The IEEE Computer Society publishes magazines, transactions, letters, and conference proceedings. It also maintains a Digital Library that provides online access to these publications.

With the exception of conference proceedings, the Computer Society’s publications program is supported by sets of volunteers organized as editors in chief (EICs) or operations committee members. Both sets report to an operations committee (one each for transactions and magazines). A Computer Society representative is appointed to the IEEE Press Committee by the VP of Publications. This manual contains the general information that a publications volunteer needs to do his/her job. Ongoing communication among Publications Board volunteers is facilitated through a mailing list and a website (www.computer.org/volunteering/boards-and-committees/publications). Information and links to other resources for publications volunteers appears at www.computer.org/volunteering/boards-and-committees/resources.

1. EIC Role and Responsibilities

A. Volunteer/Staff Teamwork

Listing the specific, accountable responsibilities of the EIC and the professional staff doesn’t fully capture the cooperative relationship that they must develop. For example, although the staff isn’t responsible for technical content, the EIC’s decisions in that area may well affect the publication’s production requirements, advertising potential, and its marketability.

Another key area of shared responsibility is cost control. Staff is responsible for prudent vendor selection, realistic cost projections, and keeping production costs as low as possible, consistent with accepted quality standards. But the best efforts of a staff manager can be undone by an overrun of just a few pages. Hence, the EIC must ensure that guest editors and authors turn in editorial content that is within the limits of the amount budgeted.

In cases of an unresolved dispute with an author, staff editors should consult with their manager and, if necessary, the EIC. Obviously, the EIC and manager should be kept informed if a dispute has occurred or seems imminent. Either an EIC or the manager can bring unresolved questions to the VP of Publications for resolution by the Publications Board. The CS President is the final level of appeal.

B. Line of Authority

The production of a publication is a cooperative venture among several important stakeholders. The EIC, Publisher, and the staff managers have the most prominent responsibilities. The VP of Publications, Magazine Operations Committee (MOC) chair, Transactions Operations Committee (TOC) chair, President, and the Director of Products and Services may also be involved from time to time.

The EIC has primary responsibility for the technical content of a particular publication. This responsibility may be delegated (to a guest editor, for example), but it ultimately resides with the EIC. The Publisher, whose purview cuts across all CS publications, is primarily responsible for each publication’s clarity of syntax and conformance to standards of style and grammar, its graphic design and production, its online presence, staffing, and advertising. The Publisher usually delegates one or more of these responsibilities to a staff member.

An EIC’s most immediate staff support comes from the staff manager assigned to his/her particular publication. EICs are also encouraged to seek support from the Publisher and/or the Director of Products and Services regarding any aspect of their publication’s operation.

C. EIC Responsibilities

C.1 Transactions and Magazines

The EIC has a wide range of responsibilities:

ensuring a flow of important, interesting, and timely material;
developing special issue and editorial schedules, promoting calls for papers, and promoting published content;
handling issue management, including ensuring there is enough content to fill an issue;
ensuring that established peer review standards are applied to all technical material considered for publication;
seeking and appointing qualified editorial board members and area or associate editors (AEs);
appointing editorial board members to serve in the following roles, as needed: an issue manager, the secretary for meetings (taking minutes, conducting Doodle polls, arranging telecons), Web editor for updating publication homepages, and outreach editor for promoting the publication;
ensuring fair and expeditious treatment of authors, AEs, guest editors, and reviewers;
enforcing editorial page budgets and managing the EIC budget;
conducting an ongoing assessment of the goals, quality, and utility of the publication; the corresponding resources and processes in place to achieve those goals and standards; and the performance of editorial board members;
attending, reporting at, actively participating in, and contributing to MOC and TOC meetings;
recommending and issuing service awards for those who have made important contributions to the publication; and
representing the publication in both Computer Society and non-Computer Society forums.

Publications Board meetings are held usually a day or two before the Board of Governors’ (BoG) annual meeting in June. The locations of these meetings are determined a year in advance by the BoG. Each individual committee will also meet independently each year.

D. Support from the Computer Society

As part of the annual publication budget approved by the BoG, the EIC’s budget covers such expenses as an annual editorial board meeting and EIC travel to the Publications Board meeting; contact the staff member associated with your title for any specific questions about meals during the editorial board meeting and other travel-related costs. The budget covers travel for Computer Society volunteers only; we cannot reimburse volunteers for expenses spent on behalf of family members or friends.

When submitting a travel reimbursement request, please note that IEEE requires all original receipts be submitted to document all reported expenses. IEEE doesn’t offer a general per diem for food, for example, so such expenses must be accompanied by a receipt. If a receipt is not available for any reason, please get in touch with the staff member associated with your title; this person can also help guide you through the overall reimbursement process. It is best to submit the expense report within 30 days of completion of travel. Please submit your completed expense report and receipts to: CS-Staff1@computer.org (Transactions EICs), CS-Staff2@computer.org (Magazine EICs).

Please note that the EIC budget does cover supplies, but not large purchases such as computer equipment. All capital purchase items must be housed within the Society’s office. Loans of capital equipment to volunteers or special purchases may be made under exceptional circumstances on the prior approval of the President and the recommendation of the office of the Society fiscally responsible for the function that requires that equipment. To the extent possible, all expenses should be planned in advance using the budget planning sheets provided by staff.

EICs and Editorial Board members are granted free digital access to the publication they are handling during their terms of office.

E. Support from the EIC’s Employer

At a minimum, the EIC’s employer must provide the time to devote to performing the function of EIC. In addition, it’s often possible for the EIC’s employer to augment the reimbursed expenses budget by providing for email access, copying and courier facilities, and travel support. EIC candidates are required to supply a letter from their employer indicating the extent of support it can offer its employee should he/she be appointed.

F. Appointing an EIC

The process for EIC appointments depends on whether the title is cosponsored or wholly owned by the Computer Society. Further discussion of cosponsored titles is provided in Section F.2. For wholly owned titles, EICs may be appointed for a maximum of two consecutive terms for a given position. A first term is three years and a reappointment is for a two-year term. For a new publication, at the discretion of the Vice President for Publications, the first three-year term of office of the EIC shall begin on January 1 of the year the publication first appears, even if the EIC has engaged in work to launch the title at an earlier date.

In essence, the EIC appointment is a Presidential appointment. The CS President, with the assistance of the VP of Publications, uses a search committee process to identify and recommend candidates.

The search committee, which is appointed by the VP of Publications, identifies, solicits, evaluates, and recommends EIC candidates. The candidates brought forward by the search committee are reviewed by the Publications Board, but no additional candidates may be added. The President selects from the candidates named by the search committee, and the Board of Governors consents to the appointment.

In making his/her selection, the President is acting in the interests of the Computer Society. The Publications Board and the BoG have oversight responsibility to ensure that the search process is thorough and fair and not subject to undue influence. All groups involved maintain the confidentiality of the process.

F.1 EIC Reappointments

EIC reappointments for titles wholly owned by the Computer Society are handled slightly differently (for cosponsored titles, please refer to Section F.2). The process begins when the VP of Publications asks the EIC if he/she is willing to serve a second term. If he/she does not want to seek a second term, the process for selection of a new EIC is followed. Otherwise, an evaluation committee is appointed by the VP of Publications to evaluate the EIC’s performance and make a recommendation on reappointment.

Since the reappointment evaluation process is an abbreviated version of the full search process, the evaluation committee, Publications Board, and President must all agree on the reappointment decision. If this is not the case, a search committee is named by the VP of Publications and charged with recommending additional candidates using the process for seeking a new EIC.

F.2 Cosponsored Titles

For jointly sponsored publications with steering or management committees, the steering or management committee shall appoint the EIC following the search process defined in the MOU for that periodical. The VP for Publications shall recommend Computer Society candidates for the steering or management committee representatives for appointment by the Computer Society President. EIC evaluations for reappointment also follow the terms of the MOU, or are decided by the Steering Committee chair if no policy is provided. If a disagreement arises, such matters are to be discussed among the VP for Publications and Presidents of all cosponsors for resolution.

