For Guest Editors

Guest Editor Responsibilities

Once the proposal is approved and the Call-for-Papers is announced, the Guest Editors (GEs) are responsible for:

  • Informal Publicity: The Editor-in-Chief will ensure that the Call-for-Papers is sent to the CASS membership e-mail list (IEEE-notice), the JETCAS website, and the various society Transactions and the CAS Magazine. The GEs are responsible for other more informal means of publicity, such as distributing the Call-for-Papers at conferences they attend, personally contacting associates working in the area to solicit submissions, announcing it on their personal websites, etc.

  • Paper Review: As submissions are received, one GE will assume the responsibility of its review process, that is, for finding reviewers to assess the quality of the submissions. It is desirable for each paper to receive five high-quality reviews, although three can suffice if both are consistent in their opinions. All reviewer invitations and feedback must be conducted through the JETCAS Paper Submission System.

  • Accept/Reject Decisions: Keeping in mind the page limitations for JETCAS issues, the GE team works together to determine which manuscripts will be included in the special issue. It is at this time that decisions are made regarding the length of the final approved manuscripts; in some instances, it may be necessary to require authors of accepted papers to shorten their manuscripts so that the page budget of the special issue is not exceeded. Note that due to the specific timetable for each special issue, papers that require more than a single major revision may not be suitable candidates for the special issue; authors of such papers may be encouraged to submit their work elsewhere.

  • Final Manuscripts/Copyrights: The GEs are responsible for making sure that authors submit their final manuscripts with all the necessary material as specified here.

  • SI Editorial/Organization: The GEs select the order in which the papers will appear in the special issue, and prepare a 1-1.25 page editorial for inclusion on the special issue that introduces the topic, the general contributions of the accepted manuscripts, and open areas for future research. The editorial and GE bios should occupy no more than 3 total printed pages.  

Special Issue Proposals

Proposers should start by identifying a suitable topic for the special issue. Any topic within the Scope of the Circuit and System Society is appropriate, but bear in mind that special preference is given to new and emerging areas. It is possible that approval for subjects that have already been considered in recent special issues in JETCAS may be more difficult to obtain, unless a clear advance of the state of the art can be demonstrated or the proposer can show a different flavor of the issue.

An issue of JETCAS will consist of 180 printed pages maximum. This corresponds to about 15-20 papers. A topic must be broad enough to capture a sufficient number of submissions to support this size of an issue, but not so broad that the acceptance rate is unacceptably low. Recognizing that such things are difficult to predict, a target acceptance rate would be in the 30-35% range, which suggests that 45-60 submissions is optimal. IEEE will charge a mandatory page charge for each page in excess of 9 pages (incl. references and biographies). Only regular papers, 8 to 14 pages in length without authors' biography and formatted according to the two-column IEEE style file, should be submitted to a JETCAS special issue.

Proposers must assemble a team of 2-4 Guest Editors (GEs), with one individual identified as the contact point (called the Corresponding Guest Editor, CGE). The GEs should be established researchers in the focus area of the special issue, or a closely-allied discipline. At a minimum, the GEs should have several years of post-Ph.D. experience, and a significant track record of relevant technical publications. It is also desirable for the GE team to be technically and geographically balanced with industry and academia represented.

Guest editors may not submit original technical papers for the special issue. However, they are highly encouraged to provide a single overview tutorial-like paper (8-14 pages long). The goal is to help readers understand the topic better and potentially stimulate new researchers to work in the area.

Note that, after completing the paper review process of an approved special issue, GEs will be requested to provide a lineup of the accepted papers and a guest editorial (including GE bios) to head the special issue. This editorial is a short introductory article (2-3 pages, not to be confused with the optional overview paper) which describes the motivation of the special issue and gives a brief summary of the papers.

Submission of Proposals

Special issue proposals must be submitted electronically through the JETCAS submission website and are considered by the Editor-in-Chief and the IEEE JETCAS Senior Editorial Board. You need to register if you are not already registered in the author’s database. In this case, you will be asked to fill out a form with your name, address, e-mail address, etc.

Special Issue Proposal Template

The special issue proposal should have two parts. (1) a description of the proposal and (2) a draft of the Call for Papers for the special issue. IEEE JETCAS Senior Editorial Board members will review both parts. 

The proposal description should include the following sections:

  1. Rationale and motivation, including an explanation of why this is an emerging research topic, and scope

  2. Target community

  3. Venues of solicitation

  4. A list of potential contributors

  5. Abstract of the overview paper to be optionally contributed by the guest editors

  6. Brief bio-sketches of the Corresponding Guest Editor (CGE) and Guest Editors (GE), relationship among guest editors and track records of collaboration together

  7. A proposed timeline of key milestones for the special issue

  8. Schedule Rationale (to be completed only if the schedule differs from the suggested timeline available here)

  9. References, if any.

In case of a proposal resubmission, a mandatory reply (in pdf format) to the SEB members’ comments has to be attached to the description form.

A template of the special issue proposal description can be downloaded here.

The Call for Papers should include the following sections:

  1. Scope, purpose and submission instructions

  2. List of suitable topics

In case the special issue proposal is approved, the Call for Papers obtained by this procedure will be distributed to the CASS membership e-mail list.

A template of the Call for Papers can be downloaded here

A schedule of past and assigned special issues is provided here.