Describe the process for Editor-in-Chief (EIC) selection and training, and policy on terms and reappointment

The EiC is nominated by the Society Publications Department Chair and approved by the Society Executive Board in accordance with the Society Constitution and Bylaws. The person selected is expected to be familiar with the functioning of both the Society and the Transactions process (the four most recent EiCs have been past presidents of the Society). An effort is made to select an incoming EiC early enough so that both the incoming and outgoing EiCs may attend the annual IEEE Panel of Editors meeting together during the transition period. Further preparation includes close communication with the outgoing EiC both before and after the official date of change. The EiC also has available the guidance of the Society Publications Department Chair and the EiC of the IEEE Industry Applications Magazine and attends the annual IEEE Panel of Editors meetings during the EIC’s term of office.

The nominal term of office for the EiC is four years, with one renewal allowed, for a total of eight years. This is a recent development in IAS; some previous EiCs have served longer terms.

The outgoing Transactions EiC provides the incoming EiC with documents which describe activities and procedures. The current EiC periodically updates these documents in preparation for training the next EiC.

The Transactions Editor-in-Chief is assisted by a Manuscripts Administrator whose primary focus is to maintain the ScholarOne Manuscripts system, to assist users who are not familiar with that system, and to prepare reports from data stored on ScholarOne. The Manuscripts Administrator does not take an active role in managing individual papers, but rather serves as a facilitator to assist the EiCs and AEs in performing their functions.

4. Describe the process for Associate Editor selection and training, and policy on terms and reappointment.

In this context, it is important to understand that IAS is comprised of twenty (20) autonomous technical Committees with extremely divergent technical interests. For this reason, it is not possible for an Editor-in-Chief to have an understanding of the activities of every Committee. Therefore, our practice in IAS is to require that the Committees take a significant role in the peer review process. And as noted above, one AE in each Committee has specific responsibility to represent the IAS Publications process within the Committee organization (this person is usually called the Papers Review Chair for the Committee). Associate Editors are selected by the technical committees they serve with the approval of the EiCs of IAS Transactions and IAS Magazine, and typically are appointed for two year terms. One criterion for new AEs is experience as authors and/or reviewers. We do not specifically require that AEs be IEEE members, but to the best of our knowledge all of the AEs listed here are members of IEEE.

Papers submitted to IAS describe innovations in a wide range of topics. Some examples are electric power protection and safety, electrostatics, power electronics, lighting and displays, automation and controls, and electric machines. The applications for these innovations span many industries, several of which are cement, pulp and paper, petrochemical, marine, alternate energy and transportation. For this reason, IAS Publications must work closely with the Technical Committees that make up the Society and who have the technical expertise necessary to competently conduct reviews of the wide range of papers that come before the Society for consideration. In 2008, IAS adopted ScholarOne Manuscripts (S1M) as its peer review management tool. Because the S1M site was designed by and is managed by IAS Publications, S1M is the mechanism by which the Publications Department enforces policies and uniform practices in peer reviews.

At the time of submission, and before papers go into review, there are two administrative checks performed on each paper. IAS requires that the IEEE Copyright Transfer be executed at the time of submission, and the first check is to confirm that the author has completed the transfer. If the transfer has not been executed, the author is sent a reminder, and the paper is flagged for a recheck before any decision is made for publication.

We also require that every submission be scanned in CrossCheck at the time of submission. The IEEE threshold is 30% similarity; in IAS, we scrutinize any paper that returns a similarity score in excess of 20%. Our experience is that the vast majority of instances of excessive similarity come from authors who are quoting their own prior work. The general approach we take is:

• 
  If the total similarity score is less than 20%, we don’t expose the paper to special scrutiny.
  
• 
  We require that any quotation of the authors own prior work that comprises more than 10% of the text of the paper must be identified by a reference citation, and if that citation is not present, the paper is returned to the author for correction.
  
• 
  We require that any quotation of work by others that comprises more than 10% of the text of the paper must be identified by a reference citation, and in addition, must be differentiated so that readers can clearly see that it is a quotation. Papers that fail to meet this requirement are returned to the author for correction.
  
• 
  If the similarity with any single source is large (typically > 60%), the paper is flagged and the AE is asked to work with the reviewers, as part of the review, to decide if the paper offers sufficient new content to justify publication.
  