2. Relationship of EIC and Editorial Board

A. Selection of Editorial Board Members

A.1 General Members of the Editorial Board

EICs use their editorial boards differently. In some cases, general board members work with a guest editor in developing special issues; in others, board members are assigned to specific topic areas and are responsible for ensuring a flow of high-quality submissions in their areas and administering the review/peer-review process for those submissions. General editorial board members are usually involved in the strategic planning of the publication via the regular annual meetings of the editorial board that the EIC calls. The EIC is responsible for ensuring that the editorial board roster is up-to-date.

Editorial board nominations for cosponsored titles are subject to approval by their Steering Committee and appointments must conform to any policies described in the title’s MOU. To nominate an editorial board member for a title wholly owned by the Computer Society, an EIC must send an email message to the Publications Board email alias using the template. The subject of the message must contain the publication and nominee name and the body will include an explanation of why the candidate is being nominated and what areas of expertise he/she will bring to the board. The candidate’s short bio, list of 10 relevant publications, and URL to a homepage should also be included.

Any member of the Publications Board may raise an objection to or a concern about a nomination, in which case the nomination is held pending discussion at the next Publications Board meeting. EICs should email the Publications Board when/if any nominations are formally withdrawn. If there are no objections within 30 days, the nominee is confirmed (EICs are required to wait for the 30-day period prior to releasing papers to the new editorial board member to avoid unpleasant situations).

Editorial board members serve an initial two-year term, renewable for a second two-year term. It is highly advisable to review the performance of each editorial board member to ensure a reappointment for a second term is desirable and warranted. EICs may opt to relieve editorial board members prior to the completion of their term for non-performance or misconduct, such as their addition to the Prohibited Author List (PAL). There is a one-year waiting period before an editorial board member can be reappointed to the board once a full, four-year term has been served.

A.2 Associate EICs

To lighten the administrative load on the EIC, to train a potential backup in case of EIC illness or other emergency, and to develop a pool of potential EIC candidates for future appointments, it is a best practice for each publication to have at least one associate EIC (AEIC).

Some AEICs handle a specific category of responsibilities, such as organizing and scheduling special issues. Others troubleshoot problems, assist with regular columns, recruit reviewers, and handle miscellaneous tasks such as reporting on conferences and expediting the review process for outlier papers. However, it is up to the EIC to identify and set the expectation for specific tasks. An AEIC can be designated to temporarily replace the EIC by a written note to this effect from the EIC to the VP of Publications. AEICs are subject to the same approval process as described in Section A.1.

A.3 Department Editors (Magazines Only)

Each publication can have a variety of departments suited to its readership’s needs, for example, book and media reviews, opinions, product announcements and reviews, problems/algorithms/puzzles, standards, case studies, a calendar of events, interviews, or letters to the editor.

Each department should engage with the readership to foster strong connections between the publication and related technical committees and other Computer Society programs, other professional societies, and the industrial, government, and academic communities. The need to recruit volunteers who have relevant professional experience and writing skills is obvious. The development of a two-year plan for each department should be encouraged as part of an ongoing publication self-assessment. Department Editors are also editorial board members, and thus must pass the nomination process before beginning their term.

A.4 Advisory Boards

An EIC can take advantage of the input from an advisory board to help guide the direction of a publication. Advisory board members can play a variety of roles, from helping to select special issue topics to helping advise a newly selected EIC. Advisory boards can also be established for short projects or goals; therefore, advisory boards could serve as a long-term component of the publication’s leadership, or they could serve a short-term more specific purpose, depending on the EIC’s or publication’s need.

When advisory boards are appointed for short-term purposes, that purpose (project or goal) should be defined before the board is appointed so that the term duration is clear to the volunteers involved. All advisory boards will automatically expire at the end of the EIC’s term who established that board. The incoming EIC can retain the board, dissolve it, or modify its purpose or composition.

At the EIC’s discretion, a chair of the advisory board can be appointed, and that chair’s function would be defined by the EIC. In all cases, advisory boards will also follow all IEEE and Computer Society policies, procedures, and bylaws.

Incoming EICs should evaluate the role of established advisory boards and ensure function, goals, and contributions meet the EIC’s vision for the periodical. It is to the standing EIC’s discretion to dissolve advisory boards at any time. While placement in the masthead will be on a space-available basis, advisory boards can be listed on the About section of a publication’s website.

B. Editorial Board Meetings

There is usually one editorial board meeting each year, often in conjunction with a major conference. This is to both reduce costs and ensure that as many invitees as possible can attend. The general members of the editorial board, staff, and other parties as appropriate, are invited. (However, it is important to note that all staff travel must first be approved.)

The agenda usually consists of reports on submission rates and publication information, evaluation of current and new goals and initiatives, strategic planning, production issues, and so on. The EIC should draft and circulate an agenda before the meeting is held, and identify a board member to take minutes for timely distribution to those who attended as well as to those who could not attend. This can be handled by the secretary if such a position exists. EICs may choose to use some of their budget to help defray the cost of travel for each editorial board member or those facing specific circumstances, such as the cost of international travel. It is very important for each EIC to set up reimbursement guidelines with each editorial board member in advance of the meeting, so there are no unpleasant misunderstandings later; again, it’s best to consult with staff as you navigate such situations.

If the editorial board meeting is held in conjunction with a Computer Society-sponsored conference, it might be possible to arrange for meeting and meal facilities through the existing conference contract. If the meeting is not held in conjunction with a Computer Society event, please note that all meeting arrangements and contracts must be approved before they can be executed. It is highly advisable to plan these meetings with the support of Computer Society staff to avoid problems.

C. CS Administrative Meetings

Three times a year, the governing boards of various program areas gather for administrative meetings weeks. EICs are strongly encouraged to attend the Publications Board meeting in June; their operations committees will also meet at this time. Both meetings in June are held on the Wednesday of the meetings week. Annual schedules and meeting locations are located on the Board Meetings and Resources area of the CS website (http://www.computer.org/volunteering/board-of-governors/resources).

Each operations committee will meet at least one additional time during the year with its own date and location, keeping in mind travel costs and budgets. Teleconferences may also be used in place of in-person meetings. The plans for such meetings should be reported to the VP of Publications in January of each year. In advance of each operations committee meeting, the EIC should prepare a brief status report for his/her periodical.

D. Awards and Recognition

Volunteers are eligible for Computer Society awards, which range from Certificates of Appreciation to Outstanding Contribution and Meritorious Service Awards, in addition to recognition offered by the EIC on behalf of the periodical. Each EIC is encouraged to appoint an awards chair to create a program for awards and certificates. A Certificate of Appreciation would be appropriate for editorial board members who have completed their term. Details on CS award criteria and procedures for nomination are available at https://www.computer.org/volunteering/awards/award-nominations.

EICs may also choose to select a small gift or token of appreciation for editorial board members if the budget is available. This is often done on an annual basis, toward the end of the year or at the annual editorial board meeting. Some examples include a shirt, a small desk clock, or a pen with the publication name on it. It is recommended to contact the staff member of your publication to discuss the gift idea and cost.

3. Scope of CS Publications

A. Magazines

Computer is the Society’s flagship magazine (www.computer.org/computer). In that role, it covers all aspects of computer science, technology, and applications. It aims at a broad audience, whose interests aren’t limited to narrow specialties. Articles are usually survey or tutorial in nature and cover the state of the art or important emerging developments. Articles describing original in-depth results appealing only to a very narrow audience are normally not suitable. Each article must have sufficient introductory material to orient the nonspecialist to the topic. A brief literature survey will not satisfy this requirement. The tutorial section must include material describing the principles or techniques of existing approaches and their advantages and disadvantages, as well as a statement of why the subject matter is important to the industry and the profession. Furthermore, each article must contain sufficient information on the practical or potential applications of the material presented. Note the name: Computer, not IEEE Computer.

Computing in Science & Engineering is copublished by the American Institute of Physics and the CS, and it merges content and volunteers from two magazines that each organization had previously produced separately (www.computer.org/cise). The magazine emphasizes significant computational contributions in a variety of fields, ranging from electromagnetics and molecular biology to physics and structural engineering. CiSE‘s readers are scientists, educators, engineers, researchers, and practitioners involved in computational aspects of varied scientific and engineering disciplines. In addition to full-length articles, the magazine has departments that cover book reviews, emerging products and technologies, and trends in education, visualization, industry, and programming. Note the name: CiSE, not IEEE CiSE.

