. Guidelines for appropriate use of generative assistance follow.

a. Assistance purely with the language of the paper. This covers models used for paraphrasing or polishing the author’s original content, rather than for suggesting new content—similar to tools like grammar checkers, spell checkers, dictionaries, and synonym tools. The use of tools that only assist with proofreading, like grammar or spell checkers, does not need to be disclosed.

b. Short-form input assistance. This covers predictive keyboards or tools that offer suggestions during typing, that might be powered by generative language models. The use of such tools does not need to be disclosed.

c. Literature search. This covers search assistants, e.g., to identify relevant literature. The usual requirements for citation accuracy and thoroughness of literature reviews apply.

d. Low-novelty text. This covers the automatic generation of text about pre-existing ideas. Authors should specify where such automatically generated text was used, and convince the reviewers that the generation was checked to be accurate and is accompanied by relevant and appropriate citations. If the generation copies text from existing work, the publication ethics policy applies to that text. Authors need (for example) to acknowledge all relevant citations: both the source of the text used and the source of the idea(s).

e. New ideas. This covers when generative model output reads to the authors as new research ideas that would deserve co-authorship or acknowledgment from a human colleague (e.g., topics to discuss, framing of the problem), which the authors then develop themselves. As with all new ideas, the authors should conduct a literature search to determine relevant prior work and cite to ensure proper credit. The authors should disclose if models were used in this manner.

f. New ideas + new text: ACL does not consider a generative model to be an entity that can fulfill the requirements of co-authorship.

==== Prior Publication ====

These guidelines recognize that it is common in technical publishing for material to be presented at various stages of its evolution. As one example, this can take the form of publishing early ideas in a workshop, more developed work in a conference, and fully developed contributions as journal articles. This publication process is an important means of scientific communication. The editor of a publication may choose to re-publish existing material for a variety of reasons, including promoting wider distribution and serving readers by aggregating special material in a single publication. This practice continues to be recognized and accepted by the ACL. At the same time, the ACL requires that this evolutionary process be fully referenced by the author.

Authors submitting articles must disclose whether there are prior publications, e.g., conference articles, by the authors that are similar, whether published or submitted. They must also include information that very clearly states how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s). Such articles should be cited in the submitted article in a manner that maintains author anonymity.

Note the point below on [[#Text Re-use]], where there is a limit to how much material may be re-used across papers.

==== Consent of Content Holders ====

The ACL assumes that material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination for the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the ACL, to determine if disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties. If prior consent is required, authors must obtain permission before article submission.

==== Plagiarism ====

ACL defines plagiarism as using someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and considered a serious breach of professional conduct.

Plagiarism manifests itself in a variety of forms, including:

a. verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying (including translation), or intentionally paraphrasing substantive portions of prior or under-review work without proper attribution

b. using automated tools that rephrase existing work as one's own text without proper attribution to the original author(s)

c. self-plagiarism, or copying elements of another prior or under-review work, such as equations, tables, charts, illustrations, presentations, or photographs that are not common knowledge, or copying or intentionally paraphrasing sentences without proper or complete source citation, even if the works have a common author

d. verbatim copying of portions of another's work with incorrect source citation

Whether a prior article has been formally published is not a factor in determining plagiarism—work not formally published may still be plagiarized. This includes content provided online in preprints, tutorials, manuals, and essays, as well as offline content in any form. The representation of any other person's material as one's own work is plagiarism.

==== Text Re-use ====

An article submitted for publication to ACL should be original work submitted to a single ACL venue.

Recycling of material in a new document happens when the material in the new document is identical, or substantially equivalent in both form and content, to that of the source. At times, it may be necessary for authors to recycle portions of their own previously published work or to include another author’s material.

When an author recycles text, charts, photographs, or other graphics from his/her own previously published material, the author shall:

a. Adhere to all copyright policies, clearly indicate all recycled material and provide a full reference to the original publication of the material (anonymized if necessary).

b. If the previously published or submitted material is used as a basis for a new submission, clearly indicate how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s).

Due to the volume of submissions received with duplicated content, the overlap threshold is now 10%. This means that there must be no more than a 10% (e.g., in terms of number of tokens) overlap between: (a) the text that a manuscript, at any point in the publication process, presents as original; (b) any other works submitted to ACL venues or published anywhere; and (c) concurrent submissions under review at ACL venues. Author’s own pre-prints are excluded from this limitation. See also the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]].

==== Electronic Posting ====

Authors submitting manuscripts for review should be aware of the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]]. The policy applies to authors who post part or all of a submitted manuscript on a Web site.

==== Dual Submission ====

Authors should follow the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]]. Articles submitted for consideration should not have been published previously and should not be concurrently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must disclose all prior publication(s) and current submissions when submitting an article. At the venue chairs’ discretion, some forms of submission articles may be exempted from this rule.

==== Author Conduct ====

Authors should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process. Attempts by authors to deanonymize reviewers, editors, or any works, or otherwise compromise the fairness of the review process are not permitted. Authors are expected to follow the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]] for Authors.

Violating the expected behavior standards of a venue, which requires that interactions be free from harassment, bullying, discrimination, and retaliation across all forms of presentation as outlined in the Scope, may be referred to the [[Professional_Conduct_Committee|ACL Professional Conduct Committee]].

=== Content of Submitted, Published, or Presented Material ===

This subsection applies to all ACL works and serves as guidelines for relevant decisions made by the person responsible for the publication, as well as the PEC for issues raised post-publication.

==== Content Guidelines ====

The discussion of technical matters will continue to be the primary function of forums provided by ACL. The following guidelines clarify the characteristics of allowable content in ACL works:

a. Technical, i.e. empirical and theoretical, articles accepted for inclusion in ACL publications shall comprise scientific content.

b. Any nontechnical content or material in an article accepted for publication is expected to be essential to the technical content of that article (for example, content that extends, supports, or provides relevant background). Author(s) shall state how the nontechnical content or material contributes to the article.

c. Acknowledgments of data consent and approval by stakeholders or subjects is allowed. Acknowledgments of contributors who are not authors of the article, such as in a footnote or an acknowledgments section, shall be limited to statements relative to funding sources, as well as technical or material contributions from individuals or organizations. Acknowledgments for technical or material contributions (such as developing instrumentation for collecting data) should briefly explain how such contributions are essential to the article's technical content.

d. If any political opinions are expressed which also follow this policy and this set of guidelines, an Acknowledgments section must clarify that these are the opinions of the author(s), and no endorsement by ACL, its officials, or its members is implied. For political opinions beyond these guidelines, see (b) above.

e. Submissions should follow the [https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines].

f. Automatically generated text follows the policy given in the Authorship section above.

g. For content about broader impact, see below.

Examples of unallowable content include changes to the content of the paper during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content; conjecture, unless relevant to the presented research supported by citations; illegal content; potentially harmful content, unless preceded by a warning and gap (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]); toxic content/inflammatory writing/hate speech unless it is a necessary scientific example (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]).

==== Societal Impact ====

Technical developments can profoundly impact society. Social conditions also shape the course of technical developments. It is, therefore, often appropriate to include discussions of the social aspects related to the technical content in the author’s work. It is also possible that the discussion of pertinent interrelated social, economic, and technical aspects leads to political conclusions on the author's part. Like other aspects of the paper’s content, discussions of social impact will be subject to peer review and may be referred to the ACL PEC process.

Discussions of societal impact should adhere to the following guidelines:

a. '''Relevance:''' The subject matter should be relevant to the ACL fields of interest and their impact on society. If the relevance or appropriateness is not self-evident from the author’s presentation, it should be made clear by adding a suitable introductory statement.

b. '''Implications:''' Implications, including political conclusions, where discussed, should be contextualized to their relevance to a specific research problem.

c. '''Limitations:''' Limitations and perspectives counter to the authors’ conclusions must be made clear if they are not self-evident. Inferences from the findings, whether technical (e.g., LLM’s beam search algorithms as a source of bias) or sociopolitical (e.g., race or culture as a source of differences in findings) should be appropriately hedged.

==== Harmful Content ====

The term ‘harmful’ refers to content that creates a risk of harm (e.g., hate speech as a cause of harm). In practice, whether a form of content presents a hazard depends on a range of intersecting factors, including the nature of the content; the immediate and broader context; the historical setting; where it comes from; who it is directed at; and who encounters it. Small differences in these factors can make a substantial difference, and not all content that presents a risk of harm will actually inflict harm in every case. We adopt the position that harmful content both constitutes harm in-of-itself (i.e., it is harmful because of its intrinsic features) and causes harm because of the substantial risk of detrimental effects on individuals, groups, or societies (Kirk et al. 2022).

Examples of harmful material include hate speech, misinformation, depictions of crime and violence, and accounts of trauma.

Harmful material may only be included in works if:

a. It is legal to do so in the ACL jurisdiction (USA)

b. It is relevant to the technical content of the submission

c. Doing so enhances the exposition of the content

d. Inclusion follows guidelines for handling and presenting harmful content (see Kirk et al., 2022)

e. It is preceded by a warning and consumers are provided sufficient opportunities to avoid the harmful content.

=== Reviewing ===

Peer review assists editors in making publication decisions and, through the communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers are expected to follow the [[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Guidelines for Reviewers]].