1. 
   An author of a paper presented at a conference sponsored or co-sponsored by IAS submits the paper for review (typically, within one year of the date of presentation). In 2016 there were 44 conferences sponsored or co-sponsored by IAS and over three thousand papers were eligible for review.
   
2. 
   Each of the twenty IAS Technical Committees has one or more Associate Editors, one of whom is designated as the Papers Review Chair for the Committee. This AE either takes the lead on managing the review of the paper, or else assigns the paper to another of the AE’s within the Committee. If that AE feels that the paper is outside the technical scope of the Committee, we have a process whereby responsibility can be transferred to a more suitable Committee in a way that is transparent to the author. If a suitable technical Committee cannot be found in IAS, and with the concurrence of the EIC, the author is notified that the paper is out of scope. (The role of the Papers Review Chair may require further explanation. The Papers Review Chair has been a part of the structure of most IAS Technical Committees for many decades. Typically the Papers Review Chair is an officer of the Committee and serves a two-year term. Before IAS adopted use of ScholarOne Manuscripts, each Papers Review Chair devised his or her own system to handle reviews. Currently, all Papers Review Chairs use ScholarOne to initiate and monitor the review process.)
   

3. 
   The AE selects and invites a minimum of two (a constraint that is imposed by ScholarOne Manuscripts) technical experts to review the paper. Reviewers are selected on the basis of their technical expertise relative to the subject of the paper.
   

• 
  AEs have the freedom to invite more than two reviewers, and frequently do so if they anticipate that having more than two formal reviews would be beneficial in reaching a decision.
  
• 
  There are three IAS technical committees with long-standing traditions of having a committee that reviews all papers coming to that committee for review. In those cases, all members of the review panel are asked to review each paper. The number of reviewers in these instances can range from the minimum of two to as many as nine.
  
• 
  AEs are repeatedly instructed, both in training sessions, in periodic FAQ e-mails and in written instructions, that it is a mandatory IEEE policy that reviewers be independent and that the Associate Editor cannot be a reviewer. Papers Review Chairs and AE’s have the obligation to recuse themselves in cases of possible conflict of interest. Some of the larger committees have designated one AE the specific duty of identifying and handling reviews for any situation where there is a question of bias.
  

4. 
   Reviewers download and read the paper, and then prepare a review. Each reviewer is asked to assess the paper against nine factors that were identified by IAS as indicators of the quality of a paper. These factors are presented in the form of multiple-choice questions to guide reviewers to think in terms of ‘to what degree’ rather than binary yes or no evaluations.
   

• 
  Does the paper match the technical interests of an IAS Technical Committee?
  
• 
  Does the paper make a significant contribution to technical understanding?
  
• 
  Does the paper contain information that should be archived for future reference?
  
• 
  Does the paper address new applications or technology?
  
• 
  Is the paper well written?
  
• 
  Is the paper concise?
  
• 
  Is the writing clear and understandable?
  
• 
  Do the figures and illustrations enhance the value of the paper?
  
• 
  Does the bibliography identify additional references on the subject of the paper?
  

• 
  Accept the paper for Transactions
  
• 
  Accept the paper for the Magazine
  
• 
  Return the paper to the author for revision and resubmission.
  
• 
  Reject the paper.
  

5. 
   After the reviews are returned, the AE records a consensus decision that is communicated to the author.
   

• 
  The most common scenario is where one reviewer recommends in favor of publication while a second recommends that the paper be rejected. An effective solution here is to report a ‘Revise and Resubmit’ decision to allow the authors to address the concerns identified by the reviewer who wanted to reject the paper. (Reviewers who recommend for rejection are required to explain their rationale.). Then, when the paper is resubmitted, if the authors have adequately addressed the negative reviewer’s concern, the paper can proceed to publication. Conversely, if the authors have not adequately addressed the concerns, the AE can be confident that rejection is the right disposition.
  
• 
  It is often possible for an astute AE to weigh the comments from the reviewers based on his own technical knowledge and background. Clearly, IEEE policies require that the AE be ‘independent’ (ie, not an active reviewer) and the reason is that in situations such as this, the AE may be called upon to be a ‘tie-breaker’.
  
