Peer Review for Journals: Author Center

To submit your paper please use ScholarOne Manuscripts. To access ScholarOne Manuscripts, please use one of the links below, depending on which publication you would like to submit to.

• IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (TCBB)
• IEEE Computer Architecture Letters (CAL)
• IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing (TAC)
• IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing (TCC)
• IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC)
• IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC)
• IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (TETC)
• IEEE Transactions on Haptics (ToH)
• IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE)
• IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies (TLT)
• IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC)
• IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems(TPDS)
• IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI)
• IEEE Transactions on Services Computing (TSC)
• IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE)
• IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG)

Sign in to ScholarOne Manuscripts using your User ID and password. If you already have an account but have forgotten your login or password, enter your email address in the area "Password Help. Enter your e-mail address to receive an e-mail with your account information". If you do not receive a response email within one day, or if you do not already have an account, click on "New User? Register here". The bolded fields in the account information area are required information.

We ask that you enter some keywords in the "keyword" text box. Our system links keywords to the names of potential reviewers, a feature that expedites the review process. Also, if you anticipate that you will need to be notified by more than one email address, please include it in the "2nd email (CC)" field. You may mark this email address "active" or "inactive" as appropriate.

After you sign in, click "author center" in the main menu. Then click "submit first draft of a new manuscript". The system will guide you through the process. Files may be edited after uploading.

Editing Uploaded Files (Prior to Submission)

• Order: Please be sure to keep your main manuscript as number 1 in the list. Click on the pull-down menu in the "order" column and select the appropriate number. For example, if you want a file that is third in the list to appear second, then change the 3 to a 2.
• Category: To change the category of a file, click on the pull-down menu next to the category name and select a different category from the list.
• Change Description: To change the description of a file click on the "i" button and type a new description into the field.
• Delete: To delete a file you have uploaded click the "x" button. If you are deleting a file that was converted into PDF format, please be sure to delete both the original file and the file for review.

Proofing and Submitting Files

It is imperative that you carefully proofread your uploaded files before completing the submission process, as we do not allow duplicate submissions. Please check all special characters, mathematical symbols, Greek letters, equations, tables and images, to ensure that they appear properly.

Errors can be corrected by going to the original document located on your computer and making any necessary changes.  You may leave files in the system and return to them later; however, please be aware that your paper is not entered and we cannot begin the review process until you click the "submit" button.

Emailing Corrected Files (After Submission)

If you find that you have made an error in the submission of your manuscript (e.g,. uploaded the wrong file, left one or more files out, etc.), please email the journal administrator for the title you are submitting to. Do not attempt to delete and/or resubmit it into ScholarOne Manuscripts, as this will only produce duplicate entries of the paper.

The following table shows the various manuscript types and lengths accepted by IEEE Computer Society journals. All regular paper page limits include references and author biographies.

Please note that double column papers will translate more readily into the final publication format.

* Special Issue papers must adhere to the same page limit as regular and short papers. Please contact the publication's journal administrator for more information regarding Special Issue papers.

A double column page is defined as a 7.875" x 10.75" page with 10-point type, 12-point vertical spacing, and 1/2 inch margins. A single column page is defined as an 8.5" x 11" page with 12-point type and 24-point vertical spacing, containing approximately 250 words. All margins should be one inch (top, bottom, right and left). These length limits are taking into account reasonably-sized figures and references.

Submissions must include the following elements: title page, abstract, index terms, illustrations, and bibliography. References should appear in a separate bibliography at the end of the paper, with items referred to by numerals in square brackets. Figures and tables must be sized as they are to appear in print. Figures should be placed exactly where they are to appear within the text. We ask that you embed the figures in order to provide a smoother review process for the editors and reviewers. Figures not correctly sized will be returned to the author for reformatting. 

For further style and figure formatting information, please consult the IEEE Computer Society Style Guide and/or the Transactions Art Guide.

A comments paper is a paper commenting on an error one has found in, or a disagreement one has with, a previously published paper.

When submitting a comments paper, you must include the title and/or log number of the previously published paper. The journal coordinator will retrieve as much information as possible about the paper being commented on, and will forward the appropriate materials to the Editor-in-Chief (EIC). If the editor who was assigned to the previously published paper is no longer available, the EIC will assign the comments paper to another editor whose expertise areas closely match the paper's topic.

Keywords should be taken from the taxonomy provided in ScholarOne Manuscripts. Using the keywords from the keyword list is essential to the review process because ScholarOne Manuscripts links them to names of potential reviewers who are associated with that area of expertise, thereby expediting the review process. We encourage all users to include keywords as part of their account information. If you currently do not have keywords included as part of your account information, you may add them by clicking the "edit your information" button on the main menu. Scroll down the page until you reach the "keywords" box. You may then select the keywords that apply to you from the list provided.

