Procedure Manual
IEEE NANOTECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE (INM)
PROCEDURE MANUAL
Version 1.0-3, May 14, 2019
(Adapted from the IEEE TNANO Procedure Manual)
View/Download in PDF
CONTENTS
- SCOPE OF IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine
- STRUCTURE OF INM
- PAPER AND DECISION CATEGORIES
- ETHICAL ISSUES, COPYRIGHT AND PAPER SUBMISSION
- Style of Manuscripts and Paper Submission Procedure.
- Preparation of Final Versions of Manuscripts for Publication.
INM GUIDELINES FOR SPECIAL ISSUES/SECTIONS (SIS)
PREAMBLE
This Procedure Manual is an evolving, working document to outline the scope of INM, its structure, manuscript and decision categories, detailed operating procedures, and long-term goals.
IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine (INM) publishes peer-reviewed articles that present emerging trends and practices in industrial electronics product research and development, key insights, and tutorial surveys in the field of interest to the member societies of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council (NTC). The scope of INM is all aspects of nanotechnology including theory, analysis, design, implementation, and applications related to creation of materials, devices, structures, etc. by manipulating matter at the nanometer length scale and taking advantage of novel (physical, chemical, electrical, mechanical, optical, magnetic, biological) properties which arise solely due to the nanometer scale. Contents are written at a general level aimed at a broad audience. The magazine publishes articles covering new research and developments toward a broad audience, tutorials, and surveys in the field of nanotechnology in addition to industry news, research news, education news, policy news, opinion pieces, book reviews, updates on people, introduction to new tools and techniques, funding and meetings news, patent summary, and commercialization.
Further information on INM’s scope and covered areas is available on the journal’s website: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=4451717.
Overall Structure: INM has an Advisory Board and Technical Editorial Board.
Advisory Board: The Advisory Board’s responsibilities include evaluating Technical Editorial Board candidates, special Issue proposals, and long-term strategic planning.
Technical Editorial Board (TEB): The Technical Editorial Board is responsible for handling papers, from the time of their submissions, throughout their review, to publication. It is a two-level system consisting of an Editor-in-Chief (EiC) and the members of TEB. TEB members are reputable experts with the energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to make INM the premier engineering magazine that focuses on nanotechnology. Their collective expertise covers the major areas of nanotechnology. TEB members are selected by the EiC and appointed by the NTC VP for Publications with the concurrence of the Council’s President upon the recommendation of the EiC. While editorial board members normally are members of an NTC sponsoring society, some will be invited to join from outside to encourage submissions on non-traditional topics, and to handle these submissions in a timely fashion and to high quality standards. These non-IEEE members will be strongly encouraged to join the IEEE, to attend the NTC flagship annual conference, and to submit papers to the conference and its Transactions.
Editor-in-Chief (EiC): The EiC represents INM in the scientific and industrial communities; interfaces with the NTC, IEEE Publications and other units, and other professional organizations; develops the TEB, manages related administrative issues, chairs Editorial Board meetings, and sets long-term visions and strategies; solicits contributions, receives paper submissions, assigns them to Editors, coordinates the review process, and oversees the publication process; resolves conflicts, ensures the smooth functioning of the INM, and is responsible for the overall success of INM. The EiC is supported by an Editorial Assistant who handles the administrative and daily operations of the INM. The EiC is appointed to a two-year term, renewable twice for a total of 6 years. Upon a vacancy or an expiration of a term, the President appoints a qualified individual to an EiC post, with the advice of the Nominations and Appointments and Publications Committees, and with the consent of AdCom. Eligibility for an EiC post shall be restored after a lapse of two years. While not a requirement, the EiC is often selected from those who have served as Editor.
Paper Categories. INM publishes review papers, tutorial-styled articles, and original research papers. Original research papers normally are 4 to 8 double-column pages in length. Manuscripts of a tutorial or review nature are typically invited papers and are treated as Regular Papers. Potential authors of reviews or tutorials are advised to contact the EiC before submission, to ensure that the topic is judged timely and desirable by the INM TEB.