IEEE Annals of the History of Computing covers the breadth of computer history (www.computer.org/annals). Featuring scholarly articles by leading computer scientists and historians, as well as firsthand accounts by computer pioneers, Annals is the primary publication for recording, analyzing, and debating the history of computing. Annals also serves as a focal point for people interested in uncovering and preserving the records of this exciting field.

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications bridges the theory and practice of computer graphics (www.computer.org/cga). Aimed at people who work at the leading edge of the field, CG&A offers a unique combination of peer-reviewed feature articles and informal departments that keep pace with current implementations of graphics technology. Its topics cross the graphics spectrum from theory to practice and from algorithms to application. They may be tutorial or survey in nature, or they may focus on a single key application or development.

IEEE Intelligent Systems serves users, managers, developers, researchers, and purchasers who are interested in intelligent systems and artificial intelligence (www.computer.org/is). The publication emphasizes current practice and experience, together with promising new ideas that are likely to be used in the near future. Sample topic areas for feature articles include knowledge-based systems, intelligent software agents, natural-language processing, technologies for knowledge management, machine learning, data mining, adaptive and intelligent robotics, knowledge-intensive processing on the web, and social issues relevant to intelligent systems.

IEEE Internet Computing provides a journal-quality evaluation and review of emerging Internet technologies and applications (www.computer.org/internet). The magazine’s focus is on engineering and applying the Internet to leverage services from it. IC also features industry and research reports, surveys, and tutorials that cover current Internet technologies and applications, as well as news and trend features that examine their impact on engineering practice and society.

IEEE Micro addresses users and designers of microprocessors and microprocessor systems, including managers, engineers, consultants, educators, and students involved with computers and peripherals, components and subassemblies, communications, instrumentation and control equipment, and guidance systems (www.computer.org/micro). Contributions relate to the design, performance, or application of microprocessors and microcomputers. IEEE Micro also features tutorials, review papers, and discussions. Sample topic areas include architecture, communications, data acquisition, control, hardware and software design/implementation, algorithms (including program listings), digital signal processing, microprocessor support hardware, operating systems, computer-aided design, languages, application software, and development systems.

IEEE Multimedia serves the community of scientists, engineers, practitioners, and students interested in research, development, and application of novel techniques and systems for capturing, creating, understanding, accessing, delivering, and adapting digital content and information across multiple media types (www.computer.org/multimedia). Brief articles on innovative and informative topics are featured in the magazine’s regular columns. Topics of interest include multimedia analysis, indexing, and retrieval; multimedia ontologies and semantics; social media, content tagging, and Web 2.0; multimedia interaction and collaboration; content adaptation and personalization; ubiquitous and mobile media; arts media; augmented reality; multimedia affective computing; multimodal biometrics; and innovative applications in healthcare, assistive technologies, education, publishing, travel, arts, and entertainment and more.

IEEE Pervasive Computing is a quarterly, peer-reviewed magazine that focuses on pervasive (or ubiquitous) computing—environments saturated with computing and communication yet gracefully integrated with human users (www.computer.org/pervasive). Pervasive aims to catalyze progress in this emerging field by bringing together researchers and practitioners from many distinct areas, including hardware, software, sensing/interaction with the physical world, human-computer interfaces, and systems considerations such as scalability, security, and privacy.

IEEE Security & Privacy focuses on stimulating and tracking advances in information assurance and security and presenting these advances in a form that can be useful to a broad cross-section of the professional community, ranging from academic researchers to industry practitioners (www.computer.org/security). S&P provides a unique combination of research articles, case studies, tutorials, and regular departments covering diverse aspects of information assurance such as legal and ethical issues, privacy concerns, tools to help secure information, analysis of vulnerabilities and attacks, trends and new developments, pedagogical and curricular issues in educating the next generation of security professionals, secure operating systems and applications, security issues in wireless networks, design and test strategies for secure and survivable systems, and cryptology.

IEEE Software delivers reliable, useful, leading-edge software development information to keep engineers and managers abreast of rapid technology change (www.computer.org/software). Its mission is to build the community of leading software practitioners. The authority on translating software theory into practice, this magazine positions itself between pure research and pure practice, transferring ideas, methods, and experiences among researchers and engineers. Peer-reviewed articles and columns by seasoned practitioners illuminate all aspects of the industry, including process improvement, project management, development tools, software maintenance, web applications and opportunities, testing, and usability. Its readers specify, design, document, test, maintain, purchase, engineer, sell, teach, research, and manage the production of software or systems that include software.

IT Professional is a bimonthly publication of the IEEE Computer Society for the developers and managers of enterprise information systems (www.computer.org/itpro). Coverage areas include Web services, Internet security, data management, enterprise architectures and infrastructures, software development, systems integration, emerging technologies, and wireless networks. Note the name: IT Professional, not IEEE IT Professional.

B. Transactions

IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (http://www.computer.org/tcbb) emphasizes the algorithmic, mathematical, statistical and computational methods that are central in bioinformatics and computational biology; the development and testing of effective computer programs in bioinformatics; the development of biological databases; and important biological results that are obtained from the use of these methods, programs and databases; the emerging field of Systems Biology, where many forms of data are used to create a computer-based model of a complex biological system. The publication represents a mixture of three research modalities: a) fundamental methodological, algorithmic, mathematical and statistical research directly motivated by biological issues; b) papers focusing on experimental and implementation issues; and c) papers on serious application of methods and programs that lead to discoveries of biological significance. Increasingly, papers contain elements of all three modalities. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to, sequence analysis, comparison and alignment methods; motif, gene and signal recognition; molecular evolution; phylogenetics and phylogenomics; determination or prediction of the structure of RNA and Protein in two and three dimensions; DNA twisting and folding; gene expression and gene regulatory networks; deduction of metabolic pathways; micro-array design and analysis; proteomics; functional genomics; molecular docking and drug design; computational problems in genetics such as linkage and QTL analysis, linkage disequilibrium analysis in populations, and haplotype determination; systems biology.

IEEE Computer Architecture Letters (http://www.computer.org/cal) is a rigorously peer-reviewed forum for publishing early, high-impact results in the areas of uni- and multiprocessor computer systems, computer architecture, microarchitecture, workload characterization, performance evaluation and simulation techniques, and power-aware computing. Submissions are welcomed on any topic in computer architecture, especially but not limited to: microprocessor and multiprocessor systems, microarchitecture and ILP processors, workload characterization, performance evaluation and simulation techniques, compiler-hardware and operating system-hardware interactions, interconnect architectures, memory and cache systems, power and thermal issues at the architecture level, I/O architectures and techniques, independent validation of previously published results, analysis of unsuccessful techniques, domain-specific processor architectures (e.g., embedded, graphics, network, etc.), real-time and high-availability architectures, reconfigurable systems.

IEEE Letters of the Computer Society (LOCS) (http://www.computer.org/locs) is a rigorously peer-reviewed forum for rapid publication of brief articles describing high-impact results in all areas of interest to the IEEE Computer Society.

IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing (http://www.computer.org/tac) is a cross-disciplinary and international archive journal aimed at disseminating results of research on the design of systems that can recognize, interpret, and simulate human emotions and related affective phenomena. The journal publishes original research on the principles and theories explaining why and how affective factors condition interaction between humans and technology, on how affective sensing and simulation techniques can inform our understanding of human affective processes, and on the design, implementation and evaluation of systems that carefully consider affect among the factors that influence their usability. Surveys of existing work are considered for publication when they propose a new viewpoint on the history and the perspective on this domain. The journal covers but is not limited to the following topics: Sensing & analysis: Algorithms and features for the recognition of affective state from face and body gestures; Analysis of text and spoken language for emotion recognition; Analysis of prosody and voice quality of affective speech; Recognition of auditory and visual affect bursts; Recognition of affective state from central (e.g. fMRI, EEG) and peripheral (e.g. GSR) physiological measures; Methods for multi-modal recognition of affective state; Recognition of group emotion; Methods of data collection with respect to psychological issues as mood induction and elicitation or technical methodology as motion capturing; Tools and methods of annotation for provision of emotional corpora. (Cyber) psychology & behavior: Clarification of concepts related to ‘affective computing’ (e.g., emotion, mood, personality, attitude) in ways that facilitate their use in computing; Computational models of human emotion processes (e.g., decision-making models that account for the influence of emotion; predictive models of user emotional state); Studies on cross-cultural, group and cross-language differences in emotional expression; Contributions to standards and markup language for affective computing. Behavior Generation & User Interaction: Computational models of visual, acoustic and textual emotional expression for synthetic and robotic agents; Models of verbal and nonverbal expression of various forms of affect that facilitate machine implementation; Methods to adapt interaction with technology to the affective state of users; Computational methods for influencing the emotional state of people; New methods for defining and evaluating the usability of affective systems and the role of affect in usability; Methods of emotional profiling and adaptation in mid- to long-term interaction; Application of affective computing including education, health care, entertainment, customer service, design, vehicle operation, social agents/robotics, affective ambient intelligence, customer experience measurement, multimedia retrieval, surveillance systems, biometrics, music retrieval and generation.

IEEE Transactions on Big Data (http://www.computer.org/tbd) publishes peer reviewed articles with big data as the main focus. The articles provide cross disciplinary innovative research ideas and applications results for big data including novel theory, algorithms and applications. Research areas for big data include, but are not restricted to, big data analytics, big data visualization, big data curation and management, big data semantics, big data infrastructure, big data standards, big data performance analyses, intelligence from big data, scientific discovery from big data security, privacy and legal issues specific to big data. Applications of big data in the fields of endeavor where massive data is generated are of particular interest.

IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing (http://www.computer.org/tcc) is dedicated to the multidisciplinary field of cloud computing. It is committed to the publication of articles that present innovative research ideas, application results, and case studies in cloud computing, focusing on key technical issues related to theory, algorithms, systems, applications, and performance.

IEEE Transactions on Computers (http://www.computer.org/tc) is a monthly publication with a wide distribution to researchers, developers, technical managers, and educators in the computer field. It publishes papers on research in areas of current interest to the readers. These areas include, but are not limited to, the following: a) computer organizations and architectures; b) operating systems, software systems, and communication protocols; c) real-time systems and embedded systems; d) digital devices, computer components, and interconnection networks; e) specification, design, prototyping, and testing methods and tools; f) performance, fault tolerance, reliability, security, and testability; g) case studies and experimental and theoretical evaluations; and h) new and important applications and trends.

IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (http://www.computer.org/tdsc) publishes archival research results focusing on research into foundations, methodologies, and mechanisms that support the achievement—through design, modeling, and evaluation—of systems and networks that are dependable and secure to the desired degree without compromising performance. The focus also includes measurement, modeling, and simulation techniques, and foundations for jointly evaluating, verifying, and designing for performance, security, and dependability constraints. View TDSC topics here (https://www.computer.org/digital-library/journals/tq/tdsc-topics).

IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (http://www.computer.org/tetc) publishes papers on emerging aspects of computer science, computing technology, and computing applications not currently covered by other IEEE Computer Society Transactions.

IEEE Transactions on Haptics (ToH) (http://www.computer.org/toh) is a scholarly archival journal that addresses the science, technology and applications associated with information acquisition and object manipulation through touch. Haptic interactions relevant to this journal include all aspects of manual exploration and manipulation of objects by humans, machines and interactions between the two, performed in real, virtual, teleoperated or networked environments. Research areas of relevance to this publication include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Human haptic and multi-sensory perception and action
Aspects of motor control that explicitly pertain to human haptics
Haptic interactions via passive or active tools and machines
Devices that sense, enable, or create haptic interactions locally or at a distance
Haptic rendering and its association with graphic and auditory rendering in virtual reality
Algorithms, controls, and dynamics of haptic devices, users, and interactions between the two
Human-machine performance and safety with haptic feedback
Haptics in the context of human-computer interactions
Systems and networks using haptic devices and interactions, including multi-modal feedback
Application of the above, for example in areas such as education, rehabilitation, medicine, computer-aided design, skills training, computer games, driver controls, simulation and visualization

IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering’s (http://www.computer.org/tkde) scope includes the knowledge and data engineering aspects of computer science, artificial intelligence, electrical engineering, computer engineering, and other appropriate fields. This Transactions provides an international and interdisciplinary forum to communicate results of new developments in knowledge and data engineering and the feasibility studies of these ideas in hardware and software. Specific areas to be covered are as follows: Fields and Areas of Knowledge and Data Engineering: (a) Knowledge and data engineering aspects of knowledge based and expert systems, (b) Artificial Intelligence techniques relating to knowledge and data management, (c) Knowledge and data engineering tools and techniques, (d) Distributed knowledge base and database processing, (e) Real-time knowledge bases and databases, (f) Architectures for knowledge and data based systems, (g) Data management methodologies, (h) Database design and modeling, (i) Query, design, and implementation languages, (j) Integrity, security, and fault tolerance, (k) Distributed database control, (l) Statistical databases, (m) System integration and modeling of these systems, (n) Algorithms for these systems, (o) Performance evaluation of these algorithms, (p) Data communications aspects of these systems, (q) Applications of these systems.

IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies (http://www.computer.org/tlt) covers all advances in learning technologies and their applications, including but not limited to the following topics: innovative online learning systems; intelligent tutors; educational games; simulation systems for education and training; collaborative learning tools; learning with mobile devices; wearable devices and interfaces for learning; personalized and adaptive learning systems; tools for formative and summative assessment; tools for learning analytics and educational data mining; ontologies for learning systems; standards and web services that support learning; authoring tools for learning materials; computer support for peer tutoring; learning via computer-mediated inquiry, field, and lab work; social learning techniques; social networks and infrastructures for learning and knowledge sharing; and creation and management of learning objects.

IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (http://www.computer.org/tmc) focuses on the key technical issues related to (a) architectures, (b) support services, (c) algorithm/protocol design and analysis, (d) mobile environments, (e) mobile communication systems, (f) applications, and (g) emerging technologies. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: a) Architectures – Mobile networks and hosts, Agents and proxies, Mobility management, mobile agent and proxy architectures Integrated wireline and wireless systems, Planning and standardization. b) Support Services – Mobility and roaming, Nomadic computing, Multimedia Operating system support, Power management. c) Algorithm/Protocol Design and Analysis – Online and mobile environments, Limited bandwidth, Intermittent connectivity. d) Mobile Environments – Data and knowledge management, Performance modeling and characterization, Security, scalability and reliability, Design, management and operation, Systems and technologies. e) Mobile Communication Systems – Wireless, cellular and spread-spectrum systems, Multi-user and multi-access techniques and algorithms, Multi-channel processing, Channel coding, Data coding and compression. f) Applications – Location-dependent and sensitive, Nomadic computing, Wearable computers and body area networks, Multimedia applications and multimedia signal processing, Pervasive computing, Wireless sensor networks. g) Emerging Technologies

IEEE Transactions on Multi-Scale Computing Systems (TMSCS) (http://www.computer.org/tmscs) is a peer-reviewed publication devoted to computing systems that exploit multi-scale and multi-functionality. These systems consist of computational modules that utilize diverse implementation scales (from micro down to the nano scale) and heterogeneous hardware and software functionalities; moreover, these modules can be based on operating principles and models that are valid within but not necessarily across their respective scales and computational domains. Contributions to TMSCS must address computation of information and data at higher system-levels for processing by digital and emerging domains. These computing systems can also rely on diverse frameworks based on paradigms at molecular, quantum and other physical, chemical and biological levels. Innovative techniques such as inexact computing, management/optimization of smart infrastructures and neuromorphic modules are also considered within scope. This publication covers pure research and applications within novel topics related to high performance computing, computational sustainability, storage organization and efficient algorithmic information distribution/processing; articles dealing with hardware/software implementations (functional units, architectures and algorithms), multi-scale modeling and simulation, mathematical models and designs across multiple scaling domains and functions are encouraged. Novel solutions based on digital and non-traditional emerging paradigms are sought for improving performance and efficiency in computation. Contributions on related topics are also considered for publication.

IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering (http://www.computer.org/tnse) is committed to timely publishing of peer-reviewed technical articles that deal with the theory and applications of network science and the interconnections among the elements in a system that form a network. In particular, the IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering publishes articles on understanding, prediction, and control of structures and behaviors of networks at the fundamental level. The types of networks covered include physical or engineered networks, information networks, biological networks, semantic networks, economic networks, social networks, and ecological networks. Aimed at discovering common principles that govern network structures, network functionalities and behaviors of networks, the journal seeks articles on understanding, prediction, and control of structures and behaviors of networks. Another trans-disciplinary focus of the IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering is the interactions between and co-evolution of different genres of networks. The core topics covered include: Network Sampling and Measurement; Learning of Network Topology; Modeling and Estimation of Network Dynamics; Network Inference; Models of Complex Networks; Modeling of Network Evolution; Network Design; Consensus, Synchronization and Control of Complex Networks; Interactions between and Co-evolution of Different Genres of Networks; Community Formation and Detection; Complex Network Robustness and Vulnerability; Network Interdependency and Cascading Failures; Searching in Complex Networks; Information Diffusion and Propagation; Percolation and Diffusion on Networks; Epidemiology in Complex Systems.

IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS) (http://www.computer.org/tpds) is published monthly. It publishes a range of papers, comments on previously published papers, and survey articles that deal with the parallel and distributed systems research areas of current importance to our readers. Particular areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

Parallel and distributed algorithms, focusing on topics such as: models of computation; numerical, combinatorial, and data-intensive parallel algorithms, scalability of algorithms and data structures for parallel and distributed systems, communication and synchronization protocols, network algorithms, scheduling, and load balancing.
Applications of parallel and distributed computing, including computational and data-enabled science and engineering, big data applications, parallel crowd sourcing, large-scale social network analysis, management of big data, cloud and grid computing, scientific and biomedical applications, mobile computing, and cyber-physical systems.
Parallel and distributed architectures, including architectures for instruction-level and thread-level parallelism; design, analysis, implementation, fault resilience and performance measurements of multiple-processor systems; multicore processors, heterogeneous computing systems; petascale and exascale systems designs; novel big data architectures; special purpose architectures, including graphics processors, signal processors, network processors, media accelerators, and other special purpose processors and accelerators; impact of technology on architecture; network and interconnect architectures; parallel I/O and storage systems; architecture of the memory hierarchy; power-efficient and green computing architectures; dependable architectures; and performance modeling and evaluation.
Parallel and distributed software, including parallel and multicore programming languages and compilers, runtime systems, operating systems, Internet computing and web services, resource management including green computing, middleware for grids, clouds, and data centers, libraries, performance modeling and evaluation, parallel programming paradigms, and programming environments and tools.

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (http://www.computer.org/tpami) publishes articles on all traditional areas of computer vision and image understanding, all traditional areas of pattern analysis and recognition, and selected areas of machine intelligence, with a particular emphasis on machine learning for pattern analysis. Areas such as techniques for visual search, document and handwriting analysis, medical image analysis, video and image sequence analysis, content-based retrieval of image and video, face and gesture recognition and relevant specialized hardware and/or software architectures are also covered

IEEE Transactions on Services Computing’s (http://www.computer.org/tsc) scope covers all computing and software aspects of the science and technology of services innovation research and development. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing emphasizes the algorithmic, mathematical, statistical and computational methods that are central in services computing, the emerging field of Service Oriented Architecture, Web Services, Business Process Integration, Solution Performance Management, Services Operations and Management. Specifically, the transactions covers but is not limited to the following topics: Mathematical foundation of Services Computing, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Service creation, development, and management, Linkage between IT services and business services, Web services security and privacy, Web services agreement and contract, Web services discovery and negotiation, Web services management, Web services collaboration, Quality of Service for Web services, Web services modeling and performance management, Solution frameworks for building service-oriented applications, Composite Web service creation and enabling infrastructures, Business and scientific applications using Web services and SOA, Business process integration and management using Web services, Standards and specifications of Services Computing, Utility models and solution architectures, Resource acquisition models in Utility Computing, Mathematical foundation of business process modeling, integration and management, Business process modeling, integration, and collaboration.

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (http://www.computer.org/tse) is interested in well-defined theoretical results and empirical studies that have potential impact on the construction, analysis, or management of software. The scope of this Transactions ranges from the mechanisms through the development of principles to the application of those principles to specific environments. Specific topic areas include: a) development and maintenance methods and models, e.g., techniques and principles for the specification, design, and implementation of software systems, including notations and process models; b) assessment methods, e.g., software tests and validation, reliability models, test and diagnosis procedures, software redundancy and design for error control, and the measurements and evaluation of various aspects of the process and product; c) software project management, e.g., productivity factors, cost models, schedule and organizational issues, standards; d) tools and environments, e.g., specific tools, integrated tool environments including the associated architectures, databases, and parallel and distributed processing issues; e) system issues, e.g., hardware-software trade-off; and f) state-of-the-art surveys that provide a synthesis and comprehensive review of the historical development of one particular area of interest.

IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing (T-SUSC) (http://www.computer.org/tsusc) is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to publishing high-quality papers that explore the different aspects of sustainable computing, over a wide range of problem domains and technologies from software and hardware designs to applications. Sustainability includes energy efficiency, natural resources preservation, and use of multiple energy sources as needed in computing devices and infrastructure. Solutions for these problems call upon a wide range of algorithmic and computational frameworks, such as optimization, machine learning, decision support systems, meta-heuristics, and game-theory. Contributions to T-SUSC must address sustainability problems in computing and information processing environments and technologies, and at different levels of the computational process.

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) (http://www.computer.org/tvcg) publishes papers on subjects related to computer graphics and visualization techniques, systems, software, hardware, and user interface issues. Specific topics in computer graphics and visualization include, but are not limited to the following: a) algorithms, techniques and methodologies; b) systems and software; c) user studies and evaluation; d) rendering techniques and methodologies, including real-time rendering, graphics hardware, point-based rendering, and image-based rendering; e) scientific, information, and biomedical visualization; f) volume graphics; g) shape modeling and processing, including image-based modeling, geometric and volumetric modeling, dynamic modeling, point-based modeling, geometry processing, shape analysis, shape matching and retrieval, and computational topology; h) virtual, augmented, and mixed reality; i) animation and simulation, including character animation, facial animation, motion-capture, physics-based simulation and animation; j) haptics; k) perception, human computer interaction and user interfaces; l) visual analysis and visual analytics; m) graphics aspects of computer games and edutainment; n) visual programming and software visualization; o) general purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU); p) high-dynamic range imaging and display, 3D display technology, multi-spectral displays; q) computational photography; r) applications of computer graphics and visualization.

4. Peer Review

There are several phases to the review process, such as acknowledging receipt of a manuscript, assessing its appropriateness, sending manuscripts to reviewers, following up on the reviewers for timely response, acknowledging the receipt of reviews from reviewers, evaluating the response, and communicating with the author about the outcome of that process. If major changes have been requested of an author, the entire process might have to be repeated.

EICs are directed to Sections 2.4 and 8.2 of the IEEE Publications Services and Products Board (PSPB) Operations Manual (http://www.ieee.org/documents/opsmanual.pdf). These sections describe the general guidelines for peer review, notably including a minimum of two reviewers for each paper, a maximum of 90 days from receipt of manuscript to a decision, and the organization hierarchy through which authors can appeal editorial decisions, starting from the EIC and extending through the organization unit—the CS in this case—and ultimately to the IEEE VP of PSPB.

In an effort to ensure that no conflicts of interest, or any perception of conflicts of interest, arise during the publication process, EICs are strongly advised to refrain from submitting articles to their own periodicals while serving as EICs. IEEE policy regarding submissions by EICs to their own publication is found in IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Sections 8.2.1.D.8 and 8.2.2.A.2.

