Peer Review for Journals Center

Peer Review for Journals Reviewer Center Task of the Referee Conduct of the Reviewer IEEE Review Process Statement Length of Review Process Preliminary/Conference Version(s) Comments Paper/Correspondence Item Supplemental Material Frequently Asked Questions from Reviewers * * Link takes you away from this page Task of the Referee Kevin Bowyer, emeritus Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, recommends that all reviewers read the paper titled Task of the Referee (PDF), about reviewing archival manuscripts. "This paper by Alan Jay Smith discusses the desired form and content of a reviewer's evaluation of a paper. Regardless of how much experience one has in reviewing papers, it is probably worth (re)reading this paper. I once had an IEEE Fellow return a review of a paper that consisted of just one sentence, recommending that the paper be accepted after the addition of one reference—to a book written by the reviewer!" –Kevin Bowyer, Emeritus EIC, TPAMI, 19 June 2000 "... preventing consideration of a paper by taking a long time to review it is unethical." "Keep in mind that if you expect to have your own papers published, you have a responsibility to referee a reasonable number of papers. ... Editors can choose not to handle papers by authors who don't fulfill their reviewing responsibilities." –Quote from page 6 As a reviewer, you play an essential role in the peer review process. Our endeavors to administer a fair and timely review process for all of our manuscripts and to publish only papers of the highest quality is largely dependent upon the efforts of reviewers like you. Your help with meeting these important objectives is greatly appreciated. back to top Conduct of the Reviewer To guarantee fairness to the author, the reviewer of a manuscript should abide by a number of guidelines, including, but not limited to: Respond within the allotted time Provide sound, constructive reviews Assume that manuscripts submitted for publication are not meant to be public Do not use material from a manuscript you have reviewed Do not share material from a manuscript you have reviewed with others Do not distribute copies of a manuscript you have been asked to review unless the material is already public Tell the editor, guest editor, and editor in chief if there are any conflicts of interest involved in reviewing a manuscript The IEEE details guidelines regarding reviewers in the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual (PDF). back to top IEEE Review Process Statement The IEEE shall not accept or publish manuscripts in an archival journal without prior peer review. There shall be a review process of manuscripts by two or more independent referees who are conversant in the pertinent subject area. Editors of all regular technical periodical IEEE publications, except IEEE SPECTRUM and Society newsletters, shall follow the review process which shall be defined in the Publications Services and Products Board (PSPB) Operations Manual. Reviewers shall treat the contents of papers under review as privileged 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 which that access provides. Contents of abstracts submitted to conference program committees shall be regarded as privileged as well, and handled in the same manner. Periodicals which are published in cooperation with non-IEEE organizations shall be encouraged to have a review policy that ensures the quality of papers. This policy should be generally consistent with the IEEE review policy contained in Policy 6.10 and procedures which shall be specified in the PSPB Operations Manual. The review process shall ensure that all authors have equal opportunity for publication of their papers. Acceptance and scheduling of publication of papers in these periodicals shall not be impeded by added criteria and procedures beyond those contained in the review process. To view the operations manual, or read IEEE Policy Section 6-Publication Activities in its entirety, visit the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board page. back to top Length of Review Process 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 qualified referees to be located who are available to handle the review of a paper, depends on the complexity and the type of material submitted for review. We make a concerted effort to keep the review time to a minimum that is consistent with keeping each IEEE Computer Society's journals 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 may take approximately six months to be completed. back to top Preliminary/Conference Version(s) If the authors submit a previously published conference paper, please check the manuscript to determine whether a sufficient amount of new material has been added to warrant publication. The IEEE guidelines are that the submission should contain a significant amount of new material (i.e., material that has not been published elsewhere). New results are not required; however, the submission should contain expansions of key ideas, examples, elaborations, etc., of the conference submission. Also included should be a brief description of the differences between the papers. You may use the public comments section of the review form to include your thoughts, if any, regarding the differences between the two papers. back to top Comments Paper/Correspondence Item 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, the author must include the title and/or log number of the previously published manuscript. The journal coordinator will retrieve as much information as possible about the paper being commented on and will forward the 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 that paper's topic. back to top Supplemental Material IEEE Computer Society journals accept supplemental materials for review with regular paper submissions. Types of supplemental material can include: proofs, code, experimental data, short movies, appendices, animations and audio files. These materials may be published on our digital library with the electronic version of the paper, where they can be accessed for free. A pointer to the supplemental material will be included in the printed version. All materials must follow US copyright guidelines and may not include material previously copyrighted by another author, organization or company. Please see our guidelines below for file specifications and information. Any submitted materials that do not follow these specifications will not be accepted. Supplemental material must undergo peer review. We ask that you please take these additional questions into consideration as you prepare your decision: Should the supplemental material be included as part of the digital library for this submission if accepted? If yes to 1, should it be accepted: as is after making minor revisions after making major revisions back to top