• 
  Another option is for the AE to call for an additional reviewer. Unfortunately, this can have the adverse consequence of extending the time required to complete the review, so most AEs tend to choose one of the other two options listed above. However, this is often done in situations where authors challenge a decision to reject a paper.
  

One of the features of the ScholarOne Manuscripts system is automatic tracking of reviewer-initiated revisions. As a result, we have seen a significant increase in the both the number of papers that receive a ‘revise and resubmit’ decision, and the number of revision cycles that individual papers go through. Historically, one of the problems with forcing authors to make decisions was that there was no control over the timeliness of those revisions. In implementing ScholarOne Manuscripts, we have imposed an automatic 30-day deadline for resubmission by authors, but AEs are also free to grant extensions upon request from author.

The decision to publish a paper in the Magazine rather than Transactions is made in the best interest of the members of the Society based on the nature of the paper. On rare occasions, an author may object to the decision to assign a paper to the Magazine or to the Transactions. Because the Magazine typically receives more publication recommendations than can be accommodated in a calendar year, these instances are almost always resolved to the satisfaction of the author when the Magazine EiC develops the final annual publication plan (discussed under Magazine).

While the detailed peer review is conducted by the AE and reviewers, the EiC retains final authority to accept or reject papers. As a practical matter, the EiCs rely on the AE and reviewers for their technical expertise, and the only time they are overruled is in the case procedural errors. In recent years, EiCs have overruled reviewer recommendations in cases where the author has not executed the IEEE copyright transfer, has been unable to provide permission to reprint copyrighted elements (figures) included in a paper, or has violated one or more IEEE or IAS policies.

Automation within S1M prevents authors from being assigned any role in connection with the review of their own paper or having any access to review records. If the Transactions EiC is an author, IAS practice is to delegate all decision-making responsibility on that paper to either the Magazine EiC, or the Chair of the IAS Publications Department.

Implementing S1M imposed a significant culture change on IAS. Prior to S1M, the process used for peer review was something that had evolved over many decades (the IAS Power Systems Engineering Committee was established in 1908 as the AIEE Committee on General Power Applications, the Industrial Lighting and Display Committee was formed as the AIEE Electric Lighting Committee in 1909, the Metal Industry Committee was created in 1914, and the Mining Industry Committee traces its heritage to about 1920, and there are records of activities by precursors of the Industrial Power Converter, Electric Machines, Rural Electric Power, Cement, Petroleum and Chemical Industry, and Pulp and Paper Industry Committees in AIEE prior to 1950.), and was essentially a ‘batch process’ with the beginning and ending points defined by specific calendar events (typically, regular IAS meetings). S1M is a true continuous process in which manuscripts and be submitted at any time, and where the completion time is governed by the progress on the review and not by external calendar events.

IAS has adopted an internal policy on the timeliness of peer review that focuses on getting to the first decision. The rationale is that if the disciplines and procedures are in place to deliver a timely first decision, then the final decision will follow in a proportionately timely fashion. The IAS policy contains two stipulations:

• 
  On papers that are submitted for review after the ‘presentation first’ requirement has been satisfied, the first decision should be reported no later than 90 days after submission.
  
• 
  On papers for which the ‘presentation first’ requirement is to be met after the paper has been submitted for formal peer review, the first decision should be reported no later than two calendar weeks after the close of the conference which IAS is a sponsor or co-sponsor at which the paper is presented.
  

Realistically, however, there will always be the occasional anomaly. So in addition to the routine reminders built into S1M, the IAS S1M site sends regular reports to the IAS Technical Committees that lists undecided papers. A report is distributed to IAS Executive Officers on a monthly basis that lists papers that have been in review for more than 90 days without a decision. The intention behind this report is to exert downward pressure within the organization to address review anomalies. Finally, a comprehensive set of performance reports is generated prior to each Society Executive Board meeting.

After the review process is concluded the author submits the final files for the paper. The EIC reviews the final files to verify that the files are complete and comply with IAS and IEEE policies. Papers which are missing information such as authors’ photos or a reference to the conference paper are put on hold until the author makes the necessary corrections. In most cases the issues are resolved within a few weeks.