==== Reviewer Conduct ====

a. Reviewers and editors are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of any paper and additional materials submitted as part of the review process.

b. Any reviewer or editor who identifies a conflict of interest should notify the venue chairs and decline to review the manuscript.

c. Any selected reviewer 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 decline to participate in the review process.

d. Collusion, where the reviewer or editor might deliberately collude with authors or others to manipulate the review process unfairly, is forbidden.

e. Reviewers and editors must not attempt to manipulate citations, which includes asking authors to cite the reviewer’s or editor’s work (or that of their associates) unnecessarily.

f. Reviewers and editors must never disclose or reveal any personal information about authors with the intention to target them (doxxing), which could undermine the anonymity and integrity of the review process.

g. Reviewers and editors must not participate in any form of bullying, harassment, discrimination, or retaliation towards authors or other participants in the review process.

h. Reviewers and editors must not use confidential information from a reviewed manuscript for personal advantage before the information is publicly available, including leveraging research ideas or data.

i. Secondary reviewers, if any, should first be officially added to the reviewing system before they are invited to provide a review, and they must similarly treat the manuscript as a confidential document.

j. Reviewers and editors must report observed discrepancies or signs of potential author, reviewer, or editor misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, data misuse, or duplicate submission to the designated channels.

k. Reviewers should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Peer Review ====

The reviewer has to read the paper fully and write the content and argument of the review by themselves, subject to the secondary reviewer policy described above, and it is not permitted to use generative assistance to create the first draft. This requirement extends to the meta-review, and the reviewer has to write any meaningful argumentation in the meta-review by themselves.

Generative assistance should be used responsibly. For instance, it is reasonable to use writing assistance to paraphrase the review, e.g. to help reviewers who are not native speakers of English. It is also reasonable to use tools that help to check proofs.

Neither reviewers nor editors should upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a non-privacy preserving generative tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and intellectual property rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, neither reviewers nor editors may upload their peer review report into a non-privacy preserving generative tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

=== Convening ===

Reasonable efforts should be made by editors and, in conference and workshop settings, conveners, to provide discussion that includes differing viewpoints as adjudicated feasible. This must also be taken into consideration by the ACL venue program chairs.

== Other Issues ==

Issues not covered by existing policy but going against policy goals can be referred to the PEC. The PEC may add policy and take measures regarding issues not covered by policy but going against policy goals. Referred cases may be sent onwards to the appropriate committee.

== Handling of Articles from Authors in Embargoed Countries ==

As a US-based organization, policy on handling works from authors in embargoed countries follows the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control ([https://ofac.treasury.gov/ OFAC]).

== References ==
[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance]

[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/review-acl23/#faq-can-i-use-ai-writing-assistants-to-write-my-review|ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance (FAQ)]]

[[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL Anti-Harassment Policy]]

[[ACL_Author_Guidelines|ACL Author Guidelines]]

[https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines]

[[ACL_Policies_for_Review_and_Citation|ACL Policies for Review and Citation]]

[[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Reviewer Guidelines]]

[[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|Double Submission Policy for Conferences]]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy on Authorship]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism-overview ACM Policy on Plagiarism, Misrepresentation, and Falsification]

[[Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers|Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers]]

[https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE)]

[https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics#3-duties-of-reviewers Elsevier: Duties of Reviewers]

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41262-020-00217-3 Journal of Brand Management: Editorial Guidelines and Expectations of Authors]

[https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Submission and Peer Review Policies]

[https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/PSPB/opsmanual.pdf IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual]

[https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM Code of Conduct]

[https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html ICMJE: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors]

[https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE: Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers]

[https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/ Kirk, H. R., Birhane, A., Vidgen, B., & Derczynski, L. (2022). Handling and Presenting Harmful Text in NLP Research. In Findings of EMNLP. Association for Computational Linguistics.]

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX: Instructions for Presenters]

<hr />

Canonical PDF of the policy: [[:file: ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf | ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf]]

ACL Policy on Publication Ethics

2024-06-19T11:26:58Z

Leondz: tidy up preamble

ACL Policy on Publication Ethics
<hr/>

''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-06-15''

PDF: [[:file: ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf | ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf]]

<hr/>

It is important for members of the ACL community, especially authors and reviewers, to understand ACL’s position on publication ethics, which is described in this document.

ACL is a scientific and professional society for people working on computational problems involving human language. Since the ACL deals with reviewing and publishing research, it is important to be clear about what publication practices are considered ethical.

This policy draws upon multiple authoritative sources, including [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Policy], [https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy], [https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy], [https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM 2024 Policy], the [https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) guidelines], [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX], and others. [[#References]] are provided below.

The goal of this policy is to provide a fair publication process and to prevent harm, as defined by [https://publicationethics.org/ ACM/COPE]. Subsections below provide [[#Definitions]], outline the [[#Scope]], define the [[#Policies]], and provide references for other issues.

* Aoife Cahill
* Leon Derczynski
* Kokil Jaidka

– Publication Ethics Committee co-chairs, June 2024

(Authors listed in order of surname, alphabetical)

== Definitions ==

'''Reviewer'''

Reviewer refers to people writing peer reviews of manuscripts submitted for consideration to ACL venues.

'''Editor'''

Editor refers to people involved in making a decision about a submitted manuscript’s rejection, acceptance, scheduling, or format, but not writing direct (i.e. non-meta) reviews. Editors include action editors, area chairs, senior area chairs, programme chairs, and similar roles.

'''Convener'''

A person who arranges meetings of groups or committees, for example conferences or workshops.

'''Author'''

Any person named in the “Authors” field of a submission.

'''Works'''

Author-created material submitted for review or created for presentation. This includes manuscripts as well as appendices, presentations, code, datasets, videos, images, etc.

'''Conflict of interest'''

The ACL definitions of a conflict of interest are detailed at the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]] page.

'''ACL Venues'''

ACL main conference; ACL Regional body main conferences; ACL SIG conferences; workshops at these conferences; TACL; CL.

'''Generative tools'''

Here we include text and image generation tools, commonly referred to as generative AI tools, trained on massive datasets to generate multimedia outputs. These can be privacy-preserving or non-privacy preserving. An example of a non-privacy preserving tool is a text or image generation tool, that stores input data for a commercial purpose, and is typically hosted on remote servers managed by third-party companies. An example of a privacy-preserving tool is a text and image generation tool that doesn’t store input data.

== Scope ==

This policy applies to works submitted to, reviewed by, published at, and presented at ACL venues.

== Policies ==

=== Conflicts of Interest ===

Authors, reviewers, and editors must confidentially disclose all relevant affiliations and relationships that may constitute conflicts of interest at the time of submission. Review and publication must follow the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]].

=== Authorship ===

Following existing [[Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers|ACL policies]] and the [https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html Vancouver Convention on Authorship], authorship of ACL papers must be based on the following 4 criteria:

a. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

b. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

c. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

d. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who meet some but not all of the four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve authorship status for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criteria (b) or (c). Persons who have contributed to one point must be invited to participate in the others; for example, someone who comes up with or conducts experiments must be invited to draft/revise and approve the final document.

All authors are responsible for any article submitted to, reviewed at, published, or presented in ACL venues.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Authorship ====

Authors are responsible for all content submitted. Authors should familiarize themselves with the ACL policy on [[#Plagiarism]] detailed below, based on the [https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE guidelines].

Generative AI tools and technologies may not be listed as authors of a submission, and any use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content should instead be fully disclosed in the Acknowledgements section - for instance, “Section 3 was written with inputs from ChatGPT.”

If and when required to use LLMs to support their research, authors are encouraged to use ethically-sourced and open models. Guidelines for appropriate use of generative assistance follow.

a. Assistance purely with the language of the paper. This covers models used for paraphrasing or polishing the author’s original content, rather than for suggesting new content—similar to tools like grammar checkers, spell checkers, dictionaries, and synonym tools. The use of tools that only assist with proofreading, like grammar or spell checkers, does not need to be disclosed.

b. Short-form input assistance. This covers predictive keyboards or tools that offer suggestions during typing, that might be powered by generative language models. The use of such tools does not need to be disclosed.

c. Literature search. This covers search assistants, e.g., to identify relevant literature. The usual requirements for citation accuracy and thoroughness of literature reviews apply.

d. Low-novelty text. This covers the automatic generation of text about pre-existing ideas. Authors should specify where such automatically generated text was used, and convince the reviewers that the generation was checked to be accurate and is accompanied by relevant and appropriate citations. If the generation copies text from existing work, the publication ethics policy applies to that text. Authors need (for example) to acknowledge all relevant citations: both the source of the text used and the source of the idea(s).

e. New ideas. This covers when generative model output reads to the authors as new research ideas that would deserve co-authorship or acknowledgment from a human colleague (e.g., topics to discuss, framing of the problem), which the authors then develop themselves. As with all new ideas, the authors should conduct a literature search to determine relevant prior work and cite to ensure proper credit. The authors should disclose if models were used in this manner.

f. New ideas + new text: ACL does not consider a generative model to be an entity that can fulfill the requirements of co-authorship.

==== Prior Publication ====

These guidelines recognize that it is common in technical publishing for material to be presented at various stages of its evolution. As one example, this can take the form of publishing early ideas in a workshop, more developed work in a conference, and fully developed contributions as journal articles. This publication process is an important means of scientific communication. The editor of a publication may choose to re-publish existing material for a variety of reasons, including promoting wider distribution and serving readers by aggregating special material in a single publication. This practice continues to be recognized and accepted by the ACL. At the same time, the ACL requires that this evolutionary process be fully referenced by the author.

Authors submitting articles must disclose whether there are prior publications, e.g., conference articles, by the authors that are similar, whether published or submitted. They must also include information that very clearly states how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s). Such articles should be cited in the submitted article in a manner that maintains author anonymity.

Note the point below on [[#Text Re-use]], where there is a limit to how much material may be re-used across papers.

==== Consent of Content Holders ====

The ACL assumes that material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination for the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the ACL, to determine if disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties. If prior consent is required, authors must obtain permission before article submission.

==== Plagiarism ====

ACL defines plagiarism as using someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and considered a serious breach of professional conduct.

Plagiarism manifests itself in a variety of forms, including:

a. verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying (including translation), or intentionally paraphrasing substantive portions of prior or under-review work without proper attribution

b. using automated tools that rephrase existing work as one's own text without proper attribution to the original author(s)

c. self-plagiarism, or copying elements of another prior or under-review work, such as equations, tables, charts, illustrations, presentations, or photographs that are not common knowledge, or copying or intentionally paraphrasing sentences without proper or complete source citation, even if the works have a common author

d. verbatim copying of portions of another's work with incorrect source citation

Whether a prior article has been formally published is not a factor in determining plagiarism—work not formally published may still be plagiarized. This includes content provided online in preprints, tutorials, manuals, and essays, as well as offline content in any form. The representation of any other person's material as one's own work is plagiarism.

