DOLAP policies

Bylaws & DEI

This page presents the bylaws established by DOLAP, as well as the workshop’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies.

Bylaws

1 Mission

DOLAP is a premier colloquium of the international scientific community with the mission to promote research and engineering in the field of data management for analytics and AI processing. It promotes the publishing of research results in the scope of data management techniques, languages, algorithms, systems, and architectures that support data analytics, data-driven decision making, and intelligent data processing at scale.

DOLAP aims at synergistically connecting the research community and industry practitioners and provides an international forum where both researchers and practitioners can share their findings in theoretical foundations, methodologies, and practical experiences.

The research aspect of DOLAP is supported by the pursuit of novel, relevant, significant research findings, as well as tutorials, surveys and other means for spreading the knowledge of current state of the art and practice. At the same time, the practical aspect of DOLAP is served by welcoming technology developers to describe technical details, case studies and experiences about products and methods exploiting Business Intelligence and Big Data

2 Organization of the DOLAP community

The main organ of DOLAP is the Steering Committee (SC). Two discrete roles within the Steering Committee are the Chair and the Vice Chair of the SC.

The SC is the organ with the ultimate decision authority for DOLAP. The SC is obliged to follow the current regulation without exceptions. At the same time, the SC retains full decision power on all aspects not strictly regulated by the current regulation.

The SC Chair (or simply, Chair) is the member of the SC who presides in the works of the SC and represents the SC to all third parties, unless a group of other persons is authorized to do so, either by the SC, or the Chair.

The SC Vice Chair (or simply, Vice Chair) is the member of the SC that replaces the Chair in the Chair’s duties whenever the Chair is not available to fulfill his duties, or, whenever assigned the task by the SC or the Chair.

3 Organization of the DOLAP workshop

The annual edition of the DOLAP workshop is implemented under the supervision of the SC. A Program Committee (PC) of distinguished members from academia and industry is responsible for the implementation of the edition, under the guidance of (ideally two) PC chairs.

Unless specific circumstances imply so, a PC chair is serving for two editions. Ideally, two PC chairs serve together with partially overlapping terms (such that organizational memory is preserved).

The details of the organization of the workshop (topics, novel features, etc.) are taken care of via the collaboration of the PC chairs with the SC. The SC has the ultimate authority to reject or impose arrangements on the workshop edition. Unless other arrangements take place, however, it is the PC Chairs who are responsible for arranging the roster of the Program Committee, the reviewing duties of its members, the implementation of the dissemination, article collection, reviewing and program formation for the edition of the workshop that they serve.

Moreover, the PC Chairs will typically be expected to undertake the role of Special Issue Editor for long versions of selected articles that may be invited at a prestigious scientific journal in the context of a Special Issue.

4 Steering Committee Membership

4.1 Joining the SC

The initial composition of the SC includes all SC members of DOLAP at the time of the approval of this regulation.

Subsequently, a person can join the SC in one/two ways:

(a) If not already members of the SC, the PC chairs of any edition of DOLAP join the Steering Committee.

(b) An extended majority of 3/4 of the members of the SC vote in favor of a particular person of significant service to the DOLAP community to join the SC.

4.2 Duration of Service in the SC

Steering committee members have three-year appointments, beginning and ending with the dates of the SC committee meeting at the annual workshop, or the date of their appointment, if force majeure prohibits the implementation of the workshop. The membership is revolving and is automatically renewed for three more years if the SC member participates at the workshop and attends the SC meeting at the time or before the membership expires. There is no limit to the number of renewals an active member can receive.

In the case of unforeseen or uncontrollable events, the SC member can submit a request to the SC for a one-year extension, which can be granted by a vote of the SC.

4.3 Leaving the SC

There are two ways via which a person can leave the SC:

(a) A SC member may withdraw him/herself any time from the SC by written communication to the SC Chair. The SC Chair must confirm the authenticity of the received message, and if positive, removes the person from the SC.

(b) Not attending DOLAP for 3 consecutive years blocks the renewal of the member’s term.

(c) Unethical behavior of an SC member results in loss of the SC membership status. Changing the status accordingly is a serious issue and requires an extended majority; thus, such a disgraceful retirement is only done by obtaining the 3/4 of votes of all the SC members.

