The work of the RA-P Senior Editorial Board guarantees the highest standards of IEEE journals (with a complete peer review cycle, including revision and resubmission where appropriate), but it will also be subject to stringent deadlines. RAS has appointed Senior Editors (SEs) who are extremely strong technically, practically, scientifically, and exceptionally responsible and organized.
The term of an IEEE Robotics and Automation Practice (RA-P) SE is five years, renewable once. SEs supervises an area, formed by a number of keywords, and cooperates to provide reviews and recommendations for papers in that area.
The main responsibilities of an SE are:
The SE’s service in handling a paper is acknowledged by the publisher (IEEE) including the name of the SE on the final electronically published paper.
To minimize the time from submitting a paper to publishing it, RA-P aims at a fast review process with quick and high-quality feedback to the authors. The SE should assign each paper to three confirmed reviewers within two weeks. For each manuscript, the reviewing time should be no longer than five weeks for new or resubmitted manuscripts and no longer than three weeks for manuscripts whose previous submission was conditionally accepted. The final decision and the editorial report are due two weeks after the reviews were received.
The general principle of the editorial work in RA-P is that Editors and Reviewers are not there to be inflexible judges; rather their role is to help authors write better papers.
This is reflected in the review comments and recommendation reports, which are always constructive in their criticism, not just noting deficiencies but also indicating how they can be mended. Any diminishing or disrespectful remark must be absolutely avoided. It is useful to authors of a rejected paper that a fair estimate is given of how far beyond the threshold a paper is, and what could make a new paper acceptable. Please make concrete suggestions to authors, how they can improve their paper.
The quality level to be expected in a paper to appear in RA-P is defined by the scope and mission of the journal: “Robotics and Automation Practice (RA-P) seeks to publish applied research by or explicitly directed toward practitioners, with results demonstrated or deployed in real-world settings and applications.”
The review process for RA-P is managed using the ScholarOne paper management system for RA-P. Please note:
ScholarOne provides a wide variety of tools to help SEs supervise the review process. Reviewer assignments, interactions with Reviewers, and final decisions are all managed using ScholarOne. To access the system, users need to go to the ScholarOne paper management system for RA-P and then log in.
A quick response is needed when a manuscript is assigned to an SE.
The first step is to look at the manuscript to identify a potential CoI. In case of a CoI, the SE should immediately contact the EiC to reassign this manuscript to an alternative SE.
The second step is to check whether the paper falls into the area of expertise of the SE. If the SE comes to the conclusion that she or he does not have sufficient competence to supervise this manuscript, she or he should immediately contact the EiC and ask for a reassignment.
The third step is to preliminarily assess the manuscript with respect to its eligibility for RA-P review. If the SE comes to the conclusion that the manuscript is not suitable for RA-P, the SE should contact another SE and discuss the issue. If both agree that the manuscript should receive an editorial rejection, the SE should contact the EiC and issue a corresponding draft letter that the EiC revises to notify the authors. If both SEs or the EiC disagree about an editorial rejection, the manuscript should be sent out for review.
The fourth step is to assign the manuscript to three reviewers. It is recommended to not only perform this assignment based on the matched keywords but also look at the expertise of Reviewers in the area of this manuscript.
If a Reviewer requests to reassign the manuscript to an alternative Reviewer, this reassignment should be done in due time.
These preliminary steps should be done within two weeks.
It should be noted that both, editorial rejections and reassignments, are to be used sparingly. Criteria for editorial rejection are discussed below in this document. Editorial board members should ask for reassignment in the case of a potential CoI (see below for a definition of CoIs). Requests of reassignment for lack of specific knowledge of the SE in the manuscript topic should be minimized. Typically SEs were selected not because of a deep competence in a narrow topic but rather for experience, vision, and capability to assess scientific contributions in a wider area. Specific expertise and technical prowess in the manuscript domain, together with reliability and thoroughness, are criteria SEs should use to select the reviewers.
RA-P aims at high-quality reviews in due time: every submitted paper should receive a well-prepared review dossier within five weeks for new or revised submissions and within three weeks for updated versions of conditionally accepted manuscripts. Each review dossier includes the comments provided by the reviewers, an editorial report, and a recommendation (accept, conditionally accept, revise and resubmit, reject, or editorial reject).
It is the SE’s responsibility that all manuscript review cases submitted are well prepared.
A well-prepared manuscript review case contains at least two good reviews, which are substantial and constructive and do not diminish the authors’ efforts, even when they have to be negative. The editorial report is expected to contain a summary of the reviewers’ opinions (in the SE’s own words) and the SE’s opinion on the paper. If reviews are not clear enough, the editorial report should give a solid rationale for the decision to be taken. If two reviews are in disagreement, the SE Report should resolve the conflict. The SE should not merely give the average of the reviews as a rating but rather take decisive action and settle the conflict.
In no case is a manuscript with less than two reviews or with sub-standard reviews or editorial report (e.g., too short or shallow), or apparent inconsistencies between comments and recommendations, should be accepted by the SE. Should the SE receive a defective manuscript review case, she/he will interact with the reviewer(s) to make sure that further action is pursued promptly so as to reach the desired high review quality standards of RA-P.