==== Text Re-use ====

An article submitted for publication to ACL should be original work submitted to a single ACL venue.

Recycling of material in a new document happens when the material in the new document is identical, or substantially equivalent in both form and content, to that of the source. At times, it may be necessary for authors to recycle portions of their own previously published work or to include another author’s material.

When an author recycles text, charts, photographs, or other graphics from his/her own previously published material, the author shall:

a. Adhere to all copyright policies, clearly indicate all recycled material and provide a full reference to the original publication of the material (anonymized if necessary).

b. If the previously published or submitted material is used as a basis for a new submission, clearly indicate how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s).

Due to the volume of submissions received with duplicated content, the overlap threshold is now 10%. This means that there must be no more than a 10% (e.g., in terms of number of tokens) overlap between: (a) the text that a manuscript, at any point in the publication process, presents as original; (b) any other works submitted to ACL venues or published anywhere; and (c) concurrent submissions under review at ACL venues. Author’s own pre-prints are excluded from this limitation. See also the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]].

==== Electronic Posting ====

Authors submitting manuscripts for review should be aware of the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]]. The policy applies to authors who post part or all of a submitted manuscript on a Web site.

==== Dual Submission ====

Authors should follow the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]]. Articles submitted for consideration should not have been published previously and should not be concurrently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must disclose all prior publication(s) and current submissions when submitting an article. At the venue chairs’ discretion, some forms of submission articles may be exempted from this rule.

==== Author Conduct ====

Authors should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process. Attempts by authors to deanonymize reviewers, editors, or any works, or otherwise compromise the fairness of the review process are not permitted. Authors are expected to follow the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]] for Authors.

Violating the expected behavior standards of a venue, which requires that interactions be free from harassment, bullying, discrimination, and retaliation across all forms of presentation as outlined in the Scope, may be referred to the [[Professional_Conduct_Committee|ACL Professional Conduct Committee]].

=== Content of Submitted, Published, or Presented Material ===

This subsection applies to all ACL works and serves as guidelines for relevant decisions made by the person responsible for the publication, as well as the PEC for issues raised post-publication.

==== Content Guidelines ====

The discussion of technical matters will continue to be the primary function of forums provided by ACL. The following guidelines clarify the characteristics of allowable content in ACL works:

a. Technical, i.e. empirical and theoretical, articles accepted for inclusion in ACL publications shall comprise scientific content.

b. Any nontechnical content or material in an article accepted for publication is expected to be essential to the technical content of that article (for example, content that extends, supports, or provides relevant background). Author(s) shall state how the nontechnical content or material contributes to the article.

c. Acknowledgments of data consent and approval by stakeholders or subjects is allowed. Acknowledgments of contributors who are not authors of the article, such as in a footnote or an acknowledgments section, shall be limited to statements relative to funding sources, as well as technical or material contributions from individuals or organizations. Acknowledgments for technical or material contributions (such as developing instrumentation for collecting data) should briefly explain how such contributions are essential to the article's technical content.

d. If any political opinions are expressed which also follow this policy and this set of guidelines, an Acknowledgments section must clarify that these are the opinions of the author(s), and no endorsement by ACL, its officials, or its members is implied. For political opinions beyond these guidelines, see (b) above.

e. Submissions should follow the [https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines].

f. Automatically generated text follows the policy given in the Authorship section above.

g. For content about broader impact, see below.

Examples of unallowable content include changes to the content of the paper during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content; conjecture, unless relevant to the presented research supported by citations; illegal content; potentially harmful content, unless preceded by a warning and gap (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]); toxic content/inflammatory writing/hate speech unless it is a necessary scientific example (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]).

==== Societal Impact ====

Technical developments can profoundly impact society. Social conditions also shape the course of technical developments. It is, therefore, often appropriate to include discussions of the social aspects related to the technical content in the author’s work. It is also possible that the discussion of pertinent interrelated social, economic, and technical aspects leads to political conclusions on the author's part. Like other aspects of the paper’s content, discussions of social impact will be subject to peer review and may be referred to the ACL PEC process.

Discussions of societal impact should adhere to the following guidelines:

a. '''Relevance:''' The subject matter should be relevant to the ACL fields of interest and their impact on society. If the relevance or appropriateness is not self-evident from the author’s presentation, it should be made clear by adding a suitable introductory statement.

b. '''Implications:''' Implications, including political conclusions, where discussed, should be contextualized to their relevance to a specific research problem.

c. '''Limitations:''' Limitations and perspectives counter to the authors’ conclusions must be made clear if they are not self-evident. Inferences from the findings, whether technical (e.g., LLM’s beam search algorithms as a source of bias) or sociopolitical (e.g., race or culture as a source of differences in findings) should be appropriately hedged.

==== Harmful Content ====

The term ‘harmful’ refers to content that creates a risk of harm (e.g., hate speech as a cause of harm). In practice, whether a form of content presents a hazard depends on a range of intersecting factors, including the nature of the content; the immediate and broader context; the historical setting; where it comes from; who it is directed at; and who encounters it. Small differences in these factors can make a substantial difference, and not all content that presents a risk of harm will actually inflict harm in every case. We adopt the position that harmful content both constitutes harm in-of-itself (i.e., it is harmful because of its intrinsic features) and causes harm because of the substantial risk of detrimental effects on individuals, groups, or societies (Kirk et al. 2022).

Examples of harmful material include hate speech, misinformation, depictions of crime and violence, and accounts of trauma.

Harmful material may only be included in works if:

a. It is legal to do so in the ACL jurisdiction (USA)

b. It is relevant to the technical content of the submission

c. Doing so enhances the exposition of the content

d. Inclusion follows guidelines for handling and presenting harmful content (see Kirk et al., 2022)

e. It is preceded by a warning and consumers are provided sufficient opportunities to avoid the harmful content.

=== Reviewing ===

Peer review assists editors in making publication decisions and, through the communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers are expected to follow the [[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Guidelines for Reviewers]].

==== Reviewer Conduct ====

a. Reviewers and editors are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of any paper and additional materials submitted as part of the review process.

b. Any reviewer or editor who identifies a conflict of interest should notify the venue chairs and decline to review the manuscript.

c. Any selected reviewer 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 decline to participate in the review process.

d. Collusion, where the reviewer or editor might deliberately collude with authors or others to manipulate the review process unfairly, is forbidden.

e. Reviewers and editors must not attempt to manipulate citations, which includes asking authors to cite the reviewer’s or editor’s work (or that of their associates) unnecessarily.

f. Reviewers and editors must never disclose or reveal any personal information about authors with the intention to target them (doxxing), which could undermine the anonymity and integrity of the review process.

g. Reviewers and editors must not participate in any form of bullying, harassment, discrimination, or retaliation towards authors or other participants in the review process.

h. Reviewers and editors must not use confidential information from a reviewed manuscript for personal advantage before the information is publicly available, including leveraging research ideas or data.

i. Secondary reviewers, if any, should first be officially added to the reviewing system before they are invited to provide a review, and they must similarly treat the manuscript as a confidential document.

j. Reviewers and editors must report observed discrepancies or signs of potential author, reviewer, or editor misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, data misuse, or duplicate submission to the designated channels.

k. Reviewers should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Peer Review ====

The reviewer has to read the paper fully and write the content and argument of the review by themselves, subject to the secondary reviewer policy described above, and it is not permitted to use generative assistance to create the first draft. This requirement extends to the meta-review, and the reviewer has to write any meaningful argumentation in the meta-review by themselves.

Generative assistance should be used responsibly. For instance, it is reasonable to use writing assistance to paraphrase the review, e.g. to help reviewers who are not native speakers of English. It is also reasonable to use tools that help to check proofs.

Neither reviewers nor editors should upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a non-privacy preserving generative tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and intellectual property rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, neither reviewers nor editors may upload their peer review report into a non-privacy preserving generative tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

=== Convening ===

Reasonable efforts should be made by editors and, in conference and workshop settings, conveners, to provide discussion that includes differing viewpoints as adjudicated feasible. This must also be taken into consideration by the ACL venue program chairs.

== Other Issues ==

Issues not covered by existing policy but going against policy goals can be referred to the PEC. The PEC may add policy and take measures regarding issues not covered by policy but going against policy goals. Referred cases may be sent onwards to the appropriate committee.

== Handling of Articles from Authors in Embargoed Countries ==

As a US-based organization, policy on handling works from authors in embargoed countries follows the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control ([https://ofac.treasury.gov/ OFAC]).

== References ==
[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance]

[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/review-acl23/#faq-can-i-use-ai-writing-assistants-to-write-my-review|ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance (FAQ)]]

[[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL Anti-Harassment Policy]]

[[ACL_Author_Guidelines|ACL Author Guidelines]]

[https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines]

[[ACL_Policies_for_Review_and_Citation|ACL Policies for Review and Citation]]

[[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Reviewer Guidelines]]

[[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|Double Submission Policy for Conferences]]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy on Authorship]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism-overview ACM Policy on Plagiarism, Misrepresentation, and Falsification]

[[Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers|Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers]]

[https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE)]

[https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics#3-duties-of-reviewers Elsevier: Duties of Reviewers]

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41262-020-00217-3 Journal of Brand Management: Editorial Guidelines and Expectations of Authors]

[https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Submission and Peer Review Policies]

[https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/PSPB/opsmanual.pdf IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual]

[https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM Code of Conduct]

[https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html ICMJE: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors]

[https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE: Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers]

[https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/ Kirk, H. R., Birhane, A., Vidgen, B., & Derczynski, L. (2022). Handling and Presenting Harmful Text in NLP Research. In Findings of EMNLP. Association for Computational Linguistics.]

