Systems, Man & Cybernetics - April 2017 - 4

12) The AE invites the reviewers who
requested edits to the article back
to review the revision. If the reviewers accept the article with
revisions, then the AE allows the
reviewers to check that the revisions have been made. If a reviewer
already accepted the article before
revisions were made, then the
reviewer does not need to review
it again (the AE can set the number of required reviews to fewer
than three in this case).
13) The AE checks on the reviewers
again during the revision stage.
14) The AE makes a recommendation
again at the revision stage. Only
in rare cases should articles be
allowed a second revision. Some
of these steps are described in
further detail next.
The EiC Assigns
the Article to an AE
When a new article is received, the
EiC reviews the submission and
decides which AE should handle
the manuscript. The EiC attempts
to match the manuscripts to the
research interests of the AEs; however, the scope of IEEE magazines
is fairly broad, and it is not always
possible to find an exact match. The
AE should try to be flexible, but if the
manuscript is outside of his or her
scope, then the EiC may be contacted.
The AE Provides
an Initial Check
First, the AE decides whether the article is ready for review, starting with
the author letter. In some cases, the
author letter may only contain a brief
message such as: "Dear Editor, hereby we submit our article." The letter
should alert the AE if an earlier version of the article has been presented
at a conference or if the article has
been submitted elsewhere. As a rule
of thumb, at least 50% of the article
needs to be new and original work, not
previously published elsewhere. However, this 50% is up to our (the EiC's)
discretion, and the quality of the new
50% or more is essential. The author
letter should explain what parts of the
4

article have previously been published
and what parts are new. Other circumstances, such as authors submitting a
pair of articles at the same time, also
require an author letter.
After checking the author letter,
the AE should read or review the article and verify the following.
◆ Is the language of the article clear,
correct, and understandable?
◆ Are the objectives of the study
clearly identified? Simply reading the abstract should give the
AE insight.
◆ Are the figures and tables readable?
◆ Are the references current? Does
the author refer to relevant papers
that recently appeared in IEEE
publications?
◆ Is the article complete and logically structured?
◆ Is the article original? The plagiarism detection tool should
be used.
The AE double‐checks the abstract,
which is the only part of the article
that an invited reviewer sees before
accepting the invitation. A poorly written abstract makes finding reviewers
much more difficult.
As a last action, the AE looks to
see whether a note was added about
the article. In the ScholarOne site, the
AE can find notes in the manuscript
information tab at the bottom of the
page. Also, if an article is marked with
a colored dot, then either an assistant
or the EiC has flagged the article. The
reason for this may be clear (e.g., the
article was submitted for a special
issue, or part of the article was published elsewhere). If not, then the AE
should inquire with an e‐mail sent to
the EiC and the assistant.
If the article is not acceptable, the
AE sets the number of required reviewers to zero and makes an immediate rejection recommendation for
language, scope, originality, or plagiarism. When the number of reviewers
is changed, ScholarOne generates an
e-mail that is addressed to the EiC.
The AE should briefly indicate the
reason for the change so that the
EiC is aware of what's going on.

IEEE SyStEmS, man, & CybErnEtICS magazInE A pri l 2017

After the number of reviewers has
been set to zero, the article is ready
for the AE's recommendation.
The AE Invites Reviewers
When the article is ready to be sent
out for review, the AE checks the
author information in ScholarOne
for preferred reviewers and, possibly, nonpreferred reviewers or
reviewers that the authors would
like to avoid. The AE should strive
for fair and useful reviews of the
article, but some articles cover a
wide range of topics, and it might
be difficult to find reviewers whose
expertise covers all these topics.
In that case, the AE should invite a
variety of reviewers who together
can cover the topics in the article.
Some reviewers will indicate in
their review that they focused only
on part of the article's topics. The
AE should try not to invite only the
author's preferred reviewers but,
rather, at least a mix of preferred
reviewers and others.
When looking for reviewers, the
AE can use a number of sources:
◆ people the AE knows who could
review the article
◆ the author's list of preferred
reviewers
◆ authors of referenced articles
◆ a search with the article's keywords, in ScholarOne or elsewhere, for authors of articles on
similar topics
◆ the EiC, who can be asked for help.
AEs should try to avoid selecting
their fellow AEs (who are busy enough
with their AE duties). If the AE invites someone who is also an AE,
he or she will be in ScholarOne's database, and the AE will see an entry
with that person's
◆ last name, first name
◆ cognitive task analysis, cognitive
modeling
◆ university or department
◆ roles: author, reviewer, associate
editor.
There is a two-step process for inviting reviewers. First, the AE must
add them, and then he or she must
invite them. Adding the reviewers

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Systems, Man & Cybernetics - April 2017