An abstract must clearly state the nature and significance of the paper and is required at the head of the manuscript. Abstracts must not include mathematical expressions or bibliographic references.

Word limits for abstracts are as follows:

• Regular/Special Issue paper – 100 to 200 words
• Short paper – 50 words

Please consult our art guide for details on how to best prepare and submit the figures for your paper.

View transactions art_guide.pdf (PDF, 4.69MB).

Color Figures

TCBB, TPAMI, TSE, and TVCG accept color images for print. You may indicate the presence of color images in your paper on screen 1 of the submission process. Please note that you must explain your reasoning for including color images within your manuscript in the "comments to editor-in-chief" box on screen 9. Images will be printed in color only when color is necessary. Final approval to publish in color must be given by the editor-in-chief.

All journals can accept color images for use in the online version of the paper.

IEEE Computer Society Transactions accepts and encourages submissions of supplemental materials for review. All supplemental material must be submitted as separate files and must not be included within the same PDF file as the main paper submission.  Types of supplemental material can include: proofs, code, experimental data, short movies, appendices, animations and audio files relevant to the research community. It is highly encouraged that authors take advantage of this opportunity to discuss and promote their paper as well as promote the research that drives the industry's community. Please refer to our multimedia guidelines for additional information.  These materials may be published in our media center as well as on our Digital Library with the electronic version of the paper, where they can be accessed for free creating the opportunity to gain further exposure to your paper. A pointer to the supplemental material will be included in the printed version. Files submitted to ScholarOne Manuscripts cannot exceed a combined file size of 50 MB. Files larger than this limit will be returned for modification to a smaller size.  All downloadable media and files that require plug-ins, viewers, or other special software not typically included in a default browser configuration should include a link to the appropriate helper application. If you are submitting a video or audio file, please include a text file with a description of your supplemental material.

In September 2010, the Transactions Operations Committee decided to consider all appendices as supplemental material.  If a paper's appendix is not initially designated as supplemental material, you will be asked to remove the appendix from the main paper file and resubmit the files via email to the journal administrator.  The journal administrator will then upload the separate files to ScholarOne Manuscripts.

All supplemental materials must follow US copyright guidelines and may not include material previously copyrighted by another author, organization or company. If portions of your manuscript or supplemental files contain material that is the legal property of another party, you must retain pre-authorized written permission for reuse. Without proper clearance, your files will not be reviewed or published. If you do have clearance, please forward the documentation via email to the journal administrator.

It is essential that discussions of the social as well as the purely technical aspects of electrical and electronics engineering work be included in IEEE Publications. The following policies shall be implemented by the Publication Services and Products Board and followed by editors and authors:

• The subject matter shall be relevant to the field of electrical or electronics engineering, or computer science, and the field's impact on society.
• Reasonable efforts shall be made to provide for adequate and timely presentations of differing viewpoints.
• Materials shall include a statement that the opinions expressed are those of the author, and no endorsement by the IEEE, its officials, or its members is implied.

ScholarOne Manuscripts requires authors to enter a name and email address while registering. Email is our primary means of communication, so it is very important to verify that all information submitted is correct.

To update your account information at any time, click the "edit your information" button in the main menu. Enter the new information in the appropriate fields and click "submit information".

Additional institutions that contributing authors may be affiliated with can be included in the "comments to editor-in-chief" box on screen 9 of the submission process. You can also make any necessary changes to the affiliation(s) when or if you upload a revised version. Use the "previous" button until you reach screen 2 in order to make changes.

It is the author's responsibility to ensure that he/she has permission to publish images in print and online in our digital library. If the author did not create the image, he/she must acquire permission from the owner of the image. If the image has been published elsewhere, authors must secure permission from the publisher and pay any necessary fees required. We cannot publish an image without the consent of the image's owner.  You will need to provide proof of permission that you're authorized to use that image (via email is acceptable), preferably prior to submission, but definitely prior to publication.  Contact the journal administrator if you have questions.

The IEEE outlines publication principles including authorship and author responsibilities in section 8.2.1of the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual. Items specific, but not limited, to these principles are highlighted here:

• Authorship credit and technical contribution
• Coauthor awareness and approval of submission (or any revised version)
• Ordering of authors on manuscript
• Role of the corresponding author
• Author conduct regarding plagiarism, dual submission, previous related work, and discussion of manuscript with reviewers
• Citing the submitted paper in other relevant work under consideration for publication
• Author responsibility for obtaining written permission to use material (i.e., charts, photographs, or other graphical or textual material) copywritten by other parties

Authors are responsible for reading and adhering to these guidelines. You must withdraw your submission immediately if you are unable to comply with any of them.