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX: Instructions for Presenters]

ACL Policy on Publication Ethics

2024-06-19T11:25:59Z

Leondz: align section numbering w/ pdf

ACL Policy on Publication Ethics
<hr/>

''Approved by the ACL Exec, 2024-06-15''

original file: [[:file: ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf | ACL_Publication_Ethics_Policy.pdf]]

It is important for members of the ACL community, especially authors and reviewers, to understand ACL’s position on publication ethics, which is described in this document.

ACL is a scientific and professional society for people working on computational problems involving human language. Since the ACL deals with reviewing and publishing research, it is important to be clear about what publication practices are considered ethical.

This policy draws upon multiple authoritative sources, including [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Policy], [https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy], [https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy], [https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM 2024 Policy], the [https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) guidelines], [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX], and others. [[#References]] are provided below.

The goal of this policy is to provide a fair publication process and to prevent harm, as defined by [https://publicationethics.org/ ACM/COPE]. Subsections below provide [[#Definitions]], outline the [[#Scope]], define the [[#Policies]], and provide references for other issues.

Aoife Cahill

Leon Derczynski

Kokil Jaidka

– Publication Ethics Committee co-chairs, June 2024

(Authors listed in order of surname, alphabetical)

== Definitions ==

'''Reviewer'''

Reviewer refers to people writing peer reviews of manuscripts submitted for consideration to ACL venues.

'''Editor'''

Editor refers to people involved in making a decision about a submitted manuscript’s rejection, acceptance, scheduling, or format, but not writing direct (i.e. non-meta) reviews. Editors include action editors, area chairs, senior area chairs, programme chairs, and similar roles.

'''Convener'''

A person who arranges meetings of groups or committees, for example conferences or workshops.

'''Author'''

Any person named in the “Authors” field of a submission.

'''Works'''

Author-created material submitted for review or created for presentation. This includes manuscripts as well as appendices, presentations, code, datasets, videos, images, etc.

'''Conflict of interest'''

The ACL definitions of a conflict of interest are detailed at the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]] page.

'''ACL Venues'''

ACL main conference; ACL Regional body main conferences; ACL SIG conferences; workshops at these conferences; TACL; CL.

'''Generative tools'''

Here we include text and image generation tools, commonly referred to as generative AI tools, trained on massive datasets to generate multimedia outputs. These can be privacy-preserving or non-privacy preserving. An example of a non-privacy preserving tool is a text or image generation tool, that stores input data for a commercial purpose, and is typically hosted on remote servers managed by third-party companies. An example of a privacy-preserving tool is a text and image generation tool that doesn’t store input data.

== Scope ==

This policy applies to works submitted to, reviewed by, published at, and presented at ACL venues.

== Policies ==

=== Conflicts of Interest ===

Authors, reviewers, and editors must confidentially disclose all relevant affiliations and relationships that may constitute conflicts of interest at the time of submission. Review and publication must follow the [[ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy]].

=== Authorship ===

Following existing [[Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers|ACL policies]] and the [https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html Vancouver Convention on Authorship], authorship of ACL papers must be based on the following 4 criteria:

a. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

b. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

c. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

d. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who meet some but not all of the four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve authorship status for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criteria (b) or (c). Persons who have contributed to one point must be invited to participate in the others; for example, someone who comes up with or conducts experiments must be invited to draft/revise and approve the final document.

All authors are responsible for any article submitted to, reviewed at, published, or presented in ACL venues.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Authorship ====

Authors are responsible for all content submitted. Authors should familiarize themselves with the ACL policy on [[#Plagiarism]] detailed below, based on the [https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE guidelines].

Generative AI tools and technologies may not be listed as authors of a submission, and any use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content should instead be fully disclosed in the Acknowledgements section - for instance, “Section 3 was written with inputs from ChatGPT.”

If and when required to use LLMs to support their research, authors are encouraged to use ethically-sourced and open models. Guidelines for appropriate use of generative assistance follow.

a. Assistance purely with the language of the paper. This covers models used for paraphrasing or polishing the author’s original content, rather than for suggesting new content—similar to tools like grammar checkers, spell checkers, dictionaries, and synonym tools. The use of tools that only assist with proofreading, like grammar or spell checkers, does not need to be disclosed.

b. Short-form input assistance. This covers predictive keyboards or tools that offer suggestions during typing, that might be powered by generative language models. The use of such tools does not need to be disclosed.

c. Literature search. This covers search assistants, e.g., to identify relevant literature. The usual requirements for citation accuracy and thoroughness of literature reviews apply.

d. Low-novelty text. This covers the automatic generation of text about pre-existing ideas. Authors should specify where such automatically generated text was used, and convince the reviewers that the generation was checked to be accurate and is accompanied by relevant and appropriate citations. If the generation copies text from existing work, the publication ethics policy applies to that text. Authors need (for example) to acknowledge all relevant citations: both the source of the text used and the source of the idea(s).

e. New ideas. This covers when generative model output reads to the authors as new research ideas that would deserve co-authorship or acknowledgment from a human colleague (e.g., topics to discuss, framing of the problem), which the authors then develop themselves. As with all new ideas, the authors should conduct a literature search to determine relevant prior work and cite to ensure proper credit. The authors should disclose if models were used in this manner.

f. New ideas + new text: ACL does not consider a generative model to be an entity that can fulfill the requirements of co-authorship.

==== Prior Publication ====

These guidelines recognize that it is common in technical publishing for material to be presented at various stages of its evolution. As one example, this can take the form of publishing early ideas in a workshop, more developed work in a conference, and fully developed contributions as journal articles. This publication process is an important means of scientific communication. The editor of a publication may choose to re-publish existing material for a variety of reasons, including promoting wider distribution and serving readers by aggregating special material in a single publication. This practice continues to be recognized and accepted by the ACL. At the same time, the ACL requires that this evolutionary process be fully referenced by the author.

Authors submitting articles must disclose whether there are prior publications, e.g., conference articles, by the authors that are similar, whether published or submitted. They must also include information that very clearly states how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s). Such articles should be cited in the submitted article in a manner that maintains author anonymity.

Note the point below on [[#Text Re-use]], where there is a limit to how much material may be re-used across papers.

==== Consent of Content Holders ====

The ACL assumes that material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination for the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the ACL, to determine if disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties. If prior consent is required, authors must obtain permission before article submission.

==== Plagiarism ====

ACL defines plagiarism as using someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and considered a serious breach of professional conduct.

Plagiarism manifests itself in a variety of forms, including:

a. verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying (including translation), or intentionally paraphrasing substantive portions of prior or under-review work without proper attribution

b. using automated tools that rephrase existing work as one's own text without proper attribution to the original author(s)

c. self-plagiarism, or copying elements of another prior or under-review work, such as equations, tables, charts, illustrations, presentations, or photographs that are not common knowledge, or copying or intentionally paraphrasing sentences without proper or complete source citation, even if the works have a common author

d. verbatim copying of portions of another's work with incorrect source citation

Whether a prior article has been formally published is not a factor in determining plagiarism—work not formally published may still be plagiarized. This includes content provided online in preprints, tutorials, manuals, and essays, as well as offline content in any form. The representation of any other person's material as one's own work is plagiarism.

==== Text Re-use ====

An article submitted for publication to ACL should be original work submitted to a single ACL venue.

Recycling of material in a new document happens when the material in the new document is identical, or substantially equivalent in both form and content, to that of the source. At times, it may be necessary for authors to recycle portions of their own previously published work or to include another author’s material.

When an author recycles text, charts, photographs, or other graphics from his/her own previously published material, the author shall:

a. Adhere to all copyright policies, clearly indicate all recycled material and provide a full reference to the original publication of the material (anonymized if necessary).

b. If the previously published or submitted material is used as a basis for a new submission, clearly indicate how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s).

Due to the volume of submissions received with duplicated content, the overlap threshold is now 10%. This means that there must be no more than a 10% (e.g., in terms of number of tokens) overlap between: (a) the text that a manuscript, at any point in the publication process, presents as original; (b) any other works submitted to ACL venues or published anywhere; and (c) concurrent submissions under review at ACL venues. Author’s own pre-prints are excluded from this limitation. See also the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]].

==== Electronic Posting ====

Authors submitting manuscripts for review should be aware of the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]]. The policy applies to authors who post part or all of a submitted manuscript on a Web site.

==== Dual Submission ====

Authors should follow the [[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|ACL policy on double submission]]. Articles submitted for consideration should not have been published previously and should not be concurrently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must disclose all prior publication(s) and current submissions when submitting an article. At the venue chairs’ discretion, some forms of submission articles may be exempted from this rule.

==== Author Conduct ====

Authors should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process. Attempts by authors to deanonymize reviewers, editors, or any works, or otherwise compromise the fairness of the review process are not permitted. Authors are expected to follow the [[ACL_Anonymity_Policy|ACL Anonymity Policy]] for Authors.

Violating the expected behavior standards of a venue, which requires that interactions be free from harassment, bullying, discrimination, and retaliation across all forms of presentation as outlined in the Scope, may be referred to the [[Professional_Conduct_Committee|ACL Professional Conduct Committee]].

=== Content of Submitted, Published, or Presented Material ===

This subsection applies to all ACL works and serves as guidelines for relevant decisions made by the person responsible for the publication, as well as the PEC for issues raised post-publication.

