Inderscience Publisher¡¦s Guest Editor Guidelines for Special Issues

1. Quality

¡P Papers must be double-blind refereed according to our strict standards. Papers should preferably be sent to 3 referees (2 minimum) and must be amended according to their comments. If one referee accepts the paper and one rejects it, the decision of the third referee is final. Guest Editors should retain the referees¡¦ reports until the paper has been published. The publisher reserves the right to re-referee and/or reject an accepted paper if the paper does not meet the criteria outlined in the review form or if the paper is in some other way deemed possibly unsuitable.

¡P Also, there must be a balance of papers internationally and topically, and account must be taken of the status and credibility of the research centres from where the submitted papers are accepted and published.

¡P It is also essential to ensure that papers submitted from the Guest Editors¡¦ institutes or research groups or from the Guest Editors themselves, as authors, are refereed and accepted independently and that the referees are not appointed by the Guest Editors. Such papers should be referred to the Editor-in-Chief so that independent refereeing can be arranged.

2. Conference papers

It is not unusual for papers to be submitted that are based on conference papers, which may have been published elsewhere. They require special care. It is important to observe the following in considering submissions based on them:

¡P If the original conference paper has been published elsewhere, or the copyright has been assigned to the conference organisers or another party, Guest Editors should require the author to ensure that he/she has cleared any necessary permission with the copyright owner in the original. Guest Editors should not accept any paper submitted to the journal unless such permissions have been obtained.

¡P The submitted paper must have been substantially revised, expanded and rewritten so that it is significantly different from the conference paper or presentation on which it is based. Before final acceptance, Guest Editors should be satisfied that the paper is sufficiently different to make it a new, original work. This is unlikely to be the case if less than 50% of the paper is clearly new. This is a matter of judgment that should be based on a comparison of the submitted paper with the original conference paper.

¡P All such papers should be subject to the same review process as any other submitted paper.

¡P The paper must contain a statement fully acknowledging the original conference paper:

This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled [title] presented at [name, location and date of conference].

3. General remarks

The following general remarks may help Guest Editors in editing the special issue.

¡P Guest Editors should use the 'call for papers' to send to invited authors. Experience shows that many of the high quality papers are often received in response to direct invitations

¡P Guest Editors should appoint a panel of referees to help them in their task, bearing in mind the comment above concerning papers authored by Guest Editors or by members of Guest Editors¡¦ research groups.

¡P Guest Editors can invite other Co-Guest Editors to help them in their task, if they wish.

¡P Both general and special issues should not have more than one paper submitted by an author, unless there is a very strong reason for that.

¡P The average size of a special issue is about 100-112 typeset journal printed pages (approx.165 A4 pre-typeset pages) for a single issue or about 200 typeset printed journal pages (approx 300 A4 pre-typeset pages) for a double issue. As a rough rule of thumb, one of our regular size journal pages has 600 words [3500 characters], and an A4 size page has 800 words [5600 characters]. At this stage there are no restrictions on the size and number of high quality papers accepted for publication in the special issue. However, if Guest Editors would like to publish 12-15 papers, for example, they need to invite at least 30 experts to write papers for the special issue. It is preferable to have special issues published as single, since subscribers and the citation services prefer single issue sizes to a double issue size. However, if Guest Editors have a large number of high quality papers refereed and accepted for publication, they must contact the Editor and/or Inderscience to discuss publishing a large single issue, a double issue or more than one special issue if necessary.

¡P If Guest Editors receive more high quality refereed and accepted papers than would fill a double issue, please let the Editor-in-Chief know to discuss the possibility of another special issue in the journal or a further special issue in a different, relevant Inderscience journal. If a different journal is proposed, the Guest editor must contact each author to advise him/her of the reasons, and to seek his/her explicit consent. Under no circumstances should a paper be published in a different journal without the prior written consent of the author.

¡P Guidelines for authors and sample papers, as well as information about the refereeing process and other relevant journals, are available on our website: www.inderscience.com/guidelines.

¡P Guest Editors can choose referees to help them, as they wish, from experts in the subject of the special issue. Since the refereeing process is a blind one, Guest Editors can also use some of the authors as referees if they have problems in appointing enough referees.

¡P An example of a timetable for editing a special issue is as follows. Allow:

¡P 3-4 months for invited authors to submit the first draft of their papers;

¡P 2 months for the refereeing process and to inform the authors of the outcome of the refereeing process and of any changes requested by the referees

¡P 2 months for authors to resubmit to Guest Editors the final manuscript of their papers after incorporating any changes requested by the referees

4. Review, typesetting and publication processes

a) Review Process

All submitted and invited papers should go through an initial screening process to weed out papers which are not suitable for the special issue or have different focus, papers which are marginal, weak papers, etc. Only good and relevant papers should be processed and sent to referees (we do not want to waste the time of the referees by sending poor or marginal papers to them).

