SMCB Manuscript Central:
Associate Editor Guidelines
We welcome you as an Associate Editor for
the Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Part B. You are
a key resource to our journal; we count on your judgment and also
on your broad knowledge of people in your field. As the person coordinating
the peer review and making the initial decision regarding whether
to publish each assigned manuscript, you are the "gatekeeper" for
the quality of IEEE's archived
papers. And we count on you to recruit and train strong reviewers
who provide helpful comments in the technical specialties to which
you are assigned.
The journal has moved to the use of Manuscript Central (http://smcb-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com/
) for paper handling. All submissions are now electronic through
this system. Hence, it is crucial to understand the paper flow under
the system. We outline here the key points about managing the peer-review
steps in Manuscript Central for the papers assigned to you by the
Editor. You may print the full content, or selectively read only
those sections useful to you.
Topics
Logging In
You each have accounts created for you. You may change your
password when you log in. You will also want to put in your e-mail
signature (with your e-mail address) so that referees can directly
reach you. To do this you must go to the edit your information
link which is on the main menu. You can also edit the rest of the
information that has been entered about you (i.e. area of expertise,
keywords, etc.).
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Paper Flow
Each manuscript enters the system as either a PostScript, Word
or PDF file and is converted to a universally printable PDF file.
It will then be assigned to you, the Associate Editor by the Editor-in-Chief.
You will receive an e-mail that informs you that a particular paper
is now available in your Associate Editor center. If you cannot
handle it, please quickly inform the Editor-in-Chief.
Otherwise, reviewers/referees can be selected and asked to review
the paper within eight weeks.
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Assigning Referees
After entering your associate editor center from the main
menu, click on New Manuscripts: Manage Reviewers and Make Recommendations.
If the paper is a revision (denoted by a .R1 or .R2 attached to
the original number) you will click on Revised Manuscripts: Manage
Reviewers and Make Recommendations. This will take you to a
list of manuscripts that have been assigned to you. Click on the
view details button next to the manuscript to which you are assigning
reviewers. Now click on Assign or remove referee. A list
of reviewers already in the database will appear in a frame on the
right side of the screen. If the reviewer you need is not currently
in the list, you can add him/her by returning to your Associate
Editor center (see Adding Referees).
>From this screen you have the new option of quickly adding basic
information about a reviewer via the add reviewer button.
However, it currently does not allow keywords to be added for later
retrieval. After you assign a reviewer, you will need to click on
the invite referee button next to their name to send out an invite
e-mail to them. You can use the default email, modify it, or delete
it and use your own. However, to get the tracking (and automatic
reviewer reminding) within Manuscript Central you must send this
email! You do this for each referee you invite.
When they accept, you must go back into the Associate Editor
Center and view details of the particular paper they have agreed
to review. Go to assign or remove referee and click agreed
for the appropriate referee. This is important because it does three
things: 1) it moves the paper into their referee center, 2) it starts
the clock on the automatic reminding software which sends out letters
of reminder or at eight weeks, 9.5 weeks and 11 weeks, and 3) it
pops up a letter to the referee, providing detailed instructions
on filling out the on-line review form. You MUST send
this letter to have the automatic reminder software turned on!!
This letter has been created as a standard letter, but will go out
with your signature and email automatically inserted. Again,
you can change it as you wish when you go to send it. If they
do not accept or do not respond after the appropriate time, click
on the trash can. An e-mail for you to send will appear. Sending
it will disinvite the referee. If you do not want to send any of
these emails to the referee, just change the to field to your email.
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Adding Referees
To add referees to the database, from the Associate Editor center
menu go to the User Administration link (currently number
7). There is no need to fill in all fields. Their name and e-mail
address are the minimum information required, but you will probably
also want to put in a set of keywords for which this reviewer is
likely to be good so that you can find them again when you have
a paper with such keywords. It is useful to add a comment noting
that the reviewer was added to the database by you to help prevent
multiple "use" of a reviewer by other associate editors. Be sure
to make them a reviewer by choosing yes in the appropriate
field (otherwise they will have an account created but will only
have an author center).
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Reminding referees
You will be carbon copied on all 3 automatic reminder letters to
reviewers. You are also encouraged to send personal reminders from
the report menu in your Associate Editor Center. Go to outstanding
revisions and then send reminder and make any suitable
changes to the template. If you have not heard from a reviewer after
11 weeks and do not have enough reviews, you almost certainly must
get some new reviewer(s).
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Revised Manuscripts
Revised Manuscripts are handled slightly differently. These papers
bypass the EIC and go directly to the appropriate Associate Editor
(who previously handled it). Since manuscripts are usually checked
for printability before they are sent on to AEs, please wait to
assign reviewers until the paper is checked. (The administrator
is notified that the revision has been submitted immediately, so
expect an e-mail giving you the go-ahead soon after).
With revised manuscripts, the referees who handled the paper originally
are automatically assigned. However, they cannot re-review it until
you click the agreed button and send off the e-mail. Because
there is no invite letter in the case of revisions, you may want
to contact them outside of manuscript central before doing this,
however reviewers are generally aware of their obligation
to re-review the paper and the default email reminds them they had
it before.
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Making Decisions
When a review is completed, Manuscript Central will notify you
by e-mail. When you have (at least) three reviews and can
make a decision, you again view details of the paper and go to make
recommendation. This screen will show you the reviews
and allow you to print them. To actually send the review on to the
EIC, you must select post recommendation. Here you will fill
out information about reviewers timeliness, etc. (if you wish) as
well as your recommendation for the paper. Please include
summary comments for the author about what needs to be done
to fix the paper or why a reject (the fatal flaws) in the provided
text box. Please be clear, but gentle. You may also
include confidential comments to the EIC in the corresponding box.
When you send on your decision to the EIC, an e-mail opens for you
to send on. Please additionally summarize the categories of reviewer
recommendations and yours within this e-mail.
Please note when you are ready to make a decision on a paper, it
is important to go to assign/remove reviewers and remove
any reviewers who have not responded! Otherwise, if the reviewer
responds before the EIC makes a decision that paper gets yanked
back to your Associate Editor Center and you must make yet another
decision. On the other hand, if the reviewer tries to send
in a review after the EIC has made a decision the paper will no
longer be in their Reviewer Center and some confusion will undoubtedly
result.
One last note: it is YOU who set the standards for this Journal.
If material has been published elsewhere in the archival literature,
or if the contribution in a particular manuscript is not at the
level (or within the topics) of our Transactions, then you would
want to strongly consider rejecting it. Perhaps, in cases where
the material may be useful in another journal, you can add such
a comment in your "saved" author letter. Particularly watch for
papers that are more appropriate for our Sister journals.
Our primary allegiance is to our readers and the technical community,
which depends on you to assess the correctness and uniqueness of
each author's contribution, and its correct citation of the prior
work in the area.
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The above covers all the major aspects of paper flow for Associate
Editors. All the options available to you have not been discussed.
For example, there is a report menu screen which will show you who
has outstanding reviews and will also tell you about reviewer histories.
There are help buttons within the system, but please contact the
Administrative Assistant for SMCB Manuscript Central, Tyra Martin
(
), if you need clarification on any aspects of the site.
Thank you very much for your continued assistance!
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