==== Content Guidelines ====

The discussion of technical matters will continue to be the primary function of forums provided by ACL. The following guidelines clarify the characteristics of allowable content in ACL works:

a. Technical, i.e. empirical and theoretical, articles accepted for inclusion in ACL publications shall comprise scientific content.

b. Any nontechnical content or material in an article accepted for publication is expected to be essential to the technical content of that article (for example, content that extends, supports, or provides relevant background). Author(s) shall state how the nontechnical content or material contributes to the article.

c. Acknowledgments of data consent and approval by stakeholders or subjects is allowed. Acknowledgments of contributors who are not authors of the article, such as in a footnote or an acknowledgments section, shall be limited to statements relative to funding sources, as well as technical or material contributions from individuals or organizations. Acknowledgments for technical or material contributions (such as developing instrumentation for collecting data) should briefly explain how such contributions are essential to the article's technical content.

d. If any political opinions are expressed which also follow this policy and this set of guidelines, an Acknowledgments section must clarify that these are the opinions of the author(s), and no endorsement by ACL, its officials, or its members is implied. For political opinions beyond these guidelines, see (b) above.

e. Submissions should follow the [https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines].

f. Automatically generated text follows the policy given in the Authorship section above.

g. For content about broader impact, see below.

Examples of unallowable content include changes to the content of the paper during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content; conjecture, unless relevant to the presented research supported by citations; illegal content; potentially harmful content, unless preceded by a warning and gap (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]); toxic content/inflammatory writing/hate speech unless it is a necessary scientific example (see policy on [[#Harmful content]]).

==== Societal Impact ====

Technical developments can profoundly impact society. Social conditions also shape the course of technical developments. It is, therefore, often appropriate to include discussions of the social aspects related to the technical content in the author’s work. It is also possible that the discussion of pertinent interrelated social, economic, and technical aspects leads to political conclusions on the author's part. Like other aspects of the paper’s content, discussions of social impact will be subject to peer review and may be referred to the ACL PEC process.

Discussions of societal impact should adhere to the following guidelines:

a. '''Relevance:''' The subject matter should be relevant to the ACL fields of interest and their impact on society. If the relevance or appropriateness is not self-evident from the author’s presentation, it should be made clear by adding a suitable introductory statement.

b. '''Implications:''' Implications, including political conclusions, where discussed, should be contextualized to their relevance to a specific research problem.

c. '''Limitations:''' Limitations and perspectives counter to the authors’ conclusions must be made clear if they are not self-evident. Inferences from the findings, whether technical (e.g., LLM’s beam search algorithms as a source of bias) or sociopolitical (e.g., race or culture as a source of differences in findings) should be appropriately hedged.

==== Harmful Content ====

The term ‘harmful’ refers to content that creates a risk of harm (e.g., hate speech as a cause of harm). In practice, whether a form of content presents a hazard depends on a range of intersecting factors, including the nature of the content; the immediate and broader context; the historical setting; where it comes from; who it is directed at; and who encounters it. Small differences in these factors can make a substantial difference, and not all content that presents a risk of harm will actually inflict harm in every case. We adopt the position that harmful content both constitutes harm in-of-itself (i.e., it is harmful because of its intrinsic features) and causes harm because of the substantial risk of detrimental effects on individuals, groups, or societies (Kirk et al. 2022).

Examples of harmful material include hate speech, misinformation, depictions of crime and violence, and accounts of trauma.

Harmful material may only be included in works if:

a. It is legal to do so in the ACL jurisdiction (USA)

b. It is relevant to the technical content of the submission

c. Doing so enhances the exposition of the content

d. Inclusion follows guidelines for handling and presenting harmful content (see Kirk et al., 2022)

e. It is preceded by a warning and consumers are provided sufficient opportunities to avoid the harmful content.

=== Reviewing ===

Peer review assists editors in making publication decisions and, through the communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers are expected to follow the [[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Guidelines for Reviewers]].

==== Reviewer Conduct ====

a. Reviewers and editors are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of any paper and additional materials submitted as part of the review process.

b. Any reviewer or editor who identifies a conflict of interest should notify the venue chairs and decline to review the manuscript.

c. Any selected reviewer 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 decline to participate in the review process.

d. Collusion, where the reviewer or editor might deliberately collude with authors or others to manipulate the review process unfairly, is forbidden.

e. Reviewers and editors must not attempt to manipulate citations, which includes asking authors to cite the reviewer’s or editor’s work (or that of their associates) unnecessarily.

f. Reviewers and editors must never disclose or reveal any personal information about authors with the intention to target them (doxxing), which could undermine the anonymity and integrity of the review process.

g. Reviewers and editors must not participate in any form of bullying, harassment, discrimination, or retaliation towards authors or other participants in the review process.

h. Reviewers and editors must not use confidential information from a reviewed manuscript for personal advantage before the information is publicly available, including leveraging research ideas or data.

i. Secondary reviewers, if any, should first be officially added to the reviewing system before they are invited to provide a review, and they must similarly treat the manuscript as a confidential document.

j. Reviewers and editors must report observed discrepancies or signs of potential author, reviewer, or editor misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, data misuse, or duplicate submission to the designated channels.

k. Reviewers should follow the [[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL anti-harassment policy]] during the review and publication process.

==== Guidelines for Generative Assistance in Peer Review ====

The reviewer has to read the paper fully and write the content and argument of the review by themselves, subject to the secondary reviewer policy described above, and it is not permitted to use generative assistance to create the first draft. This requirement extends to the meta-review, and the reviewer has to write any meaningful argumentation in the meta-review by themselves.

Generative assistance should be used responsibly. For instance, it is reasonable to use writing assistance to paraphrase the review, e.g. to help reviewers who are not native speakers of English. It is also reasonable to use tools that help to check proofs.

Neither reviewers nor editors should upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a non-privacy preserving generative tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and intellectual property rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, neither reviewers nor editors may upload their peer review report into a non-privacy preserving generative tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

=== Convening ===

Reasonable efforts should be made by editors and, in conference and workshop settings, conveners, to provide discussion that includes differing viewpoints as adjudicated feasible. This must also be taken into consideration by the ACL venue program chairs.

== Other Issues ==

Issues not covered by existing policy but going against policy goals can be referred to the PEC. The PEC may add policy and take measures regarding issues not covered by policy but going against policy goals. Referred cases may be sent onwards to the appropriate committee.

== Handling of Articles from Authors in Embargoed Countries ==

As a US-based organization, policy on handling works from authors in embargoed countries follows the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control ([https://ofac.treasury.gov/ OFAC]).

== References ==
[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/ACL-2023-policy/ ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance]

[https://2023.aclweb.org/blog/review-acl23/#faq-can-i-use-ai-writing-assistants-to-write-my-review|ACL 2023 Policy on AI Writing Assistance (FAQ)]]

[[Anti-Harassment_Policy|ACL Anti-Harassment Policy]]

[[ACL_Author_Guidelines|ACL Author Guidelines]]

[https://acl-org.github.io/ACLPUB/formatting.html ACL formatting guidelines]

[[ACL_Policies_for_Review_and_Citation|ACL Policies for Review and Citation]]

[[ACL_Reviewer_Guidelines|ACL Reviewer Guidelines]]

[[Double_Submission_Policy_for_Conferences|Double Submission Policy for Conferences]]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship ACM Policy on Authorship]

[https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism-overview ACM Policy on Plagiarism, Misrepresentation, and Falsification]

[[Authorship_Changes_Policy_for_ACL_Conference_Papers|Authorship Changes Policy for ACL Conference Papers]]

[https://publicationethics.org/ Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE)]

[https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics#3-duties-of-reviewers Elsevier: Duties of Reviewers]

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41262-020-00217-3 Journal of Brand Management: Editorial Guidelines and Expectations of Authors]

[https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/become-an-ieee-journal-author/publishing-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-and-peer-review-policies/ IEEE Submission and Peer Review Policies]

[https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/PSPB/opsmanual.pdf IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual]

[https://colmweb.org/CoC.html COLM Code of Conduct]

[https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html ICMJE: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors]

[https://publicationethics.org/node/34581 COPE: Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers]

[https://aclanthology.org/2022.findings-emnlp.35/ Kirk, H. R., Birhane, A., Vidgen, B., & Derczynski, L. (2022). Handling and Presenting Harmful Text in NLP Research. In Findings of EMNLP. Association for Computational Linguistics.]

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/instructions-presenters USENIX: Instructions for Presenters]

SIG Compliance

2023-10-27T14:37:42Z

Leondz: /* SIGSEC: SIG on NLP security */

== Guidelines ==

[http://aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=SIG_Creation_Guidelines ACL SIG Creation Guidelines]

== List of SIGs ==

=== SIGARAB: SIG on Arabic Natural Language Processing ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigarab.org/
'''contacts''': president Nizar Habash (nizar.habash@nyu.edu), secretary Wassim El-Hajj (we07@aub.edu.lb)
'''members''': 427
'''elections (last,next)''': Founded in 2022, elections every two years
'''events''': WANLP 2022 (http://wanlp2022.arabic-nlp.net), OSACT 2022 (https://osact-lrec.github.io/), IWABigDAI (https://sites.google.com/view/arabicbigdata/home)

=== SIGANN: SIG on annotation ===

'''web page''': https://sigann.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Amir Zeldes (amir.zeldes@georgetown.edu), secretary Ines Rehbein (rehbein@uni-mannheim.de)
'''members''': 150
'''elections (last,next)''': Oct. 2021, 2024
'''events''': LAW X at ACL 2016; LAW XI at EACL 2017; Joint Workshop on Linguistic Annotation, Multiword Expressions and Constructions (LAW-MWE-CxG-2018) at Coling; LAW XIII at ACL 2019;, LAW XIV at Coling 2020, LAW XV-DMR III at EMNLP 2021, LAW XVI at LREC 2022

=== SIGBioMed: SIG on biomedical natural language processing ===

'''web page''': http://aclweb.org/aclwiki/SIGBIOMED
'''contacts''': chair Dina Demner-Fushman (ddemner@gmail.com),
secretary Kevin Bretonnel Cohen (Kevin.Cohen@gmail.com)
'''members''': 224
'''elections (last, next)''': June 2022, June 2025
'''events''': Yearly BioNLP workshops

