# CiSE Guest Editors' Guide

Lorena A. Barba¹

¹George Washington University

May 5, 2020

Approved by CiSE AEiCs on 3 March 2020.

*Computing in Science and Engineering* (CiSE) is a technical magazine of the IEEE Computer Society, in publication since 1999. CiSE publishes peer-reviewed research articles, and also runs departments spanning news and analyses, topical reviews, tutorials, case studies, and more. CiSE runs special issues on themes chosen by the editorial board, which are handled by Guest Editors. This document explains the editorial workflow of special issues, and the role and responsibilities of Guest Editors.

## Selection of Special Issue Themes

Special Issues are proposed by members of the editorial board, or other community members, for the consideration of the Editor-in-Chief (EiC), and Associate Editors-in-Chief (AEiCs). They are approved by the EiC, with concurrence of a majority of the AEiCs. (CiSE currently has 5 AEiCs, so three of them should be supportive of the theme).

A special issue needs to have at least two Guest Editors, and should be approved at least one year prior to the expected publication.

## Invited or Open Submissions

Most special issues make an open call for submissions of papers relevant to the issue theme. Guest editors may propose an invited special issue, for which articles will be submitted via a closed CFP, and this may be approved by the EiC with support from AEiCs. To avoid perceived conflict of interest, guest editors should refrain from inviting authors from their own institutions, or authors who were their graduate students or postdoctoral trainees. All invited articles undergo the same peer-review process as unsolicited ones.

Invited Special Issues are generally limited to one per year.

## Special Issue Proposals

Proposals for future CiSE special issues should be sent to the EiC directly, and should include the following materials:

1. Description—An overview of topic and scope, and reasons why it is timely to dedicate a magazine issue to this theme.

2. Guest editors—A short bio for each guest editor, addressing how they are well positioned to lead the community to submit and review manuscripts.

3. Draft CFP—A preliminary drafting of the call for papers, subject to improvements after approval.
4. Dissemination plans—How the guest editors plan to reach authors and ensure success of the special issue.

5. Proposed issue date—Considering any related timelines (e.g., when articles stem from workshops, conferences, or world events), anticipated date of CFP and publication.

Role and Responsibilities of Guest Editors

Guest editors assume the responsibility of an Associate Editor in charge of the manuscripts submitted to the special issue. They manage the peer review of submitted manuscripts, ensure publication quality, and adhere to the IEEE and Computer Society's policies. (IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual, 2020)

The IEEE Computer Society has published a Guest Editor Information webpage. CiSE complies with these guidelines, but is sometimes stricter.

Follow these guidelines for CiSE Special Issues:

1. Guest editors write a special-issue introduction, which should be 1000 to 2200 words in length (5 pages or less), discussing the state of the art and future directions in the theme topic. It should highlight how each article in the special issue contributes to the field, and it may introduce key concepts and terminology, to facilitate a smooth reading of the articles. The guest editors' introduction should state whether the issue had an invited or open CFP. It should be sent directly to the EiC.

2. Other than the introduction to the special issue, a guest editor *may not be an author* or co-author of another article in the special issue they are editing. If some special circumstances warrant it (e.g., a needed survey of the field), they should request special dispensation from the EiC, who will seek concurrence from two AEiCs.

3. Guest editors should actively solicit submissions via outreach through their networks, and make every effort to ensure a healthy number of manuscripts are assessed via peer review to be part of the special issue.

4. Guest editors invite reviewers who are experts in the topic of the special issue *ahead of the submission deadline*. The reviewers should confirm their willingness to serve, and be ready to review their assigned articles within three weeks. Computer Society policies require each manuscript to receive three independent reviews. Guest editors oversee the timeliness and quality of peer-review reports. They should not take the role of reviewers, themselves.

5. Guest editors should not handle the peer review of manuscripts where a real or apparent conflict of interest (COI, see below) is present with any authors. These include: affiliation, previous co-authorship, having formally mentored the author (as PhD or postdoctoral supervisor), or having collaborated in a funded grant. In the case of a submission by an author where a potential COI may exist (real or apparent) with one or more of the guest editors, the guest editors should seek guidance from the EiC on how the COI might be mitigated. The submission may be allowed to go forward, in which case the guest editor will delegate the handling of peer review of this submission to another member of the editorial board, with guidance from the EiC.

6. Guest Editors are also responsible for ensuring that articles conform to Computer Society policies, and the magazine style. Common issues that arise in this regard are the word limits, and limits on the number of references. According to CiSE guidelines for authors: Articles should be between 2,400 and 6,250 words, including all main body, abstract, keyword, bibliography, and biography text. Each table and figure counts for 250 words. They should have *no more than 12 references*. Articles should be written for an interdisciplinary audience, be concise, and tend to be more readable than scholarly in style.

7. Special issues typically consist of about 6 articles. Informed by the peer reviews, guest editors select the articles to appear in the issue, which may result in good-quality articles having to be rejected. In exceptional situations of a theme being very popular, guest editors may request approval from the EiC
to run a Part 2 of the theme in a later issue. Transfer of special-issue submissions to the regular article
queue is discouraged.

Definition of Conflict of Interest

"A conflict of interest is defined as any situation, transaction, or relationship in which a member's, volunteer's, or staff person's decisions, actions, or votes could materially affect that individual's professional, personal, financial, or business concerns." [p.22 IEEE PSPB Operations Manual]

An Associate Editor is regarded as having a COI with a manuscript if any author is employed at the same institution as the editor. It is also a COI if the editor has co-authored a paper or has closely collaborated in a research project with any of the manuscript's authors in the previous five years.

Editorial Workflow

When a special issue is approved, the editorial workflow is as follows:

1. Guest editors submit the Call for Papers (CFP) to staff via email at cfp-posting@computer.org

2. Deadlines for the special issue are entered into the CiSE Editorial Calendar.

3. An email alias is created for the guest editors, which is their login to the Scholar One manuscript submission system, to collaboratively manage the peer review of submitted manuscripts.

4. The special issue is entered in the Scholar One manuscript submission system, as an article type. This allows authors to select the special issue when submitting.

5. Guest editors are sent an email with instructions to access Scholar One using the guest-editor alias, and with details of all deadlines for the special issue.

6. The CFP is posted on the magazine website, with the deadline for submission and the email alias for authors to send enquiries.

7. Guest editors do outreach through their networks, to reach potential authors, and ensure a good number of submissions to the special issue.

8. Guest editors recruit a team of reviewers, who are ready to be assigned incoming submissions.

9. As manuscripts are submitted, guest editors receive a notification email via the email alias (forwarded to their preferred email). They should check the submissions for compliance with magazine style and length limits (6,250 words, with each figure and table counting as 250 words; this is around 14 pages single-spaced).

10. Guest editors assign the manuscripts to reviewers, then log in periodically to check on status, and trigger reminders for reviewers, as needed. Note that the automatically generated reminders from Scholar One follow a timeline set up for regular articles, but special-issue articles may require shepherding to hit stricter deadlines.

11. Guest editors make a recommendation, based on reviewer reports, and their own assessment of the articles. Possible recommendations are: Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, Reject.

12. The EiC makes final decisions.

13. In the end, about six articles should be accepted for the special issue.

Contact

For enquiries, please contact: cise@computer.org
References

(2020). https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/files/opsmanual.pdf