SPECIAL ISSUE GUIDELINES
Special Issues are an important component of IJARIDEA. They deal with more focused topics with high current interest falling within the scope of the journal in which they are published. They should be organized by recognized experts in the area and attract articles of the highest quality. Special Issue proposals are welcome at any time during the year, and should be submitted to ijarideaspecialissue@gmail.com.
Proposals for Special Issues should be submitted by the Chief Guest Editor of the Special Issue and should include the following:
- A Suggested title for the Special Issue (should not exceed 10 words)
- Proposed Aim and Scope
- List of topics to be covered
- Organizing Department
- Organizing College, Institution or Organization
- Date Of Conference
- Website [Optional]
- Contact Number/Alternate number
- Expected Number Of Papers To Be Published With This Journal
- A list of Guest Editors who will join the Chief Guest Editor in managing the Special Issue, including their names, emails, affiliations, and a short biography (one paragraph) of each of the Guest Editors
- A Proposed timeline and schedule which includes:
- Deadline for submission
- Review of Papers (7 days after submission deadline)
- Tentative Publication date (7 days after Review of Papers)
All proposals are subject to approval by the journal following a discussion of the proposed Special Issue among the journal’s Editorial Board. If approved, a Call-for-Papers for the Special Issue will be issued and posted online.
Special Issues are made freely available online to all interested readers leading to the maximum possible dissemination and recognition within the engineering and scientific community. They are also made available in print for all readers interested in a print edition.
The Guest Editors’ main editorial task is to manage the peer review of submitted manuscripts. Guest Editors should recommend papers for publication only on the basis of academic merit and subject appropriateness. To ensure the success of the Special Issue, we generally aim to have over 20 submissions, which allows for a higher rejection rate and thus produces a stronger collection of accepted manuscripts. If the Special Issue receives less than 10 submissions, IJARIDEA will unfortunately have to move the papers to the regular section of the journal which bears 20% discount of Processing charges.
Once a manuscript is submitted to a Special Issue, it will be checked by the journal’s editorial office to ensure that it is suitable to go through the normal peer review process. Once this is done, the manuscript will be sent to the Chief Guest Editor provided that there is no potential conflict of interest with the submitting authors. If there is a conflict of interest such that the Guest Editors cannot handle any of the submissions to the special issue, the manuscript will be sent to an Editorial Board Member based on the subject of the manuscript, the availability of the Editors, and the lack of any potential conflict of interest with the submitting authors.
In case there is no conflict of interest, the Chief Guest Editor will need to read over the article and if it is of reasonable quality, he/she will need to assign it either to himself/herself or to one of the Guest Editors. The Guest Editor handling the manuscript will then need to assign it to external referees for peer review. The Guest Editor should assign a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 independent external referees to each paper, and this should be done within a maximum of 1 week from the time he/she has received the manuscript. Reviewers are then expected to submit their reports within a maximum of 3 weeks. Once a manuscript is submitted for publication, the manuscript is checked by the Chief Guest Editor to ensure that it is suitable to go through the normal peer review process. Once this is done, the manuscript is sent to an appropriate Guest Editor based on the subject of the manuscript and the availability of the Editors. All manuscripts shall be handled by an Editor who does not have any potential conflict of interest with any of the manuscript’s authors.
If the Guest Editor finds that the manuscript may not be of sufficient quality to go through the normal peer review process, or that the subject of the manuscript may not be appropriate for the journal’s scope, the manuscript shall be rejected with no further processing.
If the Guest Editor finds that the submitted manuscript is of sufficient quality and falls within the scope of the journal, they should assign the manuscript to a number of external reviewers, provided that no conflict of interests exists between these reviewers and the manuscript’s authors. The reviewers will then submit their reports on the manuscripts along with their recommendation of one of the following actions to the Editor:
- Considered after Successful Registration
- Considered after Minor Changes
- Considered after Major Changes
- Rejected (Sufficient Novelty missing!)
When all reviewers have submitted their reports, the Guest Editor can make one of the following editorial recommendations:
- Considered after Successful Registration
- Considered after Minor Changes
- Considered after Major Changes
- Rejected (Sufficient Novelty missing!)
If the Guest Editor recommends “Considered after Successful Registration,†the manuscript will undergo a final check by the Chief Guest Editor in order to ensure that the manuscript and its review process adhere to the journal’s guidelines and policies. Once this is done, the authors will be notified of the manuscript’s acceptance, and the manuscript will appear in the Articles in Table of Contents of the journal’s website after successful registration.
If the Guest Editor recommends “Considered after Minor Changes,†the authors are notified to prepare and submit a final copy of their manuscript with the required minor changes suggested by the reviewers. The Guest Editor reviews the revised manuscript after the minor changes have been made by the authors. Once the Guest Editor is satisfied with the final manuscript, the manuscript can be accepted after successful registration.
If the Guest Editor recommends “Considered after Major Changes,†the authors are expected to revise their manuscript in accordance with that recommendation and to re-submit their revised manuscript within a short span of time. Once the revised manuscript is submitted, the original reviewers are asked to review it. Along with their review reports on the revised manuscript, the reviewers make a recommendation which can be “Considered after Successful Registration,†“Considered after Minor Changes,†“Considered after Major Changes,†or “Rejected (Sufficient Novelty missing!)â€. Then, the Guest Editor can make an editorial recommendation which can be “Considered after Successful Registration,†“Considered after Minor Changes,†“Considered after Major Changes,†or “Rejected (Sufficient Novelty missing!)â€.
If the Guest Editor recommends rejecting the manuscript, the rejection is immediate. Also, if the majority of the reviewers recommend rejecting the manuscript, the rejection is immediate.
The editorial workflow gives the Guest Editors the authority to reject any manuscript because of inappropriateness of its subject, lack of quality, or incorrectness of its results. The Guest Editor cannot assign himself/herself as an external reviewer of the manuscript. This is to ensure a high-quality, fair, and unbiased peer-review process of every manuscript submitted to the journal, since any manuscript must be recommended by one or more (usually two or more) external reviewers along with the Guest Editor of the manuscript in order for it to be accepted for publication in the journal.
The peer-review process is single blinded; that is, the reviewers know who the authors of the manuscript are, but the authors do not have access to the information of who the peer reviewers are. IJARIDEA has an acknowledgment page for reviewers with their ORCID ID and Researcher ID who have performed the peer-review process for one or more of the journal manuscripts in the past year. Without the significant contributions made by these researchers, the publication of the journal would not be possible.