=== SIGDAT: SIG on linguistic data and corpus-based approaches to NLP ===

'''web page''': http://emnlp.org/
'''contacts''': president Mona Diab; Vice President: Isabelle Augenstein; Secretary: Chin-Yew Lin
'''members''': approx. 1200
'''elections (last, next)''': December 2023, December 2024
'''events''': EMNLP every year

=== SIGDIAL: SIG on discourse and dialogue ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigdial.org
'''contacts''': president Gabriel Skantze (skantze@kth.se),
secretary Vikram Ramanarayanan (vramanarayanan@ets.org)
'''members''': 581
'''elections (last, next)''': March 2021, 2023
'''events''': annual conference SIGDIAL; Young Researchers' Roundtable on Spoken Dialog Systems (YRRSDS) annual event co-located with SIGDIAL

=== SIGEDU: SIG on building educational applications ===

'''web page''': https://sig-edu.org/
'''contacts''': president Jill Burstein (jill.burstein@ets.org), secretary Ekaterina Kochmar (Ekaterina.Kochmar@cl.cam.ac.uk)
'''members''': 240
'''elections (last,next)''': March 2021, March 2024
'''events''': Annual Workshops on Innovative Uses of NLP for Building Educational Applications (BEA)

=== SIGEL: SIG on endangered languages ===

'''web page''': https://acl-sigel.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Sarah Moeller (smoeller@ufl.edu), secretary Aditi Chaudhary (aditi138831@gmail.com)
'''members''': 116
'''elections (first,next)''': January 2021, January 2025
'''events''': ComputEL

=== SIGFSM: SIG on ﬁnite state methods and models in natural language processing ===

'''web page''': http://www.aclweb.org/aclwiki/SIGFSM
'''contacts''': president Andreas Maletti (andreas.maletti@uni-leipzig.de),
secretary Bruce Watson (bruce@bruce-watson.com)
'''members''': 131
'''elections (last, next)''': Summer 2020, Summer 2023
'''events''': FSMNLP 2021 (Stellenbosch, South Africa, canceled), FSMNLP 2023 (Stellenbosch, South Africa, canceled)

=== SIGGEN: SIG on natural language generation ===

'''web page''': https://aclweb.org/aclwiki/SIGGEN
'''contacts''': Emiel van Miltenburg (c.w.j.vanmiltenburg@tilburguniversity.edu),
secretary Chenghua Lin (c.lin@sheffield.ac.uk),
'''members''': 490
'''elections (last, next)''': December 2022, December 2024
'''events''': WebNLG 2016 (endorsed); CC-NLG 2016 (endorsed); INLG 2016; CC-NLG 2017 (endorsed); LiRA 2017 (endorsed); RST 2017 (endorsed); XCI 2017 (endorsed); INLG 2017; CC-NLG2018 (endorsed); 2IS&NLG 2018 (endorsed); NLG4HRI 2018 (endorsed); ATA 2018 (endorsed); INLG2018; INLG2019; INLG2020; INLG2021; GEM 2022 workshop (endorsed); NLG4Health 2022 (supported); INLG2022

=== SIGHAN: SIG on Chinese language ===

'''web page''': http://sighan.cs.uchicago.edu
'''contacts''': chair Min Zhang (zhangminmt@hotmail.com),
secretary Gina-Anne Levow (levow@u.washington.edu)
'''members''': 210
'''elections (last, next)''': April 2018, 2021
'''events''': CIPS-SIGHAN 2014; SIGHAN Workshop 2015; SIGHAN Workshop 2017 at IJCNLP 2017

=== SIGHUM: SIG on language technologies for the socio-economic sciences and the humanities ===

'''web page''': https://sighum.wordpress.com/
'''contacts''': president Barbara McGillivray (barbara.mcgillivray@kcl.ac.uk), secretary Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb (s.degaetano@mx.uni-saarland.de), liaison representative Sara Tonelli (satonelli@fbk.eu)
'''members''': 168
'''elections (last, next)''': July 2022, July 2024
'''events''': LaTeCH at ACL 2016; LaTeCH-CLfL at ACL 2017; KnowRSH workshop at RANLP 2017; LaTeCH-CLfL at Coling 2018; Shared tasks in the Digital Humanities (https://sharedtasksinthedh.github.io/); 3rd Joint SIGHUM Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, Humanities and Literature at NAACL 2019, LaTeCH-CLfL 2020, LaTeCH-CLfL 2021, LaTeCH-CLfL 2022, LaTeCH-CLfL 2023.

=== SIGLEX: SIG on the lexicon ===

'''web page''': http://www.siglex.org
'''contacts''': president Steven Bethard (bethard@arizona.edu), secretary Ekaterina Shutova (shutova.e@gmail.com)
'''members''': 450
'''elections (last, next)''': September 2022, August 2024
'''events''': Annual *SEM conference at ACL 2023; Annual SemEval workshop at ACL 2023; Annual MWE workshop at EACL 2023; Additional past sponsored and endorsed events are listed on the [https://aclanthology.org/sigs/siglex/ SIGLEX page of the ACL Anthology]

=== SIGMOL: SIG on mathematics of language ===

'''web page''': http://www.molweb.org
'''contacts''': president Henrik Björklund (henrikb@cs.umu.se), vice president Frank Drewes (drewes@cs.umu.se),
'''members''': 310
'''elections (last, next)''': Feb 2020, mid 2022
'''events''': MOL 2017, July 13–14, 2017 at Queen Mary University of London; MOL 2019, July 18-19, 2017 at Toronto University; MOL 2021, December 2021 as part of Mathematical Linguistics (MALIN 2021, December 10–17, 2021) at University of Montpellier (online)

=== SIGMORPHON: SIG for computational morphology, phonology, and phonetics ===

'''web page''': https://sigmorphon.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Garett Nicolai (nicolai@ualberta.ca), secretary Miikka Silvferberg (Miikka.Silfverberg@helsinki.fi)
'''members''': 175
'''elections (last, next)''': Feb 2021, Feb 2023
'''events''': SIGMORPHON workshop at ACL 2016 including first shared task (Morphological Reinflection); the CoNLL-SIGMORPHON 2017 shared task (Universal Morphological Reinflection) at ACL 2017; SIGMORPHON at EMNLP 2018; the CoNLL-SIGMORPHON 2018 shared task at EMNLP 2018; SIGMORPHON at ACL 2019 including Crosslinguality and Context in Morphology shared task, SIGMORPHON 2020, SIGMORPHON 2021

=== SIGMT: SIG on machine translation ===

'''web page''': https://www.sigmt.org
'''contacts''': president Alexandra Birch (a.birch@ed.ac.uk), Secretary: Antonis Anastasopoulos, North America: Marine Carpuat, Europe: Ondrej Bojar, Asia: Masao Utiyama
'''members''': 180
'''elections (last)''': September 2021
'''events''': WMT conference and SSST workshop each year

=== SIGNLL: SIG on natural language learning ===

'''web page''': http://www.signll.org
'''contacts''': president Julia Hockenmaier (juliahmr@illinois.edu), secretary Afra Alishahi (afra.alishahi@gmail.com)
'''members''': 380
'''elections (last, next)''': August 2018, August 2021
'''events''': CoNLL every year; CoNLL-2017 co-located with ACL; CONLL-2018 co-located with EMNLP 2018; CONLL-2019 co-located with EMNLP 2019, CoNLL-2020 co-located with EMNLP 2020, CoNLL 2021 co-located with EMNLP 2021

=== SIGPARSE: SIG on parsing ===

'''web page''': https://www.sigparse.org
'''contacts''': president Stephan Oepen (oe@ifi.uio.no), secretary Kenji Sagae (sagae@ucdavis.edu),
'''members''': 266
'''elections (last, next)''': April 2019, April 2022
'''events''':IWPT 2015; SPMRL 2015 (endorsed) co-located with IWPT 2015; IWPT 2017 co-located with DepLing; Shared Task on Extrinsic Parser Evaluation (EPE) at IWPT/DepLing 2017; SyntaxFest 2019 (endorsed), IWPT 2020, IWPT 2021

=== SIGREP: SIG on representation learning ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigrep.org
'''contacts''': president Elena Voita (lena-voita@hotmail.com),
secretary Nora Kassner (kassner.nora@gmail.com)
'''members''': 2000
'''elections (last, next)''': October 2022, October 2024
'''events''': Repl4NLP at ACL 2016, ACL 2017, ACL 2018, ACL 2019, ACL 2020, ACL 2021, ACL 2022, ACL 2023

=== SIGSEC: SIG on NLP security ===

'''web page''': https://sig.llmsecurity.net
'''contacts''': Leon Derczynski ld@itu.dk, Muhao Chen, Jekaterina Novikova
'''members''': 124
'''elections (last,next)''': -, 2024
'''events''': fortnightly talks - https://sig.llmsecurity.net/talks/

=== SIGSEM: SIG on computational semantics ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigsem.org
'''contacts''': president Sina Zarrieß (Sina.zarriess@uni-bielefeld.de),
secretary Stergios Chatzikyriakidis (stergios.chatzikyriakidis@uoc.gr)
'''members''': 880
'''elections (last,next)''': summer 2021, 2025
'''events''': IWCS 2015, IWCS 2017, ICWS 2019; Annual *SEM conference (jointly with SIGLEX) at ACL 2016, ACL 2017, NAACL 2018, NAACL 2019, virtual events 2020 and 2021

=== SIGSLAV: SIG on Slavic natural language processing ===

'''web page''': http://sigslav.cs.helsinki.fi/index.html
'''contacts''': chair Tomaz Erjavec (tomaz.erjavec@ijs.si)
secretary Preslav Nakov (pnakov@qf.org.qa)
'''members''': 110
'''elections (first,last)''': Winter 2020, winter 2023
'''events''': BSNLP at RANLP 2015; BSNLP at EACL 2017; Shared Task on Multilingual Named-entity Recognition and Cross-language Name Matching (loosely linked to BSNLP 2017); RUSSE 2018 Shared Task on Word Sense Induction and Disambiguation for the Russian Language; BSNLP at ACL 2019 including Shared Task on Multilingual NER for Slavic languages, BSNLP 2020

