IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering ( TKDE) seeks to publish select survey papers each year. Papers submitted in the ordinary way to the journal may be surveys. In addition, the journal will from time to time invite established researchers to provide surveys on topics relevant to what they have recently published in TKDE.

Surveys should reflect an area that is central to TKDE. Starting with several of the research results that have appeared in TKDE would meet this area criterion. It is further expected that survey papers will provide critical reviews that will advance research in the area surveyed. Examples include developing frameworks and terminologies that highlight similarities and differences among survey results, position statements that capture problems solved by the surveyed research and give guidance toward open problems, reviews linking two research areas, and case studies/ benchmarks that both allow contrasting the surveyed work and can be used to guide future work in the area.

Survey papers are not expected to introduce novel solutions in the surveyed area, but should provide novel contributions in the organization or analysis of the research that adds understanding to the topic. Surveys on a single topic should provide a historical perspective as well as looking at current efforts and future research directions. Papers should be comprehensive in their treatment of the area and have an extensive bibliography, including relevant recent papers published in TKDE; to enable this, papers will normally be allowed up to 20 double-column pages rather than the 14 for regular papers.

Survey papers for TKDE must meet the technical quality and significance standards of all TKDE papers and be authoritative in the area surveyed; to ensure visibility and impact, at least one of the authors should have recognized expertise (e.g., prior publication in TKDE) on the topic surveyed. Survey papers are expected to be of the highest levels of presentation; the key concepts of the surveyed work should be as or more accessible than in the original papers and directed toward readers who do not have a detailed knowledge of the survey topic(s) as well as those who do. There should also be greater emphasis on current and ongoing interest than with regular papers; TKDE surveys are expected to stimulate and guide future research rather than serve as archival of a closed area.

Survey papers should be submitted following the author instructions, noting the manuscript type as Survey. Authors considering writing a survey paper may contact the Survey Editor at clifton@cs.purdue.edu to discuss the project; however, note that, even with prior encouragement or invitation, acceptance will be conditional on the same rigorous review process as with all TKDE submissions.

Christopher Clifton, Survey Editor

Xindong Wu, Editor-in-Chief

Christos Faloutsos, Associate Editor-in-Chief