Prior to 2012, the Transactions EiC held papers in S1M until just before the closing date of each issue, at which time they were exported as a batch to the Transactions Staff Editor for publication. Because there was a backlog of papers waiting for publication in the printed version of Transactions, this practice resulted in a long submission-to-publication time for individual papers. In 2012, the Transactions EiC started processing papers approved for publication in real time, exporting them to the Staff Editor immediately after the author submitted the final files required for publication. This change made it possible for the Staff Editor to post a preprint of each paper in Xplore within a few days of when the paper became available for publication. The result was a significant reduction in the average submission-to-ePublication time.

• 
  The paper is outside the scope of the technical committee to which it was assigned. While this option exists, our preferred way to deal with the situation in which a paper is submitted to the wrong committee is to find the correct committee, and then do an internal transfer that is totally transparent to the author.
  
• 
  The paper is outside the scope of IAS. There are instances in which a paper appears to be within the scope of IAS and the technical committee, but the committee is unable to identify suitable reviewers. This is a fairly rare situation that generally means that while the paper describes an application that falls within the scope of IAS and one of its committees, the real focus is on a technology that is foreign to IAS. As an illustration, in 2015 IAS received a submission that supposedly addressed protection of electrical substations, a subject that is clearly within IAS scope. But closer examination of the paper disclosed that the real subject of the paper was the use of facial recognition algorithms to control personnel access to facilities.
  
• 
  There is a problem with the paper relative to IEEE Policies on Author Conduct. This provision has been applied twice to address submissions by authors on the IEEE Prohibited Authors List, and it is available to handle situations involving plagiarism or excessive recycling of the authors’ prior work.
  
• 
  The paper does not meet the IAS ‘presentation first’ policy. The most common application of this rule is with papers scheduled for a conference by not actually presented (so-called ‘no-show’ papers), but most IAS committees also require that the review be ‘timely’ meaning that the author must submit the revised paper for review within one year of conference presentation.
  
• 
  Other uncommon situations in which the submission was administratively flawed
  

So in summary –our review workflow, as enforced by automation within ScholarOne Manuscripts, does not allow an AE to reject a paper based on his personal subjective evaluation of the content of the paper. The only way for IAS to reject a paper based on subjective evaluation of the content is for the paper to go through a full review.

Out of scope 2

“No-show” or excessively-delayed papers 3

Rejected at the request of the author 1

http://www.ieee.org/documents/opsmanual.pdf Prescreening of articles by editors.

b. The author(s) have not obviously violated IEEE Policies.

c. The article is comprehensible (in other words, not so poorly written that it is unreadable).

d. The subject and contents of the article meet the scope of the periodical or a specific issue.

1. IAS uses a single manuscript submission and review workflow to process both Transactions and Magazine submissions. The decision between Transactions and Magazine publication is made at the time the review is completed. For that reason, there is one set of review performance statistics for the Society as a whole that applies to both publications. However, the sub-to-e-Pub and sub-to-pub statistics for the Magazine are different from the corresponding metrics for papers published in the Transactions. That difference is addressed in the PRAC report submitted on IAS Magazine.

2. Due to page count budget constraints, the Magazine is only able to publish 42-45 papers per year. Papers that are approved for publication in excess of that limit are transferred to Transactions for publication.

3. As discussed above, the IAS workflow does not allow administrative rejections for reasons other than those specifically allowed in PSPB policies.

4. IAS is strongly committed to timely completion of reviews. The primary metric we use in promoting that concept within the community is first decision time for two reasons. Firstly, first decision time reflects the effectiveness of the process in delivering timely decisions, and isn’t distorted by authors who fail to submit required revisions by the requested deadline. Secondly, we believe that if we are successful in getting our AEs to deliver timely first decisions, the discipline required to achieve that goal will carry over and result in optimized delivery of final decisions.

The fact that IAS is comprised of twenty technical committees with a wide variety of traditions means that there are instances in which the traditions of individual committees will result in first decision times for those committees that are longer than is the case with other committees. That’s not important. What is important is that each committee deliver on the commitments it makes to its authors. (This is essentially the standard of quality embodied in ISO 9000). For that reason, we have a process whereby AEs are regularly reminded about the status of the papers to which they are assigned. In addition, each committee receives a monthly report that identifies papers that have been in review for more than 90 days without a decision. That report is intended to help committees identify AEs who are not performing up to the standards of the committee. Finally, a version of that report is also sent to the Society Executive each month. Technical committees are made up of volunteers, and it is very common for individual committees to find themselves in periods when their volunteer leadership is failing to perform, and the so-called ‘Red Flag’ report is intended to help the Society Executive identify committees that need executive assistance.