Decision Categories. Decision categories include: Accept, Conditionally Accept, Revise and Resubmit, and Reject. Accept and Reject are straightforward. For a paper that was Conditionally Accepted, the revised manuscript has to be submitted within 60 days from the date of decision. It retains the same paper ID number, and the review clock continues without re-start. A member of the TEB in charge may decide to accept the paper without further review if the revisions are straightforward, or send it to an additional review cycle, which should be short. Revise and Resubmit is an encouraging way to say that a paper is rejected in its current form, but may contain publishable results after a major revision. The authors are encouraged to revise the manuscript based on reviewers’ comments and specific instructions provided by the TEB member. A Revised and Resubmitted manuscript is assigned a new paper ID number, is treated as a brand-new submission, and has to go through a full review process. The reference to the old paper ID number is provided to facilitate the new review process, and, if possible and desirable, the same set of reviewers will be used as in the initial submission.
Ethical Issues. Manuscripts should be original, previously unpublished work not currently submitted to any other publication. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the IEEE, to determine whether disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties and, if so, to obtain it. If authors make use of charts, photographs, or other graphical or textual material from previously published material, the authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to use the material in the manuscript.
IEEE defines plagiarism as the use of someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and is considered a serious breach of professional conduct, with potentially severe ethical and legal consequences. Self-plagiarism is also unethical. If authors have used their own previously published work(s) as a basis for a new submission, they are required to cite the previous work(s) and briefly indicate how the new submission offers substantively novel contributions beyond those of the previously published work(s). Extended versions of preliminary papers that have appeared in conference proceedings are acceptable, provided that they satisfy the conditions mentioned just above (i.e., citation and substantial novelty).
Multiple submissions to different journals are unacceptable. This applies to the entire period in which a paper is under INM review. It is the responsibility of the authors to clearly spell out the differences of their submitted papers with similar content, and any common part should be clearly indicated. If in doubt, please contact the EiC.
Copyright. It is the policy of the IEEE to own the copyright to the technical contributions it publishes on behalf of the interests of the IEEE, its authors, and their employers; and to facilitate the appropriate reuse of this material by others. To comply with U.S. copyright law, authors are required to complete an IEEE electronic copyright form (ECF) on Manuscript Central (now known as Scholar One) when they submit their manuscripts (after April 2009) or their final package for publication (for earlier papers)—more on this below. This form returns to authors and their employer’s full rights to reuse their material for their own purposes upon request.
Style of Manuscripts and Paper Submission Procedure.
- Paper submission and review are through EDAS at https://edas.info/N24726. This is a unique site with EDAS for the IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine. Submission instructions for authors are provided on-line on the Magazine website, https://inm.ieeenano.org/authors/.
- A valuable IEEE link for helping authors in their manuscript preparation is the Author Digital Tool Box, at https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/.
- To facilitate review, manuscripts should be submitted with the main document as a single file, with the figures and captions inserted in the text, and preferably using either Adobe PDF or Microsoft Word doc formats. Adobe PostScript format (ps) is also acceptable. Authors are strongly encouraged to read the section titled Preparation of Final Versions of Manuscripts for Publication below, and to pay special attention to figure requirements. Creating acceptable figures may take non-negligible time and slow down the final submission process if the manuscript is accepted. Note that publication-quality figures are not required for manuscript review.
- Manuscripts should be submitted in a double column format using an IEEE style file. Templates are available in the Author Digital Tool Box at the address given above. (Please note that the format of the template file is correct, but the instructions in the text of the template are partially obsolete.) Regular papers are limited to eight Transactions pages, with mandatory page charges imposed on extra pages (see Page Charges below). Excessively long papers may be rejected without review. Research Letters are limited to three Transactions pages, and Correspondence Items to two.
- Uploaded information: A cover letter, an abstract (up to 200 words), keywords, the type of paper (Review/Tutorial Paper, Original Paper), and technical area (see above for a list). Please indicate the area in the cover letter as well, and whether the paper is submitted for a special issue or section.
- All figures must be numbered and cited in the text. Use consistent font and size in all figures and tables, and choose sizes that will allow the text to be scaled to 8 points at final printed size. Otherwise, an entire figure may be enlarged so that the smallest size is scaled to 8 points for readability.
