T-RO PaperCept Submission Procedures

From January 1, 2008, submissions to the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS (T-RO) go to the T-RO PaperCept site ras.papercept.net/journals/tro. In case of any doubt on the following procedures, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Preliminary actions

  1. Read first the Information for Authors for topics such as submission types, copyright and ethical issues, style of manuscripts and IEEE tools for authors, PDF file testing, paper length, and page charges.
  2. ALL authors of a paper should possess a PIN number from the Robotics & Automation Society (RAS) journal or conference management systems. If you have submitted a paper to the most recent ICRA conferences or to any other RAS conference using PaperPlaza, you already have one. In order to find your own PIN or those of your coauthors, update your personal information (strongly recommended before submitting), or register a new PIN if you never obtained one before, just follow the link in the Log In page of the T-RO PaperCept site.
  3. Test your PDF manuscript file before submission in order to avoid potential problems due to font embedding. Just follow the link available in your T-RO PaperCept Access Page after having logged in.

Steps for new submissions

The following procedure applies to new submissions, to submissions of revised papers that were originally handled through the old T-RO review system (up to 2007), or to submissions of fully revised papers that were rejected in T-RO PaperCept (from 2008). All these submissions will receive a new paper ID in the system.

  1. Log in with your RAS PIN number and password at the T-RO PaperCept submission site ras.papercept.net/journals/tro 
  2. Follow the link "Submit a new paper to IEEE-TRO"
  3. Select the Type of Submission: Regular Paper, Short Paper, Communication Item, or Survey Paper (please, contact the EiC in advance for this last category). An additional category may be present during the calls for papers for a Special Issue
  4. Choose to whom you submit ---the only active option is to the T-RO Editor-in-Chief (EiC)
  5. Enter the Authors
    • Enter ALL authors through their RAS PIN
    • Select the corresponding author
    • The order of authors can be adjusted
  6. Enter the Title and Abstract (no more than 1200 chars, without TeX or HTML commands)
  7. Enter the Keywords (using also the list of RAS subject areas)
    • A minimum of 2 up to a maximum of 5 (recommended) keywords can be entered
    • Keywords can be chosen from the list of RAS subject areas (those used for ICRA conferences) or typed in freely (for at most 2 keywords)
  8. Enter extra information
    • If a preliminary version of the paper has been (or is going to be) presented at conference(s), specify in a compact way which one(s); these conference papers should be explicitly cited in the present journal submission, with few statements about differences/changes/additions (papers lacking to comply with this will be returned by the EiC)
    • If the submission is a revision of a paper originally handled through the old T-RO review system (up to 2007) OR is a full revision of a paper that was rejected in T-RO PaperCept (from 2008), provide the former paper ID
    • Enter 'no' in any of these fields, if the related conditions do not apply
  9. Enter a Cover Note with a brief message to the EiC (in particular, use this field for indicating whether the submission is intended for a specific Special Issue)
  10. File Upload
    • Paper in PDF: max 5MB for Regular Paper or Survey Paper, max 2MB for Short Paper or Communication Item
    • Authors should use the IEEE Transactions style and format right from the initial submission. There are limits on the maximum number of PDF pages in Transactions format for each paper category. These are: max 17 for Regular Paper, max 9 for Short Paper, max 4 for Communication Item, max 20 for Survey Paper. In case of acceptance, extra page charges apply to Regular papers exceeding 10 Transactions pages, to Short papers exceeding 5 Transactions pages, to Communication items exceeding 3 Transactions pages, and to Survey papers exceeding 14 Transactions pages
    • Multimedia attachment [optional]: a single zipped file, max 50MB, including also ReadMe.txt and Summary.txt files
    • Reply to the Reviewers' Comments and List of Changes made (in a single PDF file, max 1MB) [mandatory for revised papers originally handled through the old T-RO review system; optional, but encouraged, for fully revised papers previously rejected in T-RO PaperCept]

If the submission was successful, a message is displayed on screen and an acknowledgment email is sent to your address (cc: to all other co-authors).

Steps for resubmissions

The following procedure applies to resubmissions of revised versions of "Conditionally accepted" papers [CR/CS/CC] or to papers that received a "Revise and resubmit" decision [RR/RS/RC] within T-RO PaperCept. The resubmission of a Conditionally accepted paper will keep the original paper ID, but the Version number is incremented. The resubmission of a paper with a Revise decision will receive a new paper ID. In both cases, the previous submission and related review material will be automatically linked to the current resubmission in the system.

  1. Log in with your RAS PIN number and password at the T-RO PaperCept submission site ras.papercept.net/journals/tro 
  2. Follow the link "Author of 1 (or more) submission(s) to IEEE-TRO" in your Access Page
  3. Follow the link "Resubmit" associated to the paper of interest. Next to this there is a deadline for resubmission (60 days from decision for CR/CS papers, 30 days for CC papers, no deadline for RR/RS/RC)
  4. Proceed with similar steps as for a new submission, with the following notes:
    • The information on Authors, paper Title and Abstract, and Keywords is automatically loaded as default from the previous paper data
    • The paper category cannot be changed (it is the one specified in the Editor decision)
    • The Author List, the Title and Abstract, and the Keywords can be updated
    • A Cover Note should be entered
  5. File Upload
    • Revised Paper in PDF: max 5MB for Regular Paper or Survey Paper, max 2MB for Short Paper or Communication Item
    • Authors should use the IEEE Transactions style and format. Also for resubmissions, there are the same rules and limits on the maximum number of PDF pages in Transactions format as for new submissions. 
    • Multimedia attachment [optional, with the possibility of keeping the previous file if already present]: a single zipped file, max 50MB, including also ReadMe.txt and Summary.txt files
    • Author's Response (in a single PDF file, max 2MB), with reply to the Reviewers' Comments and List of Changes made [mandatory]

If the resubmission was successful, a message is displayed on screen and an acknowledgment email is sent to your address (cc: to all other co-authors).

Submission of final material

All final material needed for publication of accepted papers is to be submitted electronically. Hard copies are no longer needed. An Author Checklist will be attached (as PDF file) to the acceptance decision email. More details will soon be available.