Submissions must represent original material and no version of the submission can be concurrently submitted to any conference, journal, or any other publication.

Papers are accepted for review with the understanding that the same work has been neither submitted to, nor published in, another journal or conference. If it is determined that a paper has already appeared in anything more than a conference proceeding, or appears in or will appear in any other publication before the editorial process is completed, the paper will be automatically rejected.

Papers previously published in conference proceedings, digests, preprints, or records are eligible for consideration provided that the papers have undergone substantial revision, and that the author informs the journal coordinator at the time of submission.

The question regarding concurrent submission appears on screen 5 in ScholarOne Manuscripts.  Concurrent submission to these journals and other publications is viewed as a serious breach of ethics and, if detected, will result in immediate rejection of the submission.

We do not accept duplicate submissions of manuscripts. If you need to notify us of significant changes to the paper, please contact us. Please do not attempt to upload modified versions of papers that are already in ScholarOne Manuscripts. Identical submissions will be immediately rejected.

If any portion of your submission has previously appeared in or will appear in a conference proceeding, you should notify us at the time of submitting, make sure that the submission references the conference publication, and supply a copy of the conference version(s) to our office. Please also provide a brief description of the differences between the submitted manuscript and the preliminary version(s).  You must select the appropriate designation for the files during the submission process in order to assist the editors and reviewers with differentiating between the files.

Please be aware that editors and reviewers are required to check the submitted manuscript to determine whether a sufficient amount of new material has been added to warrant publication. The IEEE Computer Society's guidelines specify that authors should only submit original work that has neither appeared elsewhere for publication, nor which is under review for another refereed publication. If you have used your own previously published material as a basis for a new submission, then you are required to cite the previous work(s) and clearly indicate how the new submission offers substantively novel or different contributions beyond those of the previously published work(s). In addition, if you intend to submit a conference version of your paper to a conference after submitting to the IEEE Computer Society, you must state your intention to submit in your cover letter and provide a copy of the conference paper upon submission to the conference.  You will also need to provide a brief description of the differences between the submitted manuscript and the conference version(s).  Any manuscript not meeting this criteria will be rejected. Copies of any previously published work affiliated with the new submission must also be included as supportive documentation upon submission.

IEEE authors who receive public funding for their research, and then publish the research in an IEEE publication, are required to submit their papers to PubMed.*  At this point in time, IEEE does not submit papers/articles for their authors, the authors must submit the forms themselves by going to,http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/about/authorms/.

*Does not apply to TCBB, as this journal is already indexed by PubMed and Medline.

The policies contained in this Section 8.2.2.A shall apply to the Editors of all regular technical periodical IEEE publications, except IEEE SPECTRUM and Society newsletters. At no time should a manuscript be accepted or published in an archival journal without prior review of the complete manuscript by two or more independent referees conversant with the pertinent subject area.

IEEE requires that referees treat the contents of papers under review as confidential information not to be disclosed to others before publication. It is expected that no one with access to a paper under review will make any inappropriate use of the special knowledge that access provides. Contents of abstracts submitted to conference program committees should be regarded as confidential as well, and handled in the same manner.

Periodicals which are published in cooperation with non-IEEE organizations must have a review policy that ensures the quality of the papers. The policies of the non-IEEE organizations should be generally consistent with the IEEE requirements contained in this Section 8.2.2.A.

To access Section 8.2.2.A – The Review Process in its entirety, visit the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual.

You must indicate the reason for requesting or excluding reviewers during the submission process.

The peer review process assures the anonymity of the reviewers. You can request review in which your identity is also kept from the reviewers. This is called a double-blind review. Requests for a double-blind review should be clearly indicated during the submission process. While you may request a double-blind review, such requests must be accompanied by an explanation in the cover letter on why the double-blind review is being requested. Furthermore, co-authors must be entered and listed in the co-author list during the submission process in ScholarOne Manuscripts.  Papers requesting double-blind review must still provide copies of and differences from related papers by the authors that have been previously published.  It is your responsibility to ensure that all electronic files (including but not limited to supplemental material and preliminary/conference versions), file properties, and materials submitted for double-blind review do not reveal your identity or the identities of contributing authors.  Note that author anonymity for papers with preliminary versions cannot be guaranteed due to the possibility that reviewers may search for those versions on the Web.

