Editorial Office Information PMC encourages the submission of Special Issues (SI) on topics of interest for the journal. An SI should be motivated by one of the following purposes:
Providing a state-of-the-art account of any of the fields covered by the journal (please refer to the Aims and Scope).
Emphasizing new emerging research paradigms in these fields.
Highlighting a new and promising, or a particularly successful, application domain.
Proposals coming from researchers significantly involved and recognized in the field will be considered. Members of the Editorial Board at large are particularly welcome to guest-edit an SI.
There are two kinds of SI:
Those that are devoted to a specialized topic or a scientific event.
Those that gather extended versions of a selection of papers from a conference or a workshop.
Special Issues can be built on the basis of invitations (such as the case of selected conference papers) or can be open Special Issues. For the latter, a call for papers is published in the journal, with a deadline for submitting papers to the Guest-Editor (GE). This call for papers must include a rationale for the SI, key words for relevant topics, and a schedule for the refereeing process.
An SI proposal consists of: a biographical sketch of the proposer(s); a draft of the call for papers (for open SI) or a statement describing the scientific event or topic on which the SI is based; a proposed time-line for the paper submissions and review process; and an explanation of the proposed mode of selection of the papers. The Special Issues Editor-in-Chief must approve these proposals. The proposal should be sent to:
Behrooz Shirazi (Editor-in-Chief, Special Issues - EIC-SI)
See contact information at the bottom of this guideline.
An SI is typically made of 6 to 8 papers, with each paper 20 to 25 pages of length.
Ground rules:
Other than in exceptional circumstances there should be a minimum of 3 reviews per paper. These reviews should be conducted knowing that the paper is under consideration for the journal, as opposed to for a workshop/conference.
Papers should be of high standard for an international, archival research journal.
Papers should not have been submitted or published elsewhere but could be extended or refined versions of conference papers with significant new, original material. It is necessary to ensure papers originating from a conference are of a suitable style and standard to warrant journal publication.
Guest editor restricted to an editorial (can be an extended editorial e.g. to provide some background or tutorial information) {Shirazi: I am not sure what this means either - may be the next bullet I have added is the intention here.}
Guest editors are expected to provide a preface as an introduction to the SI. The preface is intended to be of tutorial nature and should set the tone and background for the SI.
Responsibilities of the Guest Editor
Once the SI is agreed upon by the EIC-SI, the GE is in charge of inviting papers or receiving submissions, and of supervising the refereeing process. After the submission deadline is over, the GE should send the list of titles and authors of the submitted papers to the EIC-SI, or a copy of the first drafts if requested by them.
Each paper must be refereed by at least three experts in the field (in exceptional cases, 2 reviews may be sufficient if the GE also concurs with the reviews), and must undergo revision steps when necessary. The GE may spontaneously request the help of the EIC-SI, especially in case of difficulty with the choice of referees, for the refereeing of research papers the GE may co-sign, or for solving conflicting referee advice. The GE should also submit the preface for the SI to EIC-SI for review and approval.
Generally, the GE is supposed to ensure the high quality of the papers they accept. However, the EIC-SI may only conditionally accept an SI in case some of the papers are found to be not in final form, or papers whose level is considered not sufficient. Another revision step may be requested, based on suggestions of the EIC-SI, especially if the quality of the language is not good enough, or if the level of contributions is found to be uneven. The EIC-SI reserve the right to reject papers in an SI in case such revisions cannot be properly carried out. For that reason, the GE should NOT send a formal letter of acceptance to the authors before the EIC-SI has officially approved the SI. If the number of accepted papers is too small to make a full issue, it can be turned into a special section in a featured issue.
VERY IMPORTANT:
The GE should send the final version of the SI to the Editor-in-Chief, Special Issues (not to Production at Elsevier), who will decide on the acceptance for publication or the necessity for further revision.
Only after the EIC-SI approves the final version of the SI, the GE should inform the authors that their papers are accepted. Authors will also receive individual notifications of acceptance from Production at Elsevier later on.
Please note that, upon acceptance, the EIC-SI will be responsible for checking the completeness of the material and for sending it to Production at Elsevier. Therefore, the GE needs to make sure that the Editor-in-Chief, Special Issues receives BY POST AND IN ONE COMPLETE PACKAGE, the following:
Hardcopies of all accepted papers
Electronic (source and printable) files of all the accepted papers
Table of contents (in the order in which the papers must be published)
An Editorial Preface (signed by the Guest Editor(s))
All referee reports
In order to guarantee a smooth processing of the publication, please check that the following items are present for each manuscript:
Hard copies of the text and artwork
Electronic files per manuscript (i.e. source file (e.g. TeX or Word) and good-quality figure files (preferably high-resolution tiff or eps)), exactly corresponding to the accepted hardcopies. Authors need NOT format their papers to the journal style, as Elsevier will produce page proofs, and therefore will delete all author formatting and insert their own formatting. Files can be enclosed with the hardcopies on floppy disks or all on a CD, (or can be put on a site from where they can be downloaded by the Issue Manager)*.
Manuscript reference number
E-mail address and fax number of corresponding author
A short abstract
Up to 6 keywords
Good quality figures with captions
Tables with captions
Author biographies and photos
Please send the above-described material to the following address:
Professor Behrooz Shirazi
PMC Editor-in-Chief, Special Issues
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Washington State University
P.O. Box 642752
Pullman, Washington 99164-2752
USA
For Express delivery:
Elec/Mech 102
Spokane Street
Pullman, Washington 99164-2752
USA
Tel: (509) 335-8148
Fax: (509) 335 3818
NOTE: Authors should not send their individual final papers directly to Elsevier! Their papers should always be sent to the Editorial Office, in order to be checked for completeness before being submitted to Production.
