From Conference Papers to Journal Papers: Challenges and New Ideas [Leader's Corner]

In our profession, there are two main ways of publishing new results: as a paper in conference proceedings and as a journal paper. A few decades ago, the arrangement was very clear: conference proceedings were difficult to find and, therefore, not considered to be archival. As a result, authors of good conference papers were encouraged to extend their conference papers into journal versions. In many cases, the resulting extended versions appeared in easier-to-access form as journal papers. The amount of extension differed from paper to paper, often extensions were reasonably minor-but this was an accepted practice because it made results more accessible to others.