The IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Electromagnetics, Antennas and Propagation (JSTEAP) is different from most other technical publications. For example it is different from the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques as well as IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, in that each issue deals with a specific topic. Furthermore, there is usually little technical overlap between issues.
The technical topic for each special issue is selected from proposals submitted by individuals having expertise in a technical area who also wish to make a significant technical contribution by bringing together the expertise of others working in the same area. Once the proposal is submitted to JSTEAP the Editorial Board will review it and decide whether it can be accepted for a JSTEAP issue topic, requires revision or is not within scope. When a proposal is accepted the proposing individuals will become Guest Editors for that JSTEAP issue and handle the submission and review process under the supervision of the Editorial Board.
All researchers are invited to submit proposals and the success of JSTEAP depends upon a continuing flow of quality proposals. Guidelines for the preparation of proposals are detailed below.
Guidelines for Proposal Preparation
JSTEAP issues are initiated by a proposal. Proposals may be developed by anyone having interest and expertise in a technical area within the scope of the JSTEAP. Each issue of JSTEAP is devoted to a specific technical topic and thus provides to JSTEAP readers a collection of up-to-date papers on that topic. These issues are valuable to the research community and become valuable references. Topics that are new or emerging are particularly encouraged.
Information to be Provided
The proposal should have the following information and structure:
- The proposed issue selected topic and scope should be well described. The proposed topic should be both timely and have significant scientific merit.
- A description of the proposed issue selected topic should be provided. The description should be brief and indicate the research areas in which papers will be solicited. A draft of a proposed call-for-papers should also be provided.
- A plan for obtaining quality papers should be given, indicating the potential sources of papers. There must be clear indication that there is substantial research conducted in the area (such as workshops and sessions of conferences).
- The proposed Guest Editors should have a good standing in the proposed research area and must have accepted to serve on the guest editorial team. (JSTEAP issues are suggested to involve 4-5 Guest Editors). The Guest Editors should be selected so that a good technical, institutional, geographical and gender balance is achieved. A brief resume of the proposed Guest Editors, listing up to five related papers in the area of the proposed issue, should be included.
- The proposed review process should be described, and a list of potential reviewers should be included with the proposal (at most one page). (A peer-review process is essential to the development of a quality issue.)
- The proposes should declare that they understand that Guest Editor authored research paper submissions will not be accepted. JSTEAP encourages Guest Editor authored tutorial, review and overview papers. Such a paper should confirm to the page limit of regular papers in the issue, unless otherwise agreed with the Editor-in-Chief.
- The Guest Editor team can only be active on one JSTEAP issue and this should be declared in the submitted proposal. This includes proposals under review, selected topic issues with an open call-for-papers or selected topic issues with papers still in review. Each proposed Guest Editor can participate in at most three selected topic issue proposals within a given year and the proposed Guest Editor team should also declare that this is the case.
General Information
Key ingredients for a successful selected topic issue in JSTEAP are a timely topic and Guest Editors who are willing and able to develop the proposed topic. Each issue of JSTEAP will normally include between 8 and 20 papers. The Guest Editors are responsible for developing an editorial which establishes the perspective of the issue and introduces the papers. In general, a tutorial, review or overview paper should be included in the issue. This paper should overview the subject area of the issue and place the theoretical and/or implementation techniques in a proper perspective. It should also be remembered that tutorial, review and overview papers must be well written, accurately cite previously published papers, and contain a complete bibliography.
Duties of the Guest Editor
Once the proposal is approved, the Guest Editors need to establish a tentative publication schedule with the JSTEAP Executive Editor. The normal lead time is 18-24 months.
The Guest Editors also need to perform the extremely important task of paper solicitation and review. In this period, the following needs to be accomplished.
- In addition to the solicitation process identified by the Guest Editors, the call-for-papers needs to be publicized widely and published in the publications of the IEEE AP-S, MTT-S and ComSoc to facilitate access to the co-sponsoring society’s. These need to be done in a timely manner to provide ample time for authors to prepare submissions to the issue.
- The call-for-papers is prepared by the Guest Editors and briefly describes the topics to be addressed and identifies all deadlines associated with publication of the issue.
The Guest Editors are in charge of the review process and make the important decisions on which papers are to be published under the supervision of the Senior Editors. In this phase, the following needs to be adhered to.
The Lead Guest Editor is responsible for conferring the policy decisions with the Senior Editor mentoring the issue.
- The Guest Editors are responsible to solicit three independent reviews per paper. Examples of not necessarily independent reviewers include researchers from the same group.
- The Guest Editors conduct all correspondence with the authors and oversee all revisions required or suggested by the reviewers.
- The Guest Editors notify the authors of accepted papers, that exceed the guidelines, that their paper may be longer than the limit and thus may accrue over-length page charges.
Submission of the Proposal
All proposals should be submitted to the JSTEAP Editor-in-Chief (EiC) and Executive Editor via email
Submitting a Paper to Your Own Issue
JSTEAP encourages tutorial and overview papers authored by Guest Editors. The review process for such tutorial and overview papers will be managed by the Editor Board. Guest Editors however may not have research paper submissions in their own JSTEAP issue.