Optical Switching and Networking

Submission of articles

Electronic submissions only

All manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted via the journal's online submission and peer-review systems at http://ees.elsevier.com/osn. Please follow the instructions given on this site.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In case you submit a special issue paper that will be handled by a designated Special Issue Guest Editor, please follow the instructions below:
1. Author registers in EES (follow the instructions on the site
2. Select: Submit Manuscript from Main Menu
3. When choosing Article Type please select the title of the special issue you are submitting to


From then on follow the steps as laid out in EES. The manuscript is submitted to the Editorial Office who then assigns it to the Guest Editor in charge of that specific special issue.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all Authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection software iThenticate.
See also http://www.elsevier.com/editors/plagdetect

NOTE: electronic articles submitted for the review process may need to be edited after acceptance to follow journal standards. For this an editable file format is necessary. See the section on "Electronic format requirements for accepted articles" and the further instructions on how to prepare your article below.

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a "Journal Publishing Agreement"'(for more information on this and copyright see http://authors.elsevier.com. Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author conforming receipt of the manuscript together with a "Journal Publishing Agreement" form.

If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Oxford, UK: phone (+44) 1865 843830, fax (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail permissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage ( http://elsevier.com/locate/permissions).

Review process
The objective is to provide detailed, constructive feedback on submitted papers and publish high quality papers within a very short period of time. The target for a first reply is three months. You may be requested by the Editor to submit a revision. Please assist us in achieving our ambitious goals for short publication times by submitting a revision at your earliest convenience.

Electronic format requirements for accepted articles

General points
We accept most wordprocessing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX is preferred. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used.

Wordprocessor documents
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Do not embed 'graphically designed' equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Author Gateway's Getting Published with Elsevier: http://authors.elsevier.com). Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript. See also the section on Preparation of electronic illustrations. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spellchecker' function of your wordprocessor.

LaTeX documents
If the LaTeX file is suitable, proofs will be produced without rekeying the text. The article should preferably be written using Elsevier's document class "elsart" , or alternatively the standard document class "article".
The Elsevier LaTeX package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can be obtained from the Quickguide: http://www.elsevier.com/latex or from the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) in the directory /tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/supported/elsevier. It consists of the files: elsart.cls, guidelines for users of elsart, a template file for quick start, and the instruction booklet "Preparing articles with LaTeX".

Artwork
Submitting your illustrations, pictures, tables and other artwork in an electronic format helps us to produce your work to the best possible standards, ensuring accuracy, clarity and a high level of detail. For detailed guidelines on electronic figures, please refer to http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. This site shows how to prepare your artwork for electronic submission and includes: common problems, suggestions on how to ensure the best results, and guidelines for popular applications.

Presentation of manuscripts

Please write your text in good English.

Title page. The title page should contain the article title, author(s) names and affiliations, related footnotes, the text of the abstract and a list of keywords.

Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the correct e-mail address and the complete postal address.

Keywords. Immediately after the abstract, provide 3-5 keywords, avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of').

Acknowledgements. Place acknowledgements before the references, in a separate section, and not as a footnote on the title page.

References. See separate section below.

Language Polishing Authors who require information about language editingand copyediting services pre-and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/languagepolishing or contact authorssupport@elsevier.com for more infformation. Please note Elsevier never endorses nor takes responsibility for any product, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Term and Conditions http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/termsconditions.cws_home/termsconditions

References

Citations in the text: Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa).

Citing and listing of web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given.

Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given. Example: "..... as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result ...."

List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

[1] J. van der Geer, J.A.J. Hanraads, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2000) 51-59.

Reference to a book:

[2] W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, third ed., Macmillan, New York, 1979.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

[3] G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 1999, pp. 281-304.

Proofs
One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author, to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. In order to do this we need your help. When you receive the (PDF) proof of your article for correction, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete. Note that this does not mean you have any less time to make your corrections, just that only one set of corrections will be accepted.

The Publisher reserves the right to proceed with publication if corrections are not communicated to the Publisher within the term requested with the proofs (within 48 hours). Should there be no corrections, please confirm this.

Author enquiries
For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available), please visit this journal's homepage at http://www.elsevier.com/journals From here you can also track accepted articles (http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle) and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed, as well as detailed artwork guidelines, copyright information, frequently asked questions and more.

Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those related to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication.

Author benefits
• Free online reproduction of colour figures.

• Online visibility within three weeks after acceptance through ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com). Your article is immediatly linkable and citeable by using the Digital Object Identifier.

• The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail or, alternatively, 25 free paper offprints. The PDF file is a watermaked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.

• Authors are entitled to a 30% discount on Elsevier books.

• Page charges are not applicable.