On 27 October 2015, following approvals from the Magazine and Transactions Operations Committees, the Publications Board passed a motion that reaffirmed the above statement and also included a requirement that if an EIC chooses to submit to his or her own publication that the article “should be approved in advance of submission by the MOC or TOC chair and should undergo independent handling aimed at ensuring an ethical review process.” As per IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Section 8.2.2.A.2, in such cases, we delegate an EIC submission “to another qualified person” such as an associate EIC or associate editor.

A. Peer Review Policies

Papers are submitted via the ScholarOne Manuscripts peer review tracking system. The peer review administrator helps steer the paper through peer review. Submissions are forwarded to the EIC for initial review and area/associate editor (AE) assignment. AEs are given one to two weeks to review the submission and either assign reviewers or administratively reject the paper. If the decision by the AE is to administratively reject a submission, the AE must anonymously complete the recommendation form in the system and provide the author concrete feedback as to why the paper will not undergo review. The formal IEEE definition for “administrative reject” can be found in Section 8.2.2.A.3. Prescreening of Articles by Editors, in the PSPB Manual. It is imperative that EICs be familiar with the requirements for administratively rejecting a paper that does not meet the minimum criterion for technical substance established for the publication, also referred to as an “editorial reject.”

All papers must adhere to a publication’s page or word length and formatting guidelines, or they may be withdrawn from consideration. Authors are responsible for understanding and adhering to these guidelines throughout the duration of their paper’s peer review process.

Reviewers are typically given four to six weeks to complete and submit their reviews. To better ensure the quality and consistency of the recommendations made, the CS strongly advocates that three reviews are obtained for every paper. AEs are given one to two weeks to analyze the reviewer’s comments and make a recommendation. The EIC reviews and renders the final decisions. All stages of the review process are coordinated with the peer review administrator and relevant reminders and correspondence are sent through ScholarOne Manuscripts.

To protect reviewer confidentiality and prevent bias or abuse, reviews from one review process cannot be reused or reviewed in, or otherwise applied to, a separate publication review or other process. Reviewer names, reviews, and confidential discussions may not be disclosed to any external entity. This prohibition applies to all peer-reviewed content published by the Computer Society.

B. Quality of Reviews

It’s recommended that AEs initially contact six or seven potential reviewers to eliminate long delays in responses before sending the manuscript out to at least two people for official review. AEs should also assess all reviews carefully and determine if follow-up is needed with the initial group of reviewers or if additional reviewers need to be assigned. Automated reminders are set in ScholarOne Manuscripts, to assist with these action items.

EICs should not return reviews with little technical substance to the author. They should also examine the individual reviews for errors or other issues the supervising AE may have missed, such as identifying the wrong publication in the review.

C. Timely Review Process

The timeliness of the review process is mainly dependent on the timeliness of processing reviewer assignments and decisions by AEs and EICs. If an AE does not respond by the third reminder, the EIC is asked to intervene and contact the AE directly. The EIC may choose to establish a new deadline, reassign the paper to another AE, or ask an AEIC to shepherd the paper’s review process.

D. Role of the Reviewer

Good reviewers must be continually identified and nurtured. It is recommended that AEs send an assignment to a reviewer no more than once every three or four months in order to receive timely and quality reviews. Establishing ways to retain quality reviewers is encouraged.

E. Treatment of Special Issues

The key tasks that an EIC must address when commissioning a special issue are to seek out and review special issue proposals, solicit guest editor candidates, appoint the guest editor(s), issue and promote the call for papers and, upon completion, thank the guest editor(s).

It is strongly recommended that the EIC appoint a board member as a co-guest editor to ensure all special issue submissions are processed within the same peer review policies as regular submissions. This includes the number of reviewers assigned to a paper and the level of communication and feedback an author should receive about a submission.

A critical step in the appointment process is to arrive at an explicit agreement with the guest editor regarding his or her obligations. This is best accomplished through guest editor guidelines. Special issue guest editors are prohibited from submitting papers to their own special issues as this may be perceived as a conflict of interest. A guest editor interested in submitting to his or her own special issue must obtain approval from the EIC in advance of submission, and the paper should undergo independent handling by a nonconflicted editorial board member to ensure an ethical review process. If accepted, the article is published with a statement indicating the special handling.

The guest editor appointment letter and guidelines should discuss such issues as the following: publication timetable; desired issue content; promotion of the call for papers to key mailing lists and networks; communications best practices; page count restrictions; the submission process; reviewing and processing manuscripts; author and reviewer address information; and electronic transmission of materials.

1. Transactions

Guest editors must coordinate the review process of all papers with the peer review support staff, and the publication schedule must be coordinated with the staff journal coordinator. The EIC or the guest editor must forward a copy of the proposed CFP to staff so that the timetable can be reviewed and approved. Staff must have the opportunity to give feedback on any proposed special issues with regards to production schedules and timelines. To avoid overscheduling special issues and creating a long publication queue, EICs must consult with staff before approving any special issue proposal. Staff will carefully review the title’s editorial calendar and current backlog with the EIC. EICs must take care not to schedule too many special issues in a given year. Too many special issues back up the regular paper queue and could delay submission-to-publication times of these papers. Suggested guidelines for the maximum number of special issues to schedule in a year are as follows:

Monthly publications: 4
Bimonthly publications: 2
Quarterly publications: 1

Exceptions can be made, but should be done in direct consultation with staff and taking into account submission rates and the publication queue.

The EIC and the staff schedule the publication date of the special issue. It is imperative that guest editors cooperate fully with staff to ensure that all deadlines are met. Failure to communicate with staff in a timely manner or to meet significant deadlines can result in a special issue being cancelled or rescheduled for a later issue. Papers for cancelled or rescheduled special issues must be published in a later issue.

2. Magazines

As with transactions, the EIC is ultimately responsible for the technical content of the publication and decides which articles will appear in each issue . EICs, along with their AEICs, can determine which articles to publish or delegate this task to a guest editor–technically the guest editor makes a recommendation to the EIC, but the EIC reserves the right to overrule the recommendation. The peer review process for the special issue is driven by the guest editor(s) utilizing the ScholarOne Manuscripts interface. An administrator will send weekly reports to the EIC and staff.

All special issue materials–files, figures, copyright transfer–must be received by staff via FTP no later than 8 weeks (for bimonthlies) or 12 weeks (for quarterlies) before the scheduled publication date. It is imperative that guest editors cooperate fully with staff to ensure that all deadlines are met. Failure to communicate with staff in a timely manner or to meet significant deadlines can result in significant delays with publication.

F. Conference Publications

The term “peer review” as applied to conference publications means prospective papers for a conference publication are reviewed by an assortment of review teams and/or groups as selected by the conference organizers. The reviewers can be as varied as the subject matter of the conference, but all have the single purpose of sifting through the manuscripts submitted via the conference’s CFP, with the best of these as selected by the reviewers being published in the proceedings.

5. Editorial Practices and Policies

A. Originality

All paper submissions must contain original material. A submission should be withdrawn immediately if it is discovered that any portion of a submission (a) has already appeared in anything more than a conference proceedings or Letters, or (b) appears in or will appear in any other magazine or journal. If any portion of a submission has appeared or will appear in a conference, the author must notify the EIC and peer-review administrator of this and make sure that the submission references the conference publication and outlines the degree of overlap. A copy of the previous version of the paper must also be submitted along with the new submission. The EIC will compare the two works to ensure a substantial amount of the submitted article has been changed from the previously published piece. (The general guideline is that at least one-third of the paper must vary from the published manuscript.)

See IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Section 8.2.4.F (http://www.ieee.org/documents/opsmanual.pdf) for full information regarding the reuse of previously published material.

B. Authorship

IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Section 8.2.1.A states that authorship credit should be based on a substantial intellectual contribution to the theoretical or prototype development, system or experimental design, and/or the interpretation of the data associated with the work contained in the manuscript. In addition, credit is reserved for those who have contributed to the article drafting process or the review and/or revision of the intellectual content, and approved the final version of the manuscript.

All coauthors on a submission must (a) have made significant technical contribution to the work, (b) be aware that they are listed as coauthors, and (c) have had an opportunity to see the manuscript before submission. If this is not the case, the paper should be withdrawn. The list of authors and order in which authors are listed may not be changed without the written permission of every author, even to save space.