For first submissions or resubmissions of revised manuscripts, this process should take no longer than five weeks. For revised versions of conditionally accepted manuscripts, this process should be completed within three weeks.
Manuscripts that have substantial deficiencies, for example, with respect to their presentation or the state of the art should be rejected. Authors of a rejected manuscript should receive a detailed justification of the causes for rejection. Authors of rejected manuscripts are discouraged from submitting a revised version. However, they are not prevented. If authors submit a revised version of a previously rejected manuscript, they are expected to provide a statement of changes justifying the reasons for a resubmission. The EiC will normally assign the resubmitted manuscript to the SE supervising the previously rejected manuscript unless they are retired in the meantime. The Editorial Board will carefully analyze resubmissions of previously rejected manuscripts and also consider an editorial reject decision for such manuscripts.
A manuscript should receive a “revise and resubmit decision” if it contains deficiencies that can be corrected within a reasonable amount of time (approx. four weeks). If the decision on a submission to RA-P is “revise and resubmit”, authors will be allowed to submit a revised version and a statement of changes. The revised manuscript should be formatted so that any changes can be easily identified by the reviewers, by using, for example, colored or bold text to indicate revised passages. In addition to the largely revised version of a paper, authors are required to also upload a single PDF file containing a reply to the comments provided by the reviewers and the list of changes made to the manuscript paper. After resubmission, the EiC will normally assign the manuscript to the SE previously supervising the manuscript, unless they are retired in the meantime. Revised and resubmitted manuscripts are treated as novel submissions. A second “revise and resubmit” decision for such manuscripts is not possible. Papers not reaching the bar for a “conditionally accepted decision” should preferably be rejected.
A manuscript should receive a “conditionally accepted decision” if it contains minor deficiencies that can be corrected within two weeks. If the decision on a submission to RA-P is “conditionally accepted”, Authors will be allowed to submit a revised version and a statement of changes. The revised manuscript should be formatted so that any changes can be easily identified by the reviewers, by using, for example, colored or bold text to indicate revised passages. In addition to the revised version of your conditionally accepted paper, the authors should also upload a single PDF file containing the authors’ reply to the comments provided by the reviewers and the list of changes made to the manuscript. The EiC will assign resubmissions of previously conditionally accepted manuscripts to the SE supervising the previous version unless one or both of them have retired in the meantime. The evaluation of such a manuscript should take no longer than two weeks. The SE is expected to quickly evaluate the updated manuscripts potentially with the assistance of the reviewers assigned to the previous version. A second “conditionally accepted decision” should be avoided.
Manuscripts fulfilling all requirements for a publication in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Practice should receive an “accept decision”. Authors of accepted manuscripts are requested to prepare a final version of their manuscript strictly the indications provided in the reviews, if any. No other significant unreviewed changes (including to the bibliography and references) are allowed. The submission of the final version is due no later than two weeks from the notification date. When the final version of an accepted paper is received, the SE has the possibility to verify that all required changes have been made in the final version. Although rarely, an SE can withhold publication until all required changes are satisfactorily made. In case this can not be achieved by authors within 90 days from submission, the manuscript could be effectively withdrawn from publication.
Editorial reject decisions are to be used mainly for incomplete or otherwise clearly unsuitable papers (see below the official IEEE policy for more details). All editorial rejections must be approved by the EiC. If the reason for editorial rejection is a lack of technical contribution, IEEE rules require that at least three editors concur in such a decision. For these cases, the EiC and at least two members of the Editorial board (two SEs) have to consent. If a second SE comes to the conclusion that an assigned manuscript should be summarily rejected, the first SE informs the EiC about their proposed decision, provides the EiC with a decision letter, and asks for approval. If the EiC and the two SEs agree, the EiC issues the editorial reject decision. The decision should not be executed without the explicit approval by the EiC. An editorial reject decision should be issued no later than three weeks after the submission. If the EiC and the two SEs disagree in their assessment of the manuscript, it should be sent out for full review.
Editors may prescreen articles immediately after they are submitted and before they are transmitted to referees for evaluation. The purpose of such prescreening is to verify that the article adheres to minimum criteria set forth by IEEE, as well as by the organizational unit responsible for the specific publication. Typical prescreening measures include the following:
If an Editor assesses that a submission has met prescreening criteria (a) through (d), but has not met criterion (e), the editor shall consult with at least two members of the Editorial Board for concurrence. Rejection on the basis of criterion (e) requires the agreement of the EiC and two SEs. Rejection on the basis of criterion (e) shall require the general agreement of the Editor and those consulted. An article is considered in review if it passes the prescreening process and is forwarded to referees. An “administrative reject” refers to an article that does not meet the prescreening measures and is, therefore, returned to the author(s) with an explanation.
RA-P SEs and RA-P Reviewers are deemed to have a conflict of interest in a submitted manuscript if they are a co-author of the paper or
The criteria for CoIs for RA-P SEs also apply to RA-P reviewers.
