Information for Reviewers

Following an email invitation by a member of the Editorial Board to review a paper for the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine (RAM), you will be directed by a link to the appropriate page and review form in Papercept. Here, you can accept to review the paper or decline. In the latter case, you may indicate the name of an appropriate reviewer. Providing this suggestion is very much appreciated.

RAM does not use double-anonymous review. The reviewers are never known to the authors, but the authors are always known to the reviewers. In this way, the paper does not hide relevant aspects (e.g., references to other papers by the same authors) that may be helpful for a balanced and fully informed review.

The articles in this journal are peer reviewed in accordance with the requirements set forth in the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual (https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/files/opsmanual.pdf). Each published article was reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers using a single-anonymous peer review process, where the identities of the reviewers are not known to the authors, but the reviewers know the identities of the authors.

The paper review procedure of RAM involves a recommendation prepared by the Associate Editor on the basis of peer reviews. The final decision on publication, sustaining or modifying this recommendation, is taken by the Editor-in-Chief.

Please respect the deadline. As an author, you undoubtedly appreciate the importance of minimizing delays.

In your review please keep in mind that RAM is a magazine not a transactions, and this implies that:

  • Lack of novelty or contribution does not disqualify an article
  • RAM accepts articles based on the technical interest of the content and the quality of exposition.
  • RAM is not a venue for short or poor journal style articles.

Please provide detailed comments to the authors to support your recommendation. The following points are suggested for your comments:

  • Is the paper clearly written and well organized?
  • Is this a magazine style article or more of a transactions paper?
  • Is the paper likely to be of interest to RAM’s 10,000 readers?
  • Does the introduction state the purpose of the paper?
  • Does the paper describe a working robot system?
  • Are the references relevant and sufficient? Supply missing references. For RAM the ideal is 20 or fewer references.
  • If the paper is not technically sound, why not?
  • If the paper is too long, how can it be shortened? For RAM the ideal is 8-10 magazine pages which is less than 8 pages in the T-RO template.

Please supply any information that you think will be useful to the author for a revision, for enhancing the appeal of the paper, or for convincing him/her of the weak points or mistakes.

Do not identify yourself or your organization within the review text. The reviewer's recommendation for acceptance or rejection should not be included in the comments to the author.

In your critical comments to author, please be specific. If you suggest that the paper be rewritten, give specific suggestions as to which parts of the paper should be deleted, amplified or modified, and please indicate how.

If the paper has a multimedia attachment (typically, a video clip), please comment on this too. Is it consistent with the paper content? Does it enhance the paper quality? If it is a video, how is the technical quality? Is it free of commercialism?

If you feel that additional material (equations, graphs, tables, etc.) needs to be included in your review, you can attach a pdf file to your review. Please, mention in your comments to the author that you have prepared a pdf file with such material. Some reviewers are used  to attach to the review an annotated/bookmarked version of the paper PDF, to indicate things such as spelling errors or similar. However, the current software we use for removing the identity from the metadata of any attachments will also eliminate these annotations and bookmarks. So, if needed, please include such minor notes within your review.

 Upon completion of the review process of a paper, access to the Associate-Editor decision and to all anonymous reviews will be available through PaperCept for the reviewers of the paper.

Currently, there is one web review form for each paper category. The correct form for the paper in review is automatically loaded in RAM PaperCept. Specific instructions for reviewers are contained also at the beginning of each form.

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