C. Treatment of Prior Work

The IEEE PSPB passed the following addition to the Operations Manual policy in Section 8.2.4 “Allegations of Misconduct”:

This change is intended to help editors and conference organizers maintain the credibility of our transactions, journals, magazines, and conference proceedings. IEEE policy has always promoted originality in submitted and published manuscripts, and has allowed that work presented first at conferences be later submitted to transactions. However, now that everything is in a searchable electronic collection, it’s become apparent that a few authors have chosen to circulate their previously published work to conferences and journals with only minimal and purely cosmetic changes, and, moreover, do not reference these previous articles. This results in an accumulation of duplicate material that reflects poorly on IEEE and our authors. It can also damage the value of our packaged subscription products since some customers have already started to ask why should they “pay twice” for essentially the same article. We believe that IEEE authors want to associate themselves with a body of work that’s known for quality, originality, and intellectual rigor.

According to current practice, authors reporting new work claim all ideas, methods, concepts, principles, etc., that are not obvious from prior work and not of well-known origin, unless they specifically give credit to another source or reference. Authors should be honest, truthful, and fair in presenting information and should not accept credit for work not theirs. Authors deserve credit for the part that does not duplicate or overlap prior work. For crediting informal ideas and help, authors may use either the acknowledgments section or a reference to a private communication within the text. In papers with multiple authors, the acknowledgments section may delineate the individual contributions of the authors.

Prior work relative to newer work must have been reported or documented earlier than the newer work. Work performed within a short period of time of another’s work, and with no relevant communication between the authors, is assumed to be independent. Work already completed (for example, accepted for publication) takes precedence over work in progress.

The publication process does not investigate claims of independent discovery. New authors are assumed to know accessible prior work. Treatment of new work is as if it had been made with full knowledge of prior work. Often the new author may be unaware of some overlapping prior work at the time the new work was performed. Such prior work must be cited once it becomes known. If the prior work is not accessible (not in a scholarly journal in libraries or not in a widely known conference), the new author should reference and briefly describe the older work in some form.

Advances and new contributions over prior work should reference the initial research and give accurate credit to the researchers and their claims. Individual items, concepts, or principles of prior work do not belong to the new work. Once relationships are understood, important prior work must be cited in the proper context relative to its overlap with the new work. Nothing implied by subsequent work should deprive an earlier work of its contribution.

Reviewers often judge obviousness as it relates to their own prior work. In evaluating differences between an old and a new contribution, what is obvious to some may not be to others. Sometimes authors do not insult the reader by mentioning trivial or obvious extensions or variations. On the other hand, reviewers or authors may claim that an extension of their prior result is insignificant because it is “obvious.” This is a subjective judgment, and comments to the author through the review process should be guided by what most knowledgeable readers would think. If the reviewers, AE, or EIC judge the contribution to be publishable, then the prior work in question should be characterized accurately and in proper context. Readers deserve more than a casual reference whenever disagreements exist.

In cases of alleged misconduct, the EIC may be asked to assist by appointing an investigation committee. During the investigation, the committee would follow the regulations from IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Section 8.2.4 with the assistance of the content quality assurance manager.

D. Copyright Policies

IEEE has established firm requirements with respect to the copyright ownership of material published in its journals. The policies are explained in IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Section 8.1.4 (http://www.ieee.org/documents/opsmanual.pdf).

Authors submitting work to the Computer Society for publication must transfer copyright to IEEE, unless all contributing authors work for a U.S. government agency or, for transactions, the author has selected an open access copyright form with payment of any relevant fees. Rare exceptions must be approved by the IEEE Intellectual Property Rights office. Copyright forms for peer-reviewed articles are completed upon initial submission through the Electronic IEEE Copyright Form (eCF). Further information about the eCF can be found at http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/copyrightmain.html.

IEEE has permissive policies that allow authors to post the submitted versions of their work on personal and employer websites and educators to use the work in a classroom. The policies governing electronic dissemination of IEEE copyrighted material are found in IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Sections 8.1.4 and 8.1.9.

E. Content Processing—Transactions

Transactions, as archival records, do not require a great degree of editing. CS transactions utilize the “moderate editing” level offered by IEEE Publishing Operations (PubOps), which includes formatting and layout in accordance with CS style, editing of abstracts, author bios, figure captions, and call-outs, accuracy of article metadata, reference validation, and author proofs and alterations, but does not include editing text for grammar, punctuation, spelling, or style. Detailed editing, if needed, may be recommended to authors during peer review, and the IEEE provides recommended vendors to authors at their own cost. Further information about this and other resources available to authors is given in the IEEE Author Center (http://ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org).

E.1 Article Preparation

EICs (or guest editors) approve articles for publication. Regular papers are published on a “first in, first out” basis. However, the EIC may choose to prioritize the publication of regular papers based on what is in the queue. If an EIC chooses this option, it is the EIC’s responsibility to notify staff the order in which he/she wants papers published.

EICs are responsible for helping to make sure a queue of accepted articles is available for editing. The size of this queue will vary with the publication, but it should contain at minimum a sufficient amount of material to comprise one issue of normal length. It is imperative that the EIC works closely with staff and the editorial board to ensure papers are moving through the review process. Not only does this collaboration ensure strong submission to publication times, but it also keeps enough papers in the queue.

Once a paper is accepted, it is the author’s responsibility to provide all publication materials to the peer-review support coordinator (including artwork, author photos if required, biographies, and copyright release form). All special issue materials must be received no later than 6 weeks before the scheduled publication date. Any paper that does not comply with our page limitation and formatting guidelines will be sent back for revisions. For transactions, mandatory overlength page charges (MOPC) may apply if the final version of a paper exceeds the page limit for its paper type. Accepted paper types and associated page limits are published on each journal’s website.

IEEE Computer Society transactions accept and encourage submissions of supplemental materials for review. All supplemental material must be submitted as separate files and must not be included within the same PDF file as the main paper submission. In September 2010, the Transactions Operations Committee decided to consider all appendices as supplemental material. Additional types of supplemental material can include: proofs, code, experimental data, short movies, animations and audio files relevant to the research community. If the paper is accepted for publication, the supplemental material will be published at the abstract level of our Digital Library. Publishing the supplemental material at the abstract level allows readers to view it without an electronic subscription. A pointer to its URL will also be included in the main body of the paper. All supplemental materials must follow US copyright guidelines and may not include material previously copyrighted by another author, organization or company. If portions of supplemental files contain material that is the legal property of another party, authors must retain pre-authorized written permission for reuse. Without proper clearance, files will not be reviewed or published.

Correspondence items or “comments on” papers may be submitted that comment on previously published manuscripts. Correspondence items must also go through the review process but will usually be published more quickly than a regular submission. Author corrections to their own paper may also be submitted, and these must be approved by the EIC prior to publication.

Authors must supply missing materials before production work can commence. Any paper that does not comply with submission guidelines will be returned for reformatting. The peer-review support coordinator will review the paper packages for completeness and request authors to supply any missing essentials. They will also coordinate with the corresponding author if there are any problems with art files or to address copyright concerns in the images provided. Papers are then processed and posted online to the IEEE’s Digital Library as preprints (also called “early access” papers). They are next placed in queue for processing by a journal coordinator.

When the article has been completely processed, the final page layout is sent to the author for proofing and an invoice for overlength pages, if any, is provided. Revisions to the original submitted manuscript are not accepted at this stage. This proofing stage is intended for reviewing typesetting only. Corrections, if any, are then incorporated and the article is approved for publication in an upcoming issue.

Normally, corresponding authors will receive communication from the journal coordinators via email regarding the layout and proofing of their article. Authors are also provided with information regarding reprints and the copyright policy concerning electronic dissemination of articles published by the IEEE.

E.2 Production

Article and issue production is handled by the journal coordinator. Journal coordinators must work with the EIC to plan issues which meet page budgets, provide author proofs and make necessary corrections, work with a vendor to generate XML for every article, assemble and paginate the issue, and release the issue for online distribution. The peer review support staff ensures that digital access is provided to EICs and editorial board members during their term.