=== SIGSLPAT: SIG on speech and language processing for assistive technologies ===

'''web page''': http://www.slpat.org
'''contacts''': president Sarah Ebling (ebling@cl.uzh.ch), vice president Preethi Vaidyanathan (preethi@eyegaze.com), secretary-treasurer Emily Prud'hommeaux (prudhome@bc.edu), student member Zhengjun Yue (z.yue@sheffield.ac.uk)
'''elections (last, next)''': Fall 2020, Fall 2022
'''members''': 160
'''events''': SLPAT16 at Interspeech 2016; RaPID at LREC 2016; SLPAT19 at NAACL 2019; SPAT22 at ACL 2022

=== SIGSLT: SIG on Spoken Language Translation ===

'''web page''': http://www.iwslt.org
'''contacts''': president Marcello Federico (mrcfdr@gmail.com), secretary Sebastian Stüker (sebastian.stueker@kit.edu)
'''members''': 144
'''elections (first,next)''': First Oct 2022, every 2 years
'''events''': IWSLT 2004-2023;

=== SIGSUMM: SIG on Summarization ===

'''web page''': sigsumm.org
'''contacts''': Liaison representative Yue Dong yue.dong@ucr.edu
'''members''': 52
'''elections (first,next)''': first Dec. 2023; every 2 years
'''events''': NewSumm EMNLP Workshop 2023

=== SIGTURK: SIG on Turkic Languages ===

'''web page''': https://sigturk.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Duygu Ataman (ataman@nyu.edu), secretary Sardana Ivanova (sardana.ivanova@helsinki.fi)
'''members''': 95
'''elections (first,next)''': Founded in 2022, elections every year
'''events''': TBA;

=== SIGTYP: SIG on Linguistic Typology ===

'''web page''': https://sigtyp.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Ekaterina Vylomova (ekaterina.vylomova@unimelb.edu.au), secretary Ryan Cotterell (ryan.cotterell@gmail.com)
'''members''': 380
'''elections (first,next)''': tbc
'''events''': First workshop on Typology for Polyglot Natural Language Processing at ACL 2019; Second workshop on Computational Research in Linguistic Typology at EMNLP 2020; Third workshop on Computational Typology and Multilingual NLP at NAACL 2021

=== SIGUR: SIG on Uralic languages ===

'''web page''': https://acl-sigur.github.io/
'''contacts''': chair Tommi A. Pirinen (tommi.antero.pirinen@uni-hamburg.de),
secretary Francis Tyers (ftyers@prompsit.com)
'''members''': 60
'''elections (last, next)''': Jan. 2020, 2022
'''events''': IWCLUL 2017, IWCLUL 2020

=== SIGWAC: SIG on web as corpus ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigwac.org.uk
'''contacts''': presidents: Nikola Ljubešić (nljubesi@gmail.com, Jožef Stefan Institute) and Benoît Sagot (benoit.sagot@inria.fr, INRIA); secretaries: Veronika Laippala (mavela@utu.fi, University of Turku) and Pedro Ortiz Suarez (pedro.ortiz@uni-mannheim.de, Mannheim University)
'''members''': 178
'''elections (last, next)''': January 2022, 2024
'''events''': WAC-X at ACL 2016; WAC-XI at Corpus Linguistics Conference 2017, WAC-XII 2020

=== SIGWrit: SIG on writing systems and written language ===

'''web page''':
'''contacts''': president (pro-temp): Richard Sproat (rws@xoba.com); vice-president (pro-temp): Emily Prud’hommeaux (emilytucker@gmail.com); Secretary-Treasurer (pro-temp): Kyle Gorman (kylebgorman@gmail.com); Student-member (pro-temp): Noah Hermalin (nmhermalin@berkeley.edu)
'''members''': 44 (indicated interest)
'''elections (last, next)''': -, January 2025
'''events''': CAWL at ACL 2023

SIG Compliance

2023-10-27T14:36:50Z

Leondz: /* SIGSEC: SIG on NLP security */

== Guidelines ==

[http://aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=SIG_Creation_Guidelines ACL SIG Creation Guidelines]

== List of SIGs ==

=== SIGARAB: SIG on Arabic Natural Language Processing ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigarab.org/
'''contacts''': president Nizar Habash (nizar.habash@nyu.edu), secretary Wassim El-Hajj (we07@aub.edu.lb)
'''members''': 427
'''elections (last,next)''': Founded in 2022, elections every two years
'''events''': WANLP 2022 (http://wanlp2022.arabic-nlp.net), OSACT 2022 (https://osact-lrec.github.io/), IWABigDAI (https://sites.google.com/view/arabicbigdata/home)

=== SIGANN: SIG on annotation ===

'''web page''': https://sigann.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Amir Zeldes (amir.zeldes@georgetown.edu), secretary Ines Rehbein (rehbein@uni-mannheim.de)
'''members''': 150
'''elections (last,next)''': Oct. 2021, 2024
'''events''': LAW X at ACL 2016; LAW XI at EACL 2017; Joint Workshop on Linguistic Annotation, Multiword Expressions and Constructions (LAW-MWE-CxG-2018) at Coling; LAW XIII at ACL 2019;, LAW XIV at Coling 2020, LAW XV-DMR III at EMNLP 2021, LAW XVI at LREC 2022

=== SIGBioMed: SIG on biomedical natural language processing ===

'''web page''': http://aclweb.org/aclwiki/SIGBIOMED
'''contacts''': chair Dina Demner-Fushman (ddemner@gmail.com),
secretary Kevin Bretonnel Cohen (Kevin.Cohen@gmail.com)
'''members''': 224
'''elections (last, next)''': June 2022, June 2025
'''events''': Yearly BioNLP workshops

=== SIGDAT: SIG on linguistic data and corpus-based approaches to NLP ===

'''web page''': http://emnlp.org/
'''contacts''': president Mona Diab; Vice President: Isabelle Augenstein; Secretary: Chin-Yew Lin
'''members''': approx. 1200
'''elections (last, next)''': December 2023, December 2024
'''events''': EMNLP every year

=== SIGDIAL: SIG on discourse and dialogue ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigdial.org
'''contacts''': president Gabriel Skantze (skantze@kth.se),
secretary Vikram Ramanarayanan (vramanarayanan@ets.org)
'''members''': 581
'''elections (last, next)''': March 2021, 2023
'''events''': annual conference SIGDIAL; Young Researchers' Roundtable on Spoken Dialog Systems (YRRSDS) annual event co-located with SIGDIAL

=== SIGEDU: SIG on building educational applications ===

'''web page''': https://sig-edu.org/
'''contacts''': president Jill Burstein (jill.burstein@ets.org), secretary Ekaterina Kochmar (Ekaterina.Kochmar@cl.cam.ac.uk)
'''members''': 240
'''elections (last,next)''': March 2021, March 2024
'''events''': Annual Workshops on Innovative Uses of NLP for Building Educational Applications (BEA)

=== SIGEL: SIG on endangered languages ===

'''web page''': https://acl-sigel.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Sarah Moeller (smoeller@ufl.edu), secretary Aditi Chaudhary (aditi138831@gmail.com)
'''members''': 116
'''elections (first,next)''': January 2021, January 2025
'''events''': ComputEL

=== SIGFSM: SIG on ﬁnite state methods and models in natural language processing ===

'''web page''': http://www.aclweb.org/aclwiki/SIGFSM
'''contacts''': president Andreas Maletti (andreas.maletti@uni-leipzig.de),
secretary Bruce Watson (bruce@bruce-watson.com)
'''members''': 131
'''elections (last, next)''': Summer 2020, Summer 2023
'''events''': FSMNLP 2021 (Stellenbosch, South Africa, canceled), FSMNLP 2023 (Stellenbosch, South Africa, canceled)

=== SIGGEN: SIG on natural language generation ===

'''web page''': https://aclweb.org/aclwiki/SIGGEN
'''contacts''': Emiel van Miltenburg (c.w.j.vanmiltenburg@tilburguniversity.edu),
secretary Chenghua Lin (c.lin@sheffield.ac.uk),
'''members''': 490
'''elections (last, next)''': December 2022, December 2024
'''events''': WebNLG 2016 (endorsed); CC-NLG 2016 (endorsed); INLG 2016; CC-NLG 2017 (endorsed); LiRA 2017 (endorsed); RST 2017 (endorsed); XCI 2017 (endorsed); INLG 2017; CC-NLG2018 (endorsed); 2IS&NLG 2018 (endorsed); NLG4HRI 2018 (endorsed); ATA 2018 (endorsed); INLG2018; INLG2019; INLG2020; INLG2021; GEM 2022 workshop (endorsed); NLG4Health 2022 (supported); INLG2022

=== SIGHAN: SIG on Chinese language ===

'''web page''': http://sighan.cs.uchicago.edu
'''contacts''': chair Min Zhang (zhangminmt@hotmail.com),
secretary Gina-Anne Levow (levow@u.washington.edu)
'''members''': 210
'''elections (last, next)''': April 2018, 2021
'''events''': CIPS-SIGHAN 2014; SIGHAN Workshop 2015; SIGHAN Workshop 2017 at IJCNLP 2017

=== SIGHUM: SIG on language technologies for the socio-economic sciences and the humanities ===

'''web page''': https://sighum.wordpress.com/
'''contacts''': president Barbara McGillivray (barbara.mcgillivray@kcl.ac.uk), secretary Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb (s.degaetano@mx.uni-saarland.de), liaison representative Sara Tonelli (satonelli@fbk.eu)
'''members''': 168
'''elections (last, next)''': July 2022, July 2024
'''events''': LaTeCH at ACL 2016; LaTeCH-CLfL at ACL 2017; KnowRSH workshop at RANLP 2017; LaTeCH-CLfL at Coling 2018; Shared tasks in the Digital Humanities (https://sharedtasksinthedh.github.io/); 3rd Joint SIGHUM Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, Humanities and Literature at NAACL 2019, LaTeCH-CLfL 2020, LaTeCH-CLfL 2021, LaTeCH-CLfL 2022, LaTeCH-CLfL 2023.