- References must be in a separate reference section at the end of the paper in IEEE style, with items referred to by numerals in square brackets. For journal articles: Author initials followed by last names, title in quotation marks, periodical, volume, inclusive page numbers, month and year. For books: Author initials followed by last names, title, location, publisher, year, inclusive pages if appropriate. For conference papers: Author initials followed by last names, title in quotation marks, conference, location, month and year, and inclusive page numbers.
- For a paper that was previously reviewed by INM, the old paper number should be included in the cover letter, and a separate response file should be submitted describing how reviewers’ comments were addressed. Instructions for submitting a response are provided in the Manuscript Central Author Center.
- If it is felt that a paper is beyond the scope or capability of INM, the corresponding author will be notified, usually within one week of submission, by one of Editors or the EiC.
- If you have difficulties, please contact the Editor-in-Chief, using this form.
Preparation of Final Versions of Manuscripts for Publication.
Authors of accepted papers should submit the final versions for publication through EDAS.
- Submit the paper at https://edas.info/N24726.
- An editable document with the text of the manuscript, preferably in Microsoft Word or LaTeX, and including: abstract, index terms, body of the text, footnotes, figure captions, references, and, for Regular Papers, author biographies.
- Figures, each on a separate file. Acceptable formats are tiff, ps, eps, pdf, and Microsoft ppt, doc or xls. Note that jpeg is acceptable only for the authors’ photos. Figure files should be named with lower-case figure numbers and the appropriate extensions, e.g., fig1.tif, fig2.doc, fig3.ppt. Please verify that the figures are acceptable by using the IEEE Graphics Checker at http://graphicsqc.ieee.org.
- A pdf version of the complete manuscript, in lieu of a hardcopy. This should have the figures and captions inserted in the text. Production will use this file to ensure that the printed version corresponds exactly to your pdf. It is essential that all fonts be embedded and subsetted in the pdf document for correct reproduction.
- The final version you supply must include in the first-page footnote (where the affiliations of the authors are listed) the following sentence (without the quotes and replacing “Year” by the current year, e.g., 2009): Copyright (c) Year Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to use this material for any other purposes must be obtained from the IEEE by sending a request to pubs-permissions@ieee.org. Without this your paper’s publication as a preprint on the web, through IEEE Xplore, will be significantly delayed.
- Authors of accepted papers are invited to submit with the final version of a paper an image or two for potential use in the journal color cover. The images should be accompanied by a one-sentence caption (for the cover) and a longer explanation, as would normally appear in a paper’s figures.
Color on the Web. As a part of IEEE’s ongoing efforts to create tools to make the publication process easier for authors and to reduce costs, IEEE has developed the ability to accept color figures in journals for web-only publication. That is, an author may now submit a color figure with instructions to use the color for display in IEEE Xplore while publishing a black and white figure in the print issue. When a color figure is processed for web-only publication, there is no expense associated with the figure; therefore, the author will not be charged for color. However, color costs will still apply to figures processed for color print publication. The IEEE Publication Office converts the submitted color images to graytone or black and white for harcopy publication. For detailed instructions on the preparation of color images see the guidelines available on line at https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/create-your-ieee-article/create-graphics-for-your-article/.
Page Charges. A voluntary page charge form ($110/page) is sent to the authors of accepted papers with proofs, and the author is encouraged, whenever possible, to make a contribution to defray part of the publication cost. Authors receive 100 free reprints if the charge is honored. A mandatory over length page charge is imposed on all regular papers whose length exceeds eight Transactions pages, including illustrations. This charge is $175 per page of each page over the first eight based on the final typeset length and not on manuscript length, and is a prerequisite for publication.
Paper Handling. IEEE journals have a highly structured and efficient review process. The publication policies and procedures are available online in the Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual at https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/files/opsmanual.pdf. For INM, after a paper of any category is received, it is given a Paper ID. It is routed to a member of TEB on the basis of the area indicated by the author. The handling Editor will recruit reviewers for the paper. The TEB member is asked to read the paper, assimilate the reviews, and make his/her recommendation to EiC. EiC then analyzes the recommendation and the reviews, makes the final decision, and communicates with the Corresponding Authors. Although most decisions are consistent with the TEB’s recommendations, this is not always the case. EiC also serve to train new members of TEB on the quality of the reviews and their interpretation.