Requests for double-blind reviews will be honored at the discretion of the Editor in Chief based on the reasons behind the requests.

The length of the review process varies between papers, and many factors affect the time it takes to review a paper. The time it takes for an associate editor to be assigned, and for available, qualified reviewers to be located, depends on the complexity and the type of material submitted for review. Each publication makes a concerted effort to keep the review time to a minimum that is consistent with keeping the publications reputation for quality and integrity. Each submission placed into review is sent to at least three reviewers, making one submission correspond to roughly three review requests. The review process for our transactions journals may take approximately six to twelve months to be completed. For IEEE Computer Architecture Letters the response time from submission to author notification currently averages one month.

Since we make an effort not to "over use" individual reviewers, we hope that you will make it a priority to help with the review of other submissions when we call upon you.

When your paper is accepted for publication, below is the author checklist designed to help you meet the final submission requirements. Please note that all IEEE Computer Society Transactions papers are edited electronically; therefore, electronic materials are required for all final submissions.

You will be required to submit your final publication materials by the due date given in the acceptance letter. To avoid delays in the publication process, please refer to the author checklist below when preparing your materials.

The IEEE Computer Society uses an online first publication model, which means that your paper will be posted online shortly after you submit all publication materials.  As of 1 Feb. 2010, PDF files of final, accepted papers downloaded from ScholarOne Manuscripts will be stamped as a "PrePrint" posted to the IEEE Computer Society Digital Library (CSDL) and sent to the IEEE for posting in Xplore.  No changes can be made to a preprint until the article appears in an issue.  If for any reason you would prefer not to have your paper posted as a PrePrint, please advise the journal coordiator immediately; otherwise, your paper will be submitted for online posting shortly after all materials are received.

IEEE subscription-based publications are hybrid journals, allowing either Traditional manuscript submission or Open Access (author-pays OA) manuscript submission. By selecting "YES" to the Open Access question, you commit to pay the discounted $1,750 OA fee if your manuscript is accepted for publication in order to enable unrestricted public access. (For fully OA journals such as TETC, please visit the author information section for that publication here.)

Any other applicable charges (such as over-length page charges) will be billed separately once the manuscript formatting is complete, but prior to final publication.

If you select "Traditional" submission in ScholarOne Manuscripts, your article will be available to qualified subscribers and purchasers via IEEE Xplore and the CSDL. No OA payment is required for Traditional submission.

The following policy on mandatory overlength page charges applies to the journals listed below.

• IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing
• IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing
• IEEE Transactions on Computers
• IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
• IEEE Transactions on Emerging Technologies in Computing
• IEEE Transactions on Haptics
• IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering
• IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies
• IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
• IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems
• IEEE Transactions on Services Computing
• IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
• IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics

In its mission to maintain a consistent and high quality publication process, the IEEE Computer Society follows a strict policy on the lengths of both submitted manuscripts and final papers. Submission length restrictions not only encourage authors to submit concise papers that readers will appreciate, but they help to keep the review process timely. Length limits on final papers help maintain uniform editorial standards and consistency with page budgets.

So that manuscripts meet submission requirements, supporting but nonessential information should be submitted as supplemental material. However, there may occasionally be an accepted (final) paper for which an editor-in-chief determines that an exception to the standard limit is appropriate and that from one to four additional pages are needed. The IEEE Computer Society allows for this possibility within its policy on mandatory overlength page charges.

Independent of any voluntary page charges, the IEEE Computer Society assesses the authors of accepted papers that exceed the regular paper length limit a fee called Mandatory Overlength Page Charges (MOPC). The regular paper page length limit is defined at 14 formatted transactions pages (12 pages for TOH, TCC, & TETC), including references and author biographies. Any pages or fraction thereof exceeding this limit are charged $200 per page. Regular papers may not exceed 18 formatted transactions pages. Authors will be notified of any assessed charges when galley proofs are sent for review. Payment must be sent at the time galley proofs are approved by the author. The Computer Society's policy on page limits as described here is strictly enforced.

The author is responsible for obtaining copyright releases and corporate and security clearances prior to submitting material for consideration. It is the IEEE's policy to assume that all clearances are granted when a paper is submitted.

The IEEE copyright form must be completed & submitted in ScholarOne Manuscripts upon submission.

For more information regarding IEEE copyright policies, please see our Copyright & Trademark Information page.

This paper by Harold Stone (PDF) outlines basic author responsibilities in the area of copyright, re-use of material from your own previous publications and as well as publications by others. It also touches on issues of duplicate, simultaneous, and plagiarized publications. All authors should be familiar with the guidelines summarized in Table 1 of this paper.