Decision Sciences Institute

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PREPARING PROCEEDINGS

Please follow these format instructions carefully. All articles for the proceedings must be submitted electronically and cannot be more than 500K in size. Your refereed research paper must be submitted in PDF format in order for it to be published in the Decision Sciences Institute’s Conference Proceedings. Recall that proceedings will only be distributed in electronic form, on CD-ROM, yet submissions should nevertheless comply with the formatting guidelines below. Only after you have carefully proofed your paper should you put it in the PDF format. We recommend that you print samples of your paper to verify the correct margin settings. Papers that deviate from these instructions may not be published at the discretion of the Proceedings Coordinator.

Keywords: You may include up to five keywords below your abstract (For ideas about key words, click here to see a journal list.  Your key words are not limited to the phrases in that list.)

Proceedings files must be submitted via the website by the end of the day on September 1, 2008.  (Instructions for accessing that website are below.)

As mentioned above, the proceedings submission PDF file cannot be greater than 500K in size. Note that figures, particularly bitmap figures, are a major contributor to file size.  Further, the DSI Board has indicated that "The Proceedings publication is composed of papers presented at the Annual Meeting in regular and/or invited sessions (six Proceedings pages), abstracts* of papers (one-half of a Proceedings manuscript page) and symposia, tutorials and workshops (one Proceedings page).  There is a charge of $50 per page for papers submitted for inclusion in the Proceedings that exceed the page limitation."  *This year, since abstracts were not refereed they are not included in the Proceedings, which was also a Board decision.

Your PDF file may contain traditional English or Greek characters. It should NOT contain any other language characters, such as Korean or Chinese (we mention these two languages because they have caused problems in the past).

Material printed in its entirety in the Institute's Proceedings is considered published. The copyrights for all forms of presentation at the Institute's Annual Meeting remain with the authors.

Do NOT submit anything to the proceedings for which is already copyrighted and which we would be thus violating copyright restrictions.  Authors assume full responsibility for what is submitted.

The title of your paper should be in bold type, all caps, single-spaced, and centered across the top of the first page.

The author(s), affiliation(s), complete address(es), email address(es), and telephone number(s) should be single-spaced and centered on the second line below the title. Do not use titles such as Dr., Professor, etc.

All headings should be in bold type. First-level headings should be centered and set in all caps. Second-level subheadings should be set flush left with initial caps. Please do not use headings other than these two types. At least one line space should separate headings from the preceding text.

Introduce the paper with an abstract of approximately 100 words. Begin with the first-level heading "ABSTRACT" set above the single-spaced abstract text.

Follow the abstract with a first-level heading that introduces the body of the paper. See typing instructions below for more information.

Figures and tables should be placed as close as possible to where they are cited. First-level headings state the table or figure number and may be followed by second-level subheadings. All figures and tables are to be done in a professional manner. If you are using symbols, please make sure that they are still in correct forms after you convert your file to Acrobat PDF. Please feel free to include figures, graphs, pictures as long as the total size of your file dose not go beyond 500K.

Bracketed numbers, i.e., [1] or [2, p.188], should be used in the body of the text to call reference. If more than one reference is to be cited at the same time , the following format should be used: [4] [6] [11,pp.214-219].

The use of footnotes is discouraged.

All equations should be placed on separate lines and numbered consecutively, with the equation numbers placed within parentheses and aligned against the right margin.

Appendices should immediately follow the body of the paper (using the first-level heading "APPENDIX") and precede the references. If there is more than one appendix, number each one consecutively.

Since the bibliography should include only those references cited in the text of the paper, it should be referred to as "references." References should be listed at the end of the paper. Entries should appear in alphabetical order and should be number with the numbers placed in brackets (see examples below).

[1] Deming, W.E. Sample Design in Business Research. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1990.

Note: It is highly desirable that all refereed papers contain a list of references. If this is not possible (e.g. due to the page limitation), the phrase "References available upon request from ... (list an author's name and contact information)" should be used.

Font and Margins

Set the following margins for all side (top, bottom, left and right) at 1".

All paragraphs should begin flush left (no paragraph indent). If possible, justify the margins. Single-space the body of the paper. Double-space between paragraphs, and before and after headings. Triple-space after the last author's name in the title before beginning the abstract.

We strongly recommend that you use Times Roman, font 12 for your manuscript. Technical software programs that print mathematical formulas in italic type, with subscripts and superscripts in a slightly smaller font size, are acceptable. Use boldface type for the title of your paper and all first and second level headings.

Page Numbers

If possible, each page of your document should be numbered in the bottom center as: "- # -"  Your first page number should be your submission number times ten plus one.  For example, if your submission was number 324, your six pages would be 3241 through 3246.  (That will allow citations to your page number to refer to specific proceedings page numbers.)

Converting Your Paper to PDF Format

If you are unfamiliar with converting files to PDF format, click here to see some instructions.

Uploading Your PDF file

When you are ready to upload your PDF proceedings file, go to the following web link before September 1st: http://dsi.byu.edu/dsis/proc.pl

To avoid potential problems and crises, we suggest that you submit your proceedings file well before the September 1, 2008 deadline if possible.

Attendance

The author certifies his/her intention to register for and attend the meeting to present the paper, abstract, or proposal.  Register online at http://www.decisionsciences.org/annualmeeting/registration/, or send conference registration form and payment to Decision Sciences Institute, 35 Broad Street, #813, Atlanta, GA 30303.

Questions?

If you have questions about these proceedings guidelines, send email to the Proceedings Coordinator, Anthony D. Ross, at DSI2008PRO@bus.msu.edu.

rev. 6/23/03