- Review/Tutorial/Original Research Papers:
- Assignment of a paper to a member of TEB upon paper submission.
- Assignment of a paper by TEB to reviewers: 2 weeks.
- Reviewers: 4 weeks.
- Recommendation from TEB to EiC: 2 weeks.
- Decision by EiC: 1 week.
- Total: 9 weeks.
Assigning a Paper to a member of TEB. The assignment of a paper to a TEB member is based on the area declared by the author at submission time. Papers with no declared area or with “other” selected as area are assigned to one of the TEB members that is deemed closest to the topic of interest. The revised version of a conditionally accepted or revised and resubmitted paper is assigned to the original TEB member, who knows well the changes to the original paper that was needed.
Immediate Rejection. If a paper is out of scope or poorly written, the EiC may reject it immediately, or the TEB member may recommend immediate rejection to the EiC, without further review. The TEB may write a review and send it to the EiC, who then writes a rejection letter to the authors. By not assigning the paper to reviewers, this would save reviewers’ time for future papers. The practice, however, should be used judiciously.
Securing Reviewers. When a paper is assigned to a TEB member, the TEB member has three workdays to decline in view of heavy workload (e.g., “already handling too many papers”) or if the topic is out of the TEB’s primary and secondary areas of expertise. For papers not immediately rejected (see above), the TEB member should glance over the paper to roughly understand what the paper is about, its potential contributions, who are the leading experts in the topic area, etc. The TEB member should secure three reviewers per paper and get their agreement to review the paper by showing them the abstract, and request that the reviews be sent back within a given period of time (4 weeks for Review/Tutorial/Original Research Papers). Selecting appropriate reviewers is critical to having a timely review process and high quality. Candidate reviewers may include leading researchers in the topic area, colleagues who are familiar with the topic, authors of papers on the reference list, and authors of relevant papers that have been previously accepted. A good mix of senior and junior reviewers is desirable as they provide reviews from different perspectives and at different levels of detail, and a mix of reviewers from different geographical regions is also desirable. A key idea to secure reviewers is to align the interest of reviewers with ours: the paper is on a topic that they would really like to see or to say something about. Having reviewers who are interested in going over the manuscript would alleviate the need of repeated sending of reminding messages, and avoid the need for the TEB member to write detailed comments themselves to supplement shallow and not-to-the-point reviews. Generally, it is not recommended to ask other TEB members to be reviewers unless they are directly involved in the subject matter, and it is not recommended either for the handling TEB member to serve as a reviewer. On the contrary, TEB members should constantly look for new reviewers whom they may not know personally. The Web is a powerful tool for doing this, e.g., using IEEE Xplore (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/guesthome.jsp) to identify relevant researchers, and then using search engines such as Yahoo or Google to locate their institutions and email addresses.
Content of a Good Review. The following are suggested questions requiring reviewers to comment:
- Does the introduction state the purpose of the paper?
- Is the literature review complete?
- Is the paper technically sound? If not, why not?
- Does the author explain the intellectual merit of the method?
- Does the author explain the significance of the results?
- What is the overall contribution of the paper?
- Are the references relevant and complete? Supply missing references.
- Is the paper clearly written and well organized?
- If the paper is too long, how can it be shortened?
Also ask reviewers to provide any information to authors that will be useful in revision, in enhancing the appeal of the paper, or in convincing them of the mistakes. Reviews should be specific. If the results are already known, references to earlier papers that contain these or similar results should be provided. If the reasoning is incorrect or vague, where and why should be specifically indicated. If the paper should be rewritten, specific suggestions should be given regarding which parts to delete, amplify, or modify. To avoid confusion, the reviewer’s specific acceptance or rejection recommendation should not be included in the comments to the author. Sometimes papers are passed on to senior graduate students for review. Some excellent reviews may result from this. It is important, though, that the quality and professionalism of the review be maintained, and the originally assigned reviewer should check the review personally before submitting.
