Special/Focus Issues

OJ-NANO GUIDELINES FOR SPECIAL ISSUES/SECTIONS (SIS)

February 15, 2018

The IEEE OPEN JOURNAL OF NANOTECHNOLOGY (OJ-NANO) publishes novel and important results on science and engineering at the nanoscale and encourages the publication of Special Issues/Sections (SISs).The following document describes the guidelines for a SIS.

  1. SIS Topics. The technical coverage of a SIS is in areas and themes that are in scope with the IEEE Nanotechnology Council (NTC) and OJ-NANO as mandated by statute.
  2. SIS Proposal.A proposal of a SIS must be submitted to the OJ-NANO Editor-in-Chief (EiC) or a Co-Editor-in-Chief (Co-EiC) and must be approved before papers are solicited. All editorial matters and due process will be executed in accordance with IEEE and NTC regulations.
    • SIS Proposal Material. The formal proposal must contain:
        • Title of the SIS
      • List of the proposed Guest Editors and a brief statement of their qualifications (among desirable qualifications, a Guest Editor should be a recognized authority in the proposed theme, have had some editorial experience and be a past contributor to OJ-NANO as an author) with full contact information. Diversity (such as geography, educational/origin background and affiliation) is strongly encouraged in the Guest Editors. If there are multiple Guest Editors, a Guest Editor should be designated as corresponding Guest Editor. A single email alias for contacting simultaneously all Guest Editors must be also provided.
      • A statement of significance and objectives.
      • A draft of the Call for Papers (CFP) (doc or docx file) with a tentative time schedule.
      • Attachments: Any additional relevant material, such as brief CV of each Guest Editor, can be also provided.
    • SIS Proposal Review. The submitted proposal will be initially assessed whether the proposal is of interest/scope to OJ-NANO by the EiC or Co-EiC; the EiC or Co-EiC will inform the proposed Guest Editors whether the proposal is in-scope. If in-scope, the submitted proposal will be forwarded to an Associate Editor (AE) of competence for technical review; the AE will chair a committee (made of at least 2 additional members selected at the AE discretion from the AEs in the OJ-NANO Editorial Board). The AE will communicate its committee decision to the EiC or Co-EiC, who will then communicate it to the corresponding Guest Editor. If approved, the EiC or Co-EiC may also suggest/require amendments (if any required), such as for example the proposed time schedule.
  3. SIS Review Process and Editorial Procedure. The AE of competence will act as Senior Editor (SE) to assume responsibility for the SIS and to carry out the SE’s functionalities, so ensuring that the OJ-NANO standards of quality and operating procedures are followed. The review process and editorial procedures of a SIS are the same as those for regular submissions except that the Guest Editors will fulfill the role of AEs for regular OJ-NANO submissions. Hence, all articles for a SIS must meet all requirements, publication policies and procedures for (non-SIS) OJ-NANO articles, which are detailed in the OJ-NANO Procedure Manual (PM). Moreover, the same criteria of quality, originality, and significance must be applied to articles submitted to a SIS as to regular submissions; also, in this case, refer to the OJ-NANO Procedure Manual for details. The following exemptions are, however, noted for a SIS in OJ-NANO:
    • Due to timing constraints, the outcome of revise-and-resubmit will not be permitted for a SIS submission.
    • The Guest Editors must provide an introductory guest editorial article (which will also be original and not previously published) to be submitted no later than a month after the acceptance of the last article in the SIS. This editorial should set the scene and provide the premise for the SIS referencing the articles included within.