Guidelines for Guest Editors

Guidelines to Guest Editors

The Guest Editor(s) will prepare a Call for Papers for public dissemination. They could also invite leading researchers from the academia and the industry to contribute research articles. The articles may include a mix of research papers, state-of-the-art surveys, tutorials and case analyses of theoretical value and practical significance.
When soliciting papers, a clear deadline has to be communicated to the authors. While this deadline should allow the publication of the most recent research from the community, it should also be reasonable enough to facilitate a timely production schedule. A suggested time span from the date of announcement to the submission deadline is about 5 – 6 months.

Each paper should be thoroughly reviewed by at least two qualified expert reviewers. Based on the reviews, the Guest Editor(s) will decide whether the paper is acceptable, needs revisions, or to be rejected. Based on the Guest Editor(s)’ recommendations, the Editors-in-Chief will make the final decisions.
Papers should be sent out for refereeing as soon as they arrive. Each referee should be asked to report within eight weeks. A month after the letter of request, the referees should be reminded that their evaluation is expected by the end of the following month. Every effort should be made to secure the reports in a reasonable time.
After receipt of the referees' reports, those authors who have to revise their manuscripts should be notified immediately. Rejection letters should also be sent promptly. At the same time, a fixed deadline for returning the revised manuscripts should be set.
Revised papers would follow the same above steps for each iteration of revision. However, the referees should be asked to respond within 4 weeks in each iteration.

Acceptance of papers has to be agreed upon by both the Guest Editor(s) and the Editors-in-Chief. Papers recommended by the Guest Editor(s) for acceptance should be sent to the Editors-in-Chief along with at least two positive referee reports, their cover letters on both the initial and the revised versions, as well as all relevant correspondence. After the Editors-in-Chief's agreement, the Guest Editor(s) will notify the authors of the acceptance of their papers.

When a paper is finally accepted, the authors will be asked to submit two hard copies of the final version plus a disk containing the paper in either Word or Wordperfect. In addition, camera-ready, good quality originals of all figures, photos and other illustrations must be provided on separate pages. A brief bio of each author should also be supplied. A copyright transfer form should be executed by at least one of the authors at this time.
The final version of each paper must be prepared according to the submission guidelines that can be accessed from the home page of the journal here.
The complete final package of all accepted papers in the above format should be sent to the Editors-in-Chief.
The Guest Editor(s) should write a foreword to their issue. The forward should be within 5 pages, double spaced, 12 pt. The foreword should be prepared along the lines of regular papers and should be sent to the Editor(s)-in-Chief along with the rest of the papers.
The Guest Editor(s) should specify the order of publication of the articles.

The Editor-in-Chief will send the final package to the Publisher. The Publisher takes care of all technical matters thereafter. These include the technical editing for the typesetters and the mailing of the proofs to the authors for proofreading. The authors are requested to return their corrected proofs to the technical editor for finalization. The publisher will contact the Guest Editor(s) regarding any publication questions such as author index, table of contents etc.
The publisher requires a lead time of about 4 – 5 months from the date the final package is provided to the publication of the issue. The Guest Editor(s) are strongly urged to take cognizance of this.