Double Submissions. The submission system states clearly that an author that submits a paper to INM represents that the paper is original, previously unpublished, and not being considered for publication by any other journal. INM will not consider papers that are under review or have been accepted by another journal. If a reviewer reported that he/she recently reviewed the same or a similar paper by the same set of authors for a different journal, the TEB member should report the case to the EiC with information as detailed and specific as possible. The EiC should then verify with the corresponding author and possibly with the EiC of the other journal. If the paper is indeed under review by the other journal, then the paper shall be rejected, and the authors should be warned that this is an unacceptable practice. Otherwise, the review process should proceed as normal.
TEB Recommendation Letters. When reviews are due, reviewers will need to be reminded. This is normally done automatically by EDAS. Depending on the tightness of time, the TEB member may want to wait for more reviews or act immediately. In any case, the TEB member should be able to act after receiving two solid and consistent reviews. Combining reviewers’ comments and TEB member’s own reading of the paper, the recommendation should be impartial, to-the-point, and constructive. In the recommendation, the TEB member is asked to provide a general summary of the paper, the recommended disposition (accept, conditionally accept, revise and resubmit, or reject), the analysis of reviews, justification of the recommendation, and the specifics that the authors should follow in a revision. TEB members need to be very specific about reviewers’ comments, and clearly indicate which comments must be fully addressed, and which only need to be discussed. If the paper should be cut short, the indication of which parts to cut, and on how the paper should be re-organized for better reading should be given. The TEB members may also want to comment on the relevance of the problem, the adequacy of simulations, numerical testing, or experiments, the clarity in conveying the contributions, etc. It is important to justify the recommendation since the authors may come back to argue against specific points. In preparing the recommendation, TEB members should be aware that the material will be processed by the EiC before going to the authors. In doing so, anonymity of the reviewers and of the TEB member will be preserved. After the decision is made by the EiC, the TEB’s recommendation, and the comments by the anonymous reviewers should be made available to all the reviewers.
Editor Decision Letters. Based on the reviews, TEB members’ recommendation, and EiC’s own reading of a paper, the EiC decides the disposition of the paper and communicates with the Corresponding Author. The EiC needs to justify the decision, gives specific revision instructions, and provides resubmission information as appropriate – the authors should not just submit a revised manuscript, but should also state how the comments were addressed in a separate response file, and the deadline for resubmission for a conditionally accepted paper is 60 days from the date of the decision. The identity of the reviewers should be kept strictly confidential, and the TEB members should also remain anonymous until the publication of the paper where a footnote is provided identifying the TEB members.
Handling Resubmitted Papers. Conditionally Accepted papers have to be resubmitted within 60 days from the date of decision. Depending on the decision made during the previous review cycle, a revised paper may be reviewed by the EiC only, by the EiC and the TEB members only, or also using one or two reviewers of the previous cycle, typically those who have special requests. The review cycle is generally fast (a few weeks). The resubmission of a Revise and Resubmit paper is not bounded by the 60-day limit. The TEB members are usually selected, and the paper has to go through a full review cycle preferably using the old reviewers, but possibly with a few new ones. For both Conditionally Accepted and Revise and Resubmit papers, authors should provide a separate document detailing the list of changes and how the previous comments were addressed.
Monthly Load Report. A Monthly Load Report is issued at the end of each month by the EiC on the status of papers currently under review. The report (in the format of an Excel sheet) is sent to all current TEB members, to Guest Editors of Special Issues in process, and to past-term TEB members with assigned papers still in review. The Excel sheet includes Paper ID, date of manuscript submission, the name of the assigned TEB member, and the status of the paper within the Review Cycle. Included also within the Load Report are the resubmitted papers that were conditionally accepted in the previous review round. Upon receiving the Monthly Load Report, all TEB members, and Guest Editors should check if there is anything that is not consistent with their own records. TEB members should work with reviewers on papers that were assigned more than 90 days ago, and try to wrap them up within the following two weeks. EiC should prepare their decision letters as soon as possible for papers on which the TEB recommendation is already available. Note that only papers either still in the review process or that have not yet had final decisions by EiC are listed in the Load Report.