Send every paper which passes the initial screening process to be refereed by three experts.

Since the refereeing process is a blind one, Guest Editors can use some of the authors as referees if they have problems in appointing enough referees.

Papers authored or co-authored by Guest Editors or by authors from the Guest Editor¡¦s institution must be sent to the Editor or relevant Associate Editor responsible for Special Issues (if one is available) who will arrange for the paper(s) to be refereed independently.

As per above,

¡P If two referees accept the paper, the paper is then considered for selection. However, if they accept the paper BUT the paper only scored marginal or just acceptable for originality, scholarly relevance, engineering/industrial relevance and completeness, then the paper is not up to the standard of the journal and the editor should reject it.

¡P If two referees reject the paper, the paper is rejected and the authors are informed.

¡P If two referees disagree, then the third referee¡¦s decision is final.

But please note that:

¡P If two referees accept the paper BUT the paper only scored marginal or just acceptable for originality, scholarly relevance, engineering/industrial relevance and completeness, then the paper is not up to the standard of the journal and the editor should reject it.

¡P For a high quality special issue, papers accepted for publication should score at least GOOD or HONOURS (and not only SATISFACTORY) in originality, scholarly relevance, scientific/engineering relevance, completeness, etc.

¡P If two referees initially accept a paper and the paper scores Good or Honours, as suggested above, but the referees suggest minor or major revision of the paper, it should be sent back to the corresponding author together with the referees¡¦ comments in order that the required changes can be made by the author. The revised paper should be sent back to the referees for comments. If the referees want more changes, the paper is to be sent back to the authors for further revision, and so on until the referees are happy with the standard of the revised paper and accept the paper without any further changes.

Guest Editors may reject papers which have been rejected by referees but cannot send acceptance letters to authors until the selected papers for the special issue and their refereeing reports have all been reviewed by the Guest Editor.

Guest Editors must ask the authors of accepted papers to sign a copyright agreement form to assign the copyright of their papers to the publisher. If the paper has more than one author each author can sign the same Inderscience Copyright Agreement Form. However, it is also acceptable for individual authors to sign a separate agreement form. The signed copyright forms must be submitted by authors to the Guest Editor. Copyright Agreement forms are available on the website as a part of guidelines for authors. Papers cannot be published unless a signed copyright form from each author, assigning the copyright of papers to the publisher, has been received.

When Guest Editors have the final manuscripts of all the refereed and selected papers for the special issue [and, if there is an Associate Editor responsible for Quality Assurance and Special Issues, s/he is happy about the refereeing and selection process of the papers], they should send a copy of all the papers and referees¡¦ comments to the Editor-in-Chief for his or her review. The Publisher reserves the right to make a final review, i.e. final acceptance of the papers is subject to this final review process which is a part of the publisher's quality assurance process before publication. The Editor-in-Chief will provide details of where to send the papers for typesetting.

The final manuscript of each selected paper should include:

¡P Title of the paper, names of authors, their affiliations, complete addresses and e mail addresses.

¡P The name, address, email address and fax number of the corresponding author to whom the proofs of the typeset paper should go to for checking.

¡P A brief abstract.

¡P Keywords.

¡P Brief biographical notes about authors.

¡P High quality and high resolution figures capable of printing high quality figures in black and white.

¡P Each paper must have the Inderscience Author Agreement (Copyright form) completed by the author. If a paper has more than one author each author must sign a Copyright form of their own. It is not acceptable for one author to sign on behalf of all authors. As per above, papers will not be processed unless accompanied by a signed Copyright form from each author. The form can be downloaded from the website at: http://www.inderscience.com/www/authoragree.pdf

N.B. If papers have been refereed and accepted and sent for typesetting, the authors have to abide by what they have written; no further changes are acceptable in

¡P author details (e.g. adding more names or deleting names) or in their sequence

¡P the content of the paper (except for typesetting corrections)

If authors wish to make changes to content, then the paper has to be withdrawn and must go back to be refereed as a new paper. If there is any dispute about authorship or intellectual property, the paper must be withdrawn completely from publication until the authors settle their legal claims. It is not the publisher¡¦s responsibility to solve or interfere in any intellectual property dispute.

b) Typesetting

When the papers for the special issue are accepted by the final review process, the papers are processed for typesetting and all the succeeding publication processes will be conducted by the publisher.

The corresponding author of each paper will receive by email the proofs of his/her paper to check. He/she must return the corrected proofs within seven days in order to avoid any delays in publishing the special issue. If we have not received a response by then, we will contact Guest Editors to help chase the author for a reply.

After having their corrections incorporated by the typesetter, the proofs will again be sent to authors to check and to ensure that all their corrections are included. It is the responsibility of authors to check and correct the proofs of their papers. Papers cannot be published until they are checked and approved by authors. And papers cannot be amended once they are published, except in very exceptional circumstances, so authors should take great care in approving the final version for publication.