Papers are typically published online within one week of acceptance. This publication process is called “preprints” or “early access” and it not only allows papers to be published faster, it also shortens submission to publication times. The date the paper is originally posted online is tracked and that date is included in the final version, along with other significant dates for that paper. All papers are assigned unique identifiers, called digital object identifiers (DOIs), so that they may be searched or referenced no matter their location.

F. Content Processing—Magazines

This section describes the partnership process required to produce a magazine issue. Rather than dictating a set of rules, it identifies accountability and suggests guidelines focusing on the interfaces among volunteers, authors, and staff.

F.1 Article Preparation

EICs are responsible for maintaining a healthy queue of accepted feature articles, ready for editing. The size of this queue will vary with the publication, but it should contain enough material to comprise one issue of normal length.

Authors provide the technical content for Computer Society publications and, together with reviewers, bear the major responsibility for ensuring technical accuracy. Authors must supply missing materials before the editorial process can commence. Peer-review administrators will review submissions for completeness and request missing materials from authors.

Editorial review in the context of the magazine will not include “developmental editing.” Feature articles run from 4,000 to 8,000 words, depending on the magazine. Each magazine has different specifications related to word count, abstract length, and so on.

These specifications are available on the author resources page for magazines (www.computer.org/publications/author-resources/peer-review/magazines).

F.2 Department Material

Department material includes all editorial pages other than those devoted to feature articles. Department deadlines vary from publication to publication, but department editors are responsible for submitting their material to editorial staff on time.

F.3 Production

Once an article is accepted and the files are submitted, staff handles editorial review and production; tracking and adhering to page budgets (with EICs providing consultation as required); reviewing and finalizing page layout; line-art preparation (for Computer, Software, and S&P magazines); page imposition; initiating the print order and coordinating all IEEE services (such as mailing labels. Staff assembles proofs, final material for digital production, as well as printing and mailing. Staff also compiles the complimentary editorial mailing list by which digital copies are sent to contributing authors and magazine volunteers.

G. Website Content and Maintenance

The Computer Society website (https://www.computer.org) includes information about CS products, services, and opportunities. Periodical homepages can provide access to archived and current issues, calls for papers, free content from the publication, community resources, and supplemental materials that extend beyond print.

The most successful periodical homepages are those with fresh, frequently updated information. EICs should appoint editorial board members to oversee updating periodical homepages to ensure rich and timely content for their publications.

6. Cooperation among Periodicals

The EIC of a publication may cooperate with the EICs of other magazines and transactions in two major ways: (1) by forwarding submitted papers and other material (not rejects) to another publication when the submission is more appropriate for the other publication, and (2) by fostering interaction among both transactions and magazines through a variety of complementary and coordinated activities. In addition, publications may seek or welcome support from other IEEE societies and external professional associations, through cosponsorship and copublishing agreements.

A. Complementary Issues

A complementary issue is an issue of a publication in which the editorial content is linked with the editorial content of one or more other periodicals (either transactions or magazines). Typically, this takes the form of special issues in each of the participating publications, but it isn’t limited to special issues. For example, a survey or tutorial article might appear in Computer in the same month of publication of a collection of special-interest articles on the same topic in one or more of the other periodicals.

B. Coordinated Activities

Periodicals are encouraged to coordinate activities and information in a manner that enhances their value to members. For example, one publication might publish a call for papers of one or more sister publications, particularly when the topic is of special relevance. Or one publication might adjust its scope and content relative to another, to avoid overloading the membership in a certain topic area. At a minimum, EICs should make it a point to circulate their editorial calendars among other EICs, to minimize duplication and to strengthen the Society’s overall coverage of the computer field.

B.1 Conference Publishing Services

Conference Publishing Services (CPS; https://www.computer.org/conferences/cps) produces high-quality, peer-reviewed conference publications in a variety of media formats, including print, CD-ROM, USB, and online products. The main goal of CPS is to make the publishing process as effortless as possible for both conference organizers and authors at a reasonable cost. The IEEE Computer Society has been providing conferences and workshops with professional publishing services for over 35 years. During these years, CPS has grown into one of the most highly respected publishers supporting event organizers. CPS is also a leader in implementing innovative publishing technologies, including CPS Online, an IEEE online collaborative publishing environment.

C. Technical Cosponsorship Agreements

Technical cosponsorships can make a Computer Society publication stronger financially, structurally, and editorially. In signing such agreements with other IEEE societies or with technical or national societies outside IEEE, we seek to enhance the publication’s reputation and raise its visibility, strengthen and diversify its editorial board, augment its editorial coverage, build ties to other interdisciplinary communities, and, at the very least, add subscription income.

Such an arrangement should increase the value of belonging to the cosponsoring Society, which then should translate into more members for that organization—that’s the draw for the potential cosponsor. To attract its members, the cosponsorship offers them a much reduced subscription price, encourages them to participate as authors and editors, and exposes them to a new source of interdisciplinary editorial coverage. The organization typically receives one or more designated seats on the publication’s editorial board to represent its interests, is listed as a cosponsor on the publication’s masthead, and typically can market its products and services on the publication’s pages and website.

Technical cosponsorships can be formed at a publication’s launch or afterwards. During a launch, the publication’s volunteer and staff organizers might want to bring another society onboard to reach a wider audience. In other cases, other IEEE societies might ask to come aboard, perhaps in return for support during the IEEE approval process for the proposed publication. For established publications, the typical scenario has involved a well-connected EIC or editorial board member working with a staff manager to approach the volunteer’s colleagues in the target society, with the staff manager providing support to write the proposal and secure approval within the Computer Society and IEEE.

D. Financial Copublishing Agreements

The CS participates in several copublishing agreements, which involve joint ownership of a publication with other IEEE societies or with organizations outside the IEEE.

The charter governing such an arrangement establishes each Society’s level of financial participation, which Society will act as the administrative partner, how the partnership will be organized, and how partners can terminate their involvement, among other considerations.

Most such copublishing ventures are formed as part of a product’s launch. The societies typically band together to develop a more viable interdisciplinary publication, create added value for their existing members and attract new members, provide volunteer opportunities for their members, and share in eventual profits.

7. Periodical Reviews

Each year, EICs are invited to an IEEE Panel of Technical Editors meeting, where the Periodicals Committee of the IEEE Technical Activities Board assesses periodical performance for timeliness and quality. In addition, every three to five years, EICs for all IEEE periodicals are asked to participate in individual reviews of their publications.

These reviews include reports on schedule and financial performance and on citations in the ISI Journal Citation Reports. EICs should be familiar with how their periodical ranks among other periodicals.

JCR is a multidisciplinary database used by librarians, publishers, and authors to identify journals relevant to their work. JCR is intended to provide a systematic, objective way to determine the relative importance of journals within their subject categories.

For more information on ISI products and JCR, visit https://clarivate.com/products/journal-citation-reports.

8. Understanding Page Budgets

Page budgets are determined using several factors: current number of papers in the queue, number of themed or special issues planned for the year, and submission and acceptance rates. Page budgets are typically set by April of the year prior, since they are a significant factor in fiscal budget planning which must be completed and presented to BoG during the June meetings. Also because page budgets are such a large driver of expense, it is important to leverage pages wisely and to consult with Publications Office staff to understand the page budgets needs of your title and ensure that the budget is set appropriately for the next year.

9. Some Quick Dos and Don’ts

Do: Use ScholarOne Manuscripts for all communication regarding submissions in order to maintain accurate records in the audit trail.
Do: Contact Christine Anthony (canthony@computer.org) for any peer-review related concerns or issues.
Do: Contact your peer review administrator if you suspect multiple submission. After confirming multiple submission, copy Jennifer Carruth (jcarruth@computer.org) on the reject letter so that she can add the name to the warning list and make sure this is a first warning
Do: Contact Jennifer if you have any compliance questions or concerns before making a decision.
Don’t: Approve or schedule special issues without first consulting your peer review and production staff contacts.
Don’t: Make a decision in ScholarOne manuscripts when you find a possible plagiarism case. Send information to Jennifer Carruth, and she will open an investigation. The investigation must be completed before a decision can be made.

Editor in Chief (EIC) Manual of the IEEE Computer Society

Table of Contents

EIC Manual of the IEEE Computer Society