Special Issues. INM encourages the publication of Special Issues. A proposal for a Special Issue should be submitted to the EiC, with a well-articulated unifying theme that reflects the best work in a particular area of significant importance. Typically, the topics of Special Issues are either areas that are just reaching significant maturity, or important emerging areas in which research is likely to be significantly helped by the publication of a collection of excellent papers. Special Issues also serve to show the community that the INM welcomes papers in an area in which it has not previously published significantly, and therefore attract future papers in that area. A Special Issue proposal should indicate why the theme is appropriate, who are the guest editors and their qualifications, how many papers are expected, which papers will be invited, which authors and groups will be encouraged to contribute, and other information that may be judged helpful for the proposal review. The proposals are reviewed and approved by the TEB members Panel. The editorial procedures are generally the same as those for regular issues except that Guest Editors may play the role of TEB members. EiC is to carry out the standard Editor’s functionalities, ensuring that the INM’s standards of quality and operating procedures are followed. Some of the TEB members usually participate in a Special Issue processing as well. A proposal for a Special Issue may end up only as a Special Section if the number of accepted papers is not sufficient to warrant an issue. See the “INM guidelines for Special Issues or Sections” at PM. 8.
Conflict of Interest. Conflict of interest should be avoided by not asking a person to review a paper who was a student/advisor of one of the authors; who has collaborated with one of the authors within the past four years on a project or co-authored a paper; who works in the same institution as one of the authors; or who has had a public disagreement with one of the authors within the past four years. Such an issue should be clarified when securing reviewers. Similarly, when a TEB member is assigned a paper with which he/she has a conflict of interest as described above, he/she should let the EiC know the situation and request that the paper be re-assigned.
Handling of Manuscripts Authored by Publications Volunteers. In handling of manuscript reviews, no one can acquire unauthorized access to privileged information. Manuscripts submitted by editors and other publication volunteers are handled by other members of the editorial board. The identities of reviewers for papers authored by editors or other publication volunteers are unauthorized privileged information for the authors, and cannot be accessed by them. Reports and recommendations for volunteer-authored papers, when submitted to the author, omit the names and other identifying information for reviewers. Authors who are editors or other publication volunteers are not authorized to access in electronic publication management systems any data which contain reviewers’ information related to their submissions. These restrictions are automatically enforced by EDAS system, or manually by the editorial team. See also the Conflict of Interest section just above.
Intellectual Property Rights. IEEE Policy requires that members of the Editorial Board and reviewers 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 gained by the access to the paper. If a TEB member is very much interested in the work, the correct procedure is to directly communicate with the author (as a researcher, not as a TEB member) and check if he/she has recent results on a particular topic, and if he/she is willing to share the results.
Communication Protocol. Efficient communication among TEB members is important. Upon receiving a request, please respond as soon as possible, even during a trip. If additional time is needed to provide an answer, the right protocol is to respond immediately with a message informing the inquirer when to expect the answer. Don’t leave the loop open for too long.
Reporting Difficulties Early. If difficulties arise in finding appropriate reviewers, in getting a review from a particular reviewer who already agreed to review a paper, having too many papers to handle, or having a family emergency or major professional commitment (e.g., eight months before a major conference for which a major responsibility is involved), TEB members should report the difficulties to the EiC at an appropriate stage. It is much better to anticipate and report difficulties and obtain help than to simply stop communication while letting papers pile up for major disasters to occur. Similarly, if plagiarism is identified, report the case to the EiC with specific supporting documentation.
Beat the Bushes. (This is not a political statement) To further improve the reach and influence of INM, we need to beat the bushes to invite top quality papers. Courses of action may include sending current Calls for Papers to our colleagues via email, bringing printed copies of the CFPs to conferences, posting our full-color flyer at conferences and exhibits, and making personal requests to colleagues for submissions (without guarantee of acceptance). Authors of good or award-winning papers from relevant conferences, symposia, or workshops should be encouraged to upgrade their papers and submit them to INM. Please also submit your own good papers.
