Preamble: This document describes the Conference Protocol for the annual international conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). The Conference Protocol guides the work of the ADHO Conference Coordinating Committee (CCC). As stipulated in the ADHO Governance Protocol, the chair of the CCC serves at the pleasure of voting members of the ADHO Steering Committee. Other members of the CCC are appointed by member organizations, with one representative from each organization.

1. Conference Venue
   1. The ADHO Conference Coordinating Committee (CCC) will solicit bids for the conference venue, according to a procedure documented in the annex to this protocol. They will advise bidders in formulating bids. The ADHO steering committee will make all final decisions concerning bids. Preference will be given to bids which enable the conference to rotate geographically so as to distribute the travel burden equitably among the whole membership.
2. The Program Committee and the Reviewing Process
   1. The academic program of the conference will be determined by an appointed Program Committee (PC). The PC shall be appointed no later than two years in advance of the conference.
   2. Constituent organizations of ADHO may designate members of the PC according to guidelines specified in the annex to this protocol, following the principle of equal membership from all affiliates. PC appointees should indicate whether they are willing to serve on the PC for more than one year, and whether they are willing to serve as Vice-Chair of the PC.
   3. The PC Chair will be a member of a constituent organization, and is appointed by the ADHO steering committee from a list of names put forward by the Executive Council of the constituent organization hosting the conference. The PC Chair serves in addition to the designated representatives of the constituent organizations. The Program Chair is a voting member of the Program committee and has the deciding vote in case of a tie.
   4. The program committee will have a Vice-Chair elected by the PC at its first meeting, normally from a constituent organization other than organization providing the Program Chair. The Vice-Chair will assist the Chair and will take over the Chair's duties in the event that the Chair is unable to fulfill them. The Vice-Chair is a voting member of the Program Committee.
   5. There will be a Local Organizer (LO) who acts as the point of contact between the host institution and the PC. The LO is a non-voting member of the PC.
   6. The roles of Program Chair and Local Organizer shall not be filled by the same person.
   7. The CCC shall ensure that an email list is established for each year's PC and that PC members are promptly subscribed to it. In addition to the PC members, each email list should include as listeners the chair of each constituent organization, the chair of ADHO steering committee, the chair of the CCC, as well as the future LO and the future PC Chair once these have been designated.
   8. The PC approves the structure and content of the entire academic program. The academic program will normally include a mix of papers, panels, posters, and plenary sessions, including keynote addresses and pre-conference workshops. The PC may designate any paper or session as a plenary if in their view it is of sufficient interest to the community. The conference theme (if any) is decided by the PC in consultation with the LO. The PC Chair should invite nominations for keynotes from both the PC and the LO. The LO can veto any nomination based on cost: barring a veto, the final choice rests with the PC. If no agreement is possible, the matter should be referred to the CCC Chair. Keynote speakers are decided by the IPC in consultation with the LO, and should ideally represent a range of complementary disciplines, interests, and geography, with consideration given to issues of gender equality, and economic, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity.
   9. Special sessions, including those proposed by the constituent organizations, need to be reviewed on the same schedule as other papers, and according to the same standards.
   10. The review process is as follows:
       1. The CCC maintains and updates a list of reviewers. Members of the PC and the LO may serve as reviewers. The reviewers should be selected to represent a range of disciplines, interests, and geography.
       2. The Program Chair initiates and oversees the review process for all proposals received by the deadline.
       3. Proposals that are received after the deadline for submissions or that fail to conform to the guidelines announced in the call for papers will not normally be accepted for review, though the chair of the PC may exercise discretion in this matter.
       4. The PC will take reviewers' comments and other relevant factors into account in determining acceptance and rejection of proposals.
       5. The Program Chair for a conference may not submit a proposal for presentation there. Members of the IC and reviewers may submit proposals, but every effort must be made to avoid conflict of interest.
       6. Panels should not constitute more than 20% of the program, and panel proposals should make a clear case for the value that they add, over individual papers. The Call for Papers should make it clear that it panel proposals face more stringent reviewing than individual papers. Separate paper submissions that want the option of being considered as a panel should note which other submissions they are related to: papers would be reviewed separately, but if enough of the cluster were accepted, they could be presented as a panel.
3. Conference Organization and Financing
   1. Financing the conference is the sole responsibility of the LO; neither ADHO nor the constituent organizations will subsidize the conference, though ADHO will provide incentive funding to ensure that the LO validates membership for those registering at the member rate. The member discount should be somewhat more than the cost of an individual joint-society subscription to Literary and Linguistic Computing.
   2. The name of the conference is Digital Humanities [Year].
   3. The CCC is responsible for providing a draft of the call for papers, following a standard model supplied in the Annex. The draft may be modified each year by the PC, taking into account the chosen theme of the conference.
   4. The LO will provide at the start of the conference a volume of abstracts of the papers accepted for presentation.
   5. A selection of conference papers will be published in the ADHO journals (both print and online as appropriate).
   6. The MOU between ADHO and the LO must be signed before the location for a conference is considered final.
   7. This protocol and its annex will be provided by the CCC Chair to all members of conference-related committees.

Revised: May 24, 2013, by approval of the ADHO Steering Committee.
Approved by the ADHO Steering Committee June 18, 2011.
Revised: May 2010 for discussion at the July 2010 ADHO Steering Committee meeting.
Approved July 4 2006 by the ADHO Steering Committee for final approval by the ACH and ALLC executives
Approved by the ACH and ALLC executives July 5, 2006.