=== SIGLEX: SIG on the lexicon ===

'''web page''': http://www.siglex.org
'''contacts''': president Steven Bethard (bethard@arizona.edu), secretary Ekaterina Shutova (shutova.e@gmail.com)
'''members''': 450
'''elections (last, next)''': September 2022, August 2024
'''events''': Annual *SEM conference at ACL 2023; Annual SemEval workshop at ACL 2023; Annual MWE workshop at EACL 2023; Additional past sponsored and endorsed events are listed on the [https://aclanthology.org/sigs/siglex/ SIGLEX page of the ACL Anthology]

=== SIGMOL: SIG on mathematics of language ===

'''web page''': http://www.molweb.org
'''contacts''': president Henrik Björklund (henrikb@cs.umu.se), vice president Frank Drewes (drewes@cs.umu.se),
'''members''': 310
'''elections (last, next)''': Feb 2020, mid 2022
'''events''': MOL 2017, July 13–14, 2017 at Queen Mary University of London; MOL 2019, July 18-19, 2017 at Toronto University; MOL 2021, December 2021 as part of Mathematical Linguistics (MALIN 2021, December 10–17, 2021) at University of Montpellier (online)

=== SIGMORPHON: SIG for computational morphology, phonology, and phonetics ===

'''web page''': https://sigmorphon.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Garett Nicolai (nicolai@ualberta.ca), secretary Miikka Silvferberg (Miikka.Silfverberg@helsinki.fi)
'''members''': 175
'''elections (last, next)''': Feb 2021, Feb 2023
'''events''': SIGMORPHON workshop at ACL 2016 including first shared task (Morphological Reinflection); the CoNLL-SIGMORPHON 2017 shared task (Universal Morphological Reinflection) at ACL 2017; SIGMORPHON at EMNLP 2018; the CoNLL-SIGMORPHON 2018 shared task at EMNLP 2018; SIGMORPHON at ACL 2019 including Crosslinguality and Context in Morphology shared task, SIGMORPHON 2020, SIGMORPHON 2021

=== SIGMT: SIG on machine translation ===

'''web page''': https://www.sigmt.org
'''contacts''': president Alexandra Birch (a.birch@ed.ac.uk), Secretary: Antonis Anastasopoulos, North America: Marine Carpuat, Europe: Ondrej Bojar, Asia: Masao Utiyama
'''members''': 180
'''elections (last)''': September 2021
'''events''': WMT conference and SSST workshop each year

=== SIGNLL: SIG on natural language learning ===

'''web page''': http://www.signll.org
'''contacts''': president Julia Hockenmaier (juliahmr@illinois.edu), secretary Afra Alishahi (afra.alishahi@gmail.com)
'''members''': 380
'''elections (last, next)''': August 2018, August 2021
'''events''': CoNLL every year; CoNLL-2017 co-located with ACL; CONLL-2018 co-located with EMNLP 2018; CONLL-2019 co-located with EMNLP 2019, CoNLL-2020 co-located with EMNLP 2020, CoNLL 2021 co-located with EMNLP 2021

=== SIGPARSE: SIG on parsing ===

'''web page''': https://www.sigparse.org
'''contacts''': president Stephan Oepen (oe@ifi.uio.no), secretary Kenji Sagae (sagae@ucdavis.edu),
'''members''': 266
'''elections (last, next)''': April 2019, April 2022
'''events''':IWPT 2015; SPMRL 2015 (endorsed) co-located with IWPT 2015; IWPT 2017 co-located with DepLing; Shared Task on Extrinsic Parser Evaluation (EPE) at IWPT/DepLing 2017; SyntaxFest 2019 (endorsed), IWPT 2020, IWPT 2021

=== SIGREP: SIG on representation learning ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigrep.org
'''contacts''': president Elena Voita (lena-voita@hotmail.com),
secretary Nora Kassner (kassner.nora@gmail.com)
'''members''': 2000
'''elections (last, next)''': October 2022, October 2024
'''events''': Repl4NLP at ACL 2016, ACL 2017, ACL 2018, ACL 2019, ACL 2020, ACL 2021, ACL 2022, ACL 2023

=== SIGSEC: SIG on NLP security ===

'''web page''': https://sig.llmsecurity.net
'''contacts''': Leon Derczynski ld@itu.dk
'''members''': 124
'''elections (last,next)''': -, 2024
'''events''': fortnightly talks - https://sig.llmsecurity.net/talks/

=== SIGSEM: SIG on computational semantics ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigsem.org
'''contacts''': president Sina Zarrieß (Sina.zarriess@uni-bielefeld.de),
secretary Stergios Chatzikyriakidis (stergios.chatzikyriakidis@uoc.gr)
'''members''': 880
'''elections (last,next)''': summer 2021, 2025
'''events''': IWCS 2015, IWCS 2017, ICWS 2019; Annual *SEM conference (jointly with SIGLEX) at ACL 2016, ACL 2017, NAACL 2018, NAACL 2019, virtual events 2020 and 2021

=== SIGSLAV: SIG on Slavic natural language processing ===

'''web page''': http://sigslav.cs.helsinki.fi/index.html
'''contacts''': chair Tomaz Erjavec (tomaz.erjavec@ijs.si)
secretary Preslav Nakov (pnakov@qf.org.qa)
'''members''': 110
'''elections (first,last)''': Winter 2020, winter 2023
'''events''': BSNLP at RANLP 2015; BSNLP at EACL 2017; Shared Task on Multilingual Named-entity Recognition and Cross-language Name Matching (loosely linked to BSNLP 2017); RUSSE 2018 Shared Task on Word Sense Induction and Disambiguation for the Russian Language; BSNLP at ACL 2019 including Shared Task on Multilingual NER for Slavic languages, BSNLP 2020

=== SIGSLPAT: SIG on speech and language processing for assistive technologies ===

'''web page''': http://www.slpat.org
'''contacts''': president Sarah Ebling (ebling@cl.uzh.ch), vice president Preethi Vaidyanathan (preethi@eyegaze.com), secretary-treasurer Emily Prud'hommeaux (prudhome@bc.edu), student member Zhengjun Yue (z.yue@sheffield.ac.uk)
'''elections (last, next)''': Fall 2020, Fall 2022
'''members''': 160
'''events''': SLPAT16 at Interspeech 2016; RaPID at LREC 2016; SLPAT19 at NAACL 2019; SPAT22 at ACL 2022

=== SIGSLT: SIG on Spoken Language Translation ===

'''web page''': http://www.iwslt.org
'''contacts''': president Marcello Federico (mrcfdr@gmail.com), secretary Sebastian Stüker (sebastian.stueker@kit.edu)
'''members''': 144
'''elections (first,next)''': First Oct 2022, every 2 years
'''events''': IWSLT 2004-2023;

=== SIGSUMM: SIG on Summarization ===

'''web page''': sigsumm.org
'''contacts''': Liaison representative Yue Dong yue.dong@ucr.edu
'''members''': 52
'''elections (first,next)''': first Dec. 2023; every 2 years
'''events''': NewSumm EMNLP Workshop 2023

=== SIGTURK: SIG on Turkic Languages ===

'''web page''': https://sigturk.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Duygu Ataman (ataman@nyu.edu), secretary Sardana Ivanova (sardana.ivanova@helsinki.fi)
'''members''': 95
'''elections (first,next)''': Founded in 2022, elections every year
'''events''': TBA;

=== SIGTYP: SIG on Linguistic Typology ===

'''web page''': https://sigtyp.github.io/
'''contacts''': president Ekaterina Vylomova (ekaterina.vylomova@unimelb.edu.au), secretary Ryan Cotterell (ryan.cotterell@gmail.com)
'''members''': 380
'''elections (first,next)''': tbc
'''events''': First workshop on Typology for Polyglot Natural Language Processing at ACL 2019; Second workshop on Computational Research in Linguistic Typology at EMNLP 2020; Third workshop on Computational Typology and Multilingual NLP at NAACL 2021

=== SIGUR: SIG on Uralic languages ===

'''web page''': https://acl-sigur.github.io/
'''contacts''': chair Tommi A. Pirinen (tommi.antero.pirinen@uni-hamburg.de),
secretary Francis Tyers (ftyers@prompsit.com)
'''members''': 60
'''elections (last, next)''': Jan. 2020, 2022
'''events''': IWCLUL 2017, IWCLUL 2020

=== SIGWAC: SIG on web as corpus ===

'''web page''': http://www.sigwac.org.uk
'''contacts''': presidents: Nikola Ljubešić (nljubesi@gmail.com, Jožef Stefan Institute) and Benoît Sagot (benoit.sagot@inria.fr, INRIA); secretaries: Veronika Laippala (mavela@utu.fi, University of Turku) and Pedro Ortiz Suarez (pedro.ortiz@uni-mannheim.de, Mannheim University)
'''members''': 178
'''elections (last, next)''': January 2022, 2024
'''events''': WAC-X at ACL 2016; WAC-XI at Corpus Linguistics Conference 2017, WAC-XII 2020

=== SIGWrit: SIG on writing systems and written language ===

'''web page''':
'''contacts''': president (pro-temp): Richard Sproat (rws@xoba.com); vice-president (pro-temp): Emily Prud’hommeaux (emilytucker@gmail.com); Secretary-Treasurer (pro-temp): Kyle Gorman (kylebgorman@gmail.com); Student-member (pro-temp): Noah Hermalin (nmhermalin@berkeley.edu)
'''members''': 44 (indicated interest)
'''elections (last, next)''': -, January 2025
'''events''': CAWL at ACL 2023