It is inevitable that there will be occasional instances in which papers encounter delays in spite of the best efforts of committed volunteers. Evaluation of the overall performance of the Society leads IAS Leadership to conclude that the overall first decision performance of the Society is excellent in spite of a few outliers.

5. There are a few instances in which authors voluntarily withdraw submissions. In addition IAS practice is that papers that receive a ‘revise and resubmit’ decision following review, but where the author opted to not submit a revision, are subsequently re-categorized as ‘withdrawn’ for statistical purposes. Most of the papers reflected on this line are instances in which the author opted to abandon the paper rather than submit a requested revision.

The authors of papers are split almost evenly between the U.S.A., Region 8 and Region 10. It has been challenging to find suitable sources of papers from Region 9, in part because many conferences in the region have papers written in Spanish or Portuguese.

Electric Power Systems Research (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/electric-power-systems-research/) Elsevier

• Generation techniques ranging from advances in conventional electromechanical methods, through nuclear power generation, to discoveries in solar related generation.

• Transmission, spanning the broad area from UHV development to line routing and design.

• Substation work: equipment design, protection and control systems.

• Distribution techniques – underground installation and equipment development.

• The utilization area from energy conservation methods to distributed load levelling techniques.

• Systems studies including control techniques and planning.
EPE Journal (http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tepe20) Taylor-Francis

Scope: The scope of the EPE Journal is to supply all experts in the field of power electronics and drives, with the most recent information on the rapid evolution in the field of power electronics, drives and industrial applications.

Alongside contributions from scientists, the Journal also wants to attract contributions from those who are designing and producing power electronics systems and those who are involved in the applications of those systems in industrial processes.

In addition to original research articles, information is supplied on new products, industrial developments, company portraits, the EPE Association as well as international organizations such as the European Commission.

The EPE Journal is recognized as a truly European specialized Journal on power electronics, drives and applications of a very high scientific and technological level. The Journal is in close relation with the bi-annual EPE Conference, the leading European Conference in the field, which brings manufacturers, researchers and users together.
International Transactions on Electrical Energy Systems Wiley

(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2050-7038)

Scope: The Journal of Electrostatics is the leading forum for publishing research findings that advance knowledge in the field of electrostatics. We invite submissions in the following areas:

• 
  Electrostatic charge separation processes: Fundamental science behind how materials (solid or liquid) accumulate electrostatic charge, by triboelectric, induction, conduction, corona and electrical double layer charging, or other mechanisms. Electrostatic charge dissipation and neutralization. Space charge in solid dielectrics. Electrets. Methods to control charging. Static measurement techniques (charge, surface potential, electric field).
  
• 
  Electrostatic manipulation of particles, droplets, and biological cells: Electrostatic forces on particles, including electrophoresis, dielectrophoresis and electrorotation. Applications, including electrostatic precipitators, separators, coating processes, and electrophotography. Electrostatic issues in fluidized beds and other solids handling processes. Biological/medical applications including control of biological cells and pharmaceutical powders. Microfluidics and Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS). Coupled problems (thermal, flow, stress) with essential contribution of electrostatic phenomena.
  
• 
  Electrostatically driven or controlled fluid flow: Corona generated secondary electrohydrodynamic flow. Boundary layer control. Electrohydrodynamic pumping. Electro-rheology. Electrospinning and electrospraying. DC and AC Electroosmosis. Electrowetting. Applications including materials processing, thermal management, and flow control.
  
• 
  Electrostatics in the gas phase: Fundamental science of plasmas. Corona and dielectric barrier discharges. Electrical breakdown. Applications of plasma technologies, including environmental remediation of gas and liquid streams. Electrostatic discharges from charged surfaces - fundamentals, prevention, safety issues. Electrostatic phenomena in atmospheres, including lightning.
  

Machine Vision and Applications (http://link.springer.com/journal/138) Springer-Verlag