Electronic IEEE Copyright Form

The setup process for the eCF is very quick and simple. As conference organizers begin preparing for their conferences’ paper submission process, they are advised that IEEE requires all authors intending to publish in the IEEE Xplore^® digital library must provide a transfer of copyright.  IEEE Meetings, Conferences & Events (MCE) will reach out to conference organizers with the initial steps in the copyright registration process. Once registered, a website will be able to pass article metadata via an encrypted string attached to the URL, after which time the eCF tool can be invoked directly by authors from the access-controlled site. A brief process will guide authors to the appropriate form, which is signed by typing in their names and clicking on a "Submit" button.

The eCF provides additional publishing agreements for journals, such as the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors submitting to hybrid journals are given a clear explanation of their publishing options and have an opportunity to select their preferred publishing model (Traditional or Open Access). The eCF has extensive information sidebars throughout the process to help advise authors about each step, and an overall streamlined process.  

Any interested volunteers not currently using the eCF are invited to go to contact the IPR Office to begin the process of setting up your site so that you, too, may be able to take advantage of this important tool.

Contact the IEEE Intellectual Property Rights Office (copyrights@ieee.org), if you should like to discuss any of this beforehand.

eCF FAQ (PDF, 215 MB)

eCF Administrative Tools for Publication Volunteers

The eCF is a highly effective tool that transfers ownership rights of the intellectual property to IEEE and saves significant amounts of time and effort on the part of IEEE authors, volunteers, and staff. Setting up the eCF is easy and is free to all IEEE publications.

Ensure that you have received a signed IEEE Copyright Form from all authors with accepted papers. If an author did not provide you with an IEEE Copyright Form, they run the risk of not being published in the conference proceedings or in IEEE Xplore.

If you are an author submitting a manuscript to an IEEE conference, you must also submit an IEEE Copyright Form to the designated organizer/publication chair of your conference. Contact your conference organizer for more information regarding the use of the electronic IEEE Copyright Form (eCF).

Please note: If you do not complete a publication agreement with IEEE by means of signing and submitting an IEEE Copyright Form, your paper cannot be published by IEEE.

IEEE policy requires that prior to publication all authors or their employers must transfer to the IEEE in writing any copyright they hold for their individual papers. Transferring copyright is a necessary requirement for publication, except for material in the public domain or which is reprinted with permission from a previously published, copyrighted publication.

Upon transferring copyright to IEEE, authors and/or their companies have the right to post their IEEE-copyrighted material on their own servers without permission, provided that the server displays a prominent notice alerting readers to their obligations with respect to copyrighted material and that the posted work includes an IEEE copyright notice.

Authors are particularly encouraged to note the "Author Responsibilities" section of the IEEE Copyright Form, in which portions of IEEE PSPB Operations Manual, section 8.1.1.B (concerning statements in work published by IEEE are the expression of the authors) appear.