The SC can assign the status of Honorary Past Member to the person leaving, by a simple majority of the present members in the vote.

5 Steering Committee Responsibilities

The SC is responsible for the strategic direction and long-term sustainability of DOLAP. Its responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Defining the scientific scope and vision of the workshop
  • Appointing and overseeing the Program Committee Chairs
  • Ensuring the quality and integrity of the review and selection process
  • Maintaining relationships with sponsoring organizations and co-located conferences
  • Managing membership and governance of the SC
  • Approving major organizational changes and initiatives
  • Safeguarding the reputation and continuity of the DOLAP community

6 Steering Committee Meetings & Votes

The SC meets to discuss the issues concerning the mission, vision, execution, and status of DOLAP, as well as any other matters related to it. At least one SC meeting per year is obligatory. Ideally, but not obligatorily, the annual edition of the workshop is accompanied by the respective SC meeting.

Each meeting is invoked by the Chair or the Vice Chair, with a specification of the agenda and the (physical, electronic, or other) location.

Any member of the SC can propose items of the agenda, and the proposed item is added in the agenda. The Chair and Vice Chair are responsible for organizing the agenda of each meeting and notifying the SC members.

In any case, in due time ahead (in the area of approximately 7 days), the SC chair notifies the SC members for the upcoming meeting and the details of the location, as well as the agenda.

Decisions are taken by an open vote, if a proposal collects the absolute majority of the present members at the meeting, at the time. In extraordinary circumstances or when it affects a concrete person (e.g., loss of the SC membership status), the SC will opt for a secret ballot.

The decisions are recorded and distributed to the entire SC by the Chair or Vice Chair, within a reasonably short period of no more than 7 days after the meeting takes place.

7 Election of SC Chair and SC Vice Chair

An SC Chair and an SC Vice Chair are elected for three years. Serving as SC Chair can be renewed for a second term (not necessarily consecutively) but not more. There is no limit for SC Vice Chair terms.

The vote for Chair and Vice Chair takes place at the end of their tenure, or in the event of force majeure, via a dedicated SC meeting.

The vote is presided over by a member of the SC that is not a candidate for the vote (if possible, by the outgoing SC Chair). In the absence of volunteers (for instance, because all SC members candidate for the Chair or Vice Chair role), an SC member will be randomly picked (and automatically excluded from the candidates set).

The presiding member collects nominations / candidacies. If there are no other candidacies, the Vice Chair is automatically nominated.

The process for any election is as follows:

  1. The president of the vote collects nominations. Any member of the SC can nominate a candidate from the SC for any of the two roles. Self-nominations are allowed.
  2. Once all nominations for the roles under election have been made, the president of the vote initiates the vote, first for the Chair, and then for the Vice Chair (if both roles are open to election).
  3. A candidate is elected for a role if the candidate obtains an absolute majority, at least one vote above the half the present members of the vote meeting. If no candidate attains the absolute majority, a second round with the top two candidates takes place. If the second round is still ineffective, the vote is repeated. In this case, a relative majority is sufficient to secure the role for a candidate.
  4. If this is still not possible, the SC is dissolved, all its members lose their SC membership and a new SC must be formed by invitation of the previous Chair and Vice Chair.

8 Updates to this Regulation

The Regulation must be maintained unaltered for at least 6 years. During this period, updates are possible only for exceptional reasons and require the approval of at least three quarters of the whole SC.

Upon the completion of the enforcement period, the SC can alter the regulation provided that a meeting with the presence of at least half of the members is held. For a change to be made valid, at least three fifths of the members present at the vote must support the change.

Diversity Equity and Inclusion

DOLAP has always recognized the critical importance of fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment within the scientific community. Efforts are consistently made to ensure diversity among speakers and participants, to support inclusive reviewing practices, and to maintain a welcoming and respectful atmosphere for all attendees.

In light of the traditional co-location with EDBT/ICDT, DOLAP supports the DEI statement of EDBT/ICDT, promotes inclusive values across dimensions such as age, gender, gender identity, race, cultural background, religion, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, and parental or marital status.

Fostering diversity and inclusion is recognized as essential to advancing scientific progress, and DOLAP remains committed to continuous improvement in this area.