The Roles of the Editorial Board. With the advance of the Internet, everyone can post his/her papers on the web. The value of a journal is no longer for dissemination of information only. Rather, the more important aspect is the Seal of Approval for quality. Consequently, enhancing the quality of a journal is more important than ever. TEB Members play key roles in this process. It is, therefore, important for us to have a service mentality for quality and timeliness. Our responsibilities are not just for the acceptance or rejection of papers, but for improving paper quality by having a constructive and cultivating review process for better papers as the end product. It is our goal to establish INM as the flagship and most cited engineering magazine that is dedicated to nanotechnology. We will strive to publish comprehensive review/tutorial papers as well as original, significant, and visionary papers describing theory, experiments and new applications. The enthusiasm and dedication of the TEB members will be key factors in achieving this goal.
Inquiries. Our home page is at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=4451717.
INM GUIDELINES FOR SPECIAL ISSUES/SECTIONS (SIS)
November 15, 2018
The IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine (INM) publishes novel and important results on engineering at the nanoscale and encourages the publication of Special Issues/Sections (SISs). The following document describes the guidelines for a SIS.
- SIS Topics. The technical coverage of a SIS is in areas and themes that are in scope with the IEEE Nanotechnology Council (NTC) and INM as mandated by statute.
- SIS Proposal. A proposal of a SIS must be submitted to the INM Editor-in-Chief (EiC) and must be approved before papers are solicited. All editorial matters and due process will be executed in accordance with IEEE and NTC regulations.
- SIS Proposal Material. The formal proposal must contain:
- Title of the SIS
- List of the proposed Guest Editors and a brief statement of their qualifications (among desirable qualifications, a Guest Editor should be a recognized authority in the proposed theme, have had some editorial experience and be a past contributor to INM as an author) with full contact information. Diversity (such as geography, educational/origin background and affiliation) is strongly encouraged in the Guest Editors. If there are multiple Guest Editors, a Guest Editor should be designated as corresponding Guest Editor. A single email alias for contacting simultaneously all Guest Editors must be also provided.
- A statement of significance and objectives.
- A draft of the Call for Papers (CFP) (doc or docx file) with a tentative time schedule.
- Attachments: Any additional relevant material, such as brief CV of each Guest Editor, can be also provided.
- SIS Proposal Review. The submitted proposal will be initially assessed whether the proposal is of interest/scope to INM by the EiC; the EiC will inform the proposed Guest Editors whether the proposal is in-scope. If in-scope, the submitted proposal will be forwarded to a Technical Editorial Board (TEB) member of competence for technical review; the TEB member will chair a committee (made of at least 2 additional members selected at the TEB member’s discretion from the members in the INM TEB). The TEB member will communicate its committee decision to the EiC, who will then communicate it to the corresponding Guest Editor. If approved, the EiC may also suggest/require amendments (if any required), such as for example the proposed time schedule.
- SIS Review Process and Editorial Procedure. The EiC will assume responsibility for the SIS, so ensuring that the INM standards of quality and operating procedures are followed. The review process and editorial procedures of a SIS are the same as those for regular submissions except that the Guest Editors will fulfill the role of TEB members. Hence, all articles for a SIS must meet all requirements, publication policies and procedures for (non-SIS) INM articles, which are detailed in the INM Procedure Manual (PM). Moreover, the same criteria of quality, originality, and significancemust be applied to articles submitted to a SIS as to regular submissions; also, in this case, refer to the INM Procedure Manual for details. The EiC and the TEB members are available should the Guest Editors have any questions that may arise during the entire SIS editorial process; following the notification of approval of a SIS, the Guest Editors will be notified to make themselves familiar with the INM Procedure Manual for policy compliance.
The following exemptions are, however, noted for a SIS in INM:
- Due to timing constraints, the outcome of revise-and-resubmit will not be permitted for a SIS submission.
- The Guest Editors must provide an introductory guest editorial article (which will also be original and not previously published) to be submitted no later than a month after the acceptance of the last article in the SIS. This editorial should set the scene and provide the premise for the SIS referencing the articles included within.