Guidelines for Associate Editors

Guidelines for Associate Editors

Last revised: May 2019

Introduction

1.0. Mission Statement

2.0 Overview

3.0. Author Misconduct

4.0. Peer Review in Support of Timely Publication

5.0. Publication Quality

6.0. Comments, Corrections, and Errata

7.0. Summary

8.0. ScholarOne Manuscripts (S1M) Links

9.0. Publication Activities Webpages

10.0. Associate Editor Best Practices

 

Thank you for agreeing to be an Associate Editor (AE) for the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS). The role of the AE in scholarly publishing is a very important one: management of the peer review of manuscripts by members of the peer community. Peer review of all papers that appear in transactions, journals, or letters publications is required by the IEEE and papers are accepted for publication only on the basis of merit and appropriateness.

The AEs for the publications of the IEEE Signal Processing Society are responsible for the consistently high marks our transactions and letters receive from the peer community. By assuring the selection of appropriate reviewers to identify quality manuscripts and by efficiently managing the peer review process, the quality--and therefore the value--of a publication is increased.

The AEs are supported by staff who help with the paperwork side of the peer review process. However, there are interactions that can only be performed by the AE to foster communication between the AE and the reviewer and between the AE and the author. These communications produce the value added by each AE.

Although you may currently be serving as an AE or reviewer for one or more publications of other IEEE Societies, the procedures set out for the transactions and letters of the IEEE Signal Processing Society may differ significantly. Please read through this entire guide to understand review requirements, timelines, and how you will interact with the Publications Office, the reviewers, and the authors in fulfilling the important role of AE.

NOTE: Please note that some of the instructions on specific functions in ScholarOne Manuscripts (S1M) may vary slightly among the SPS S1M portals. Each journal has its own portal that may include variations specific to that journal. Therefore, if any of the following instructions do not seem to apply to the portal you are using, please contact the journal administrator for clarification.

1.0. MISSION STATEMENT

IEEE's core purpose is to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.

Publications play a major role in implementing the purpose of the IEEE as defined in its constitution and in its vision and mission. Throughout the world IEEE publications serve to advance the theory and practice of electrical and electronic engineering, as well as allied arts and sciences, to enhance the professional standing of the Institute's members, and to promote the constructive use of technology for the public welfare.

As an organization of the IEEE, the IEEE Signal Processing Society is responsible for assisting this mission.

More specifically, the Society has established the goal of publishing original, high quality manuscripts pertaining to its fields of endeavor, as established in the Society's Field of Interest.

1.1. IEEE Signal Processing Society Field of Interest.

Signal processing is the enabling technology for the generation, transformation, extraction, and interpretation of information. It comprises the theory, algorithms with associated architectures and implementations, and applications related to processing information contained in many different formats broadly designated as signals. Signal processing uses mathematical, statistical, computational, heuristic, and/or linguistic representations, formalisms, modeling techniques and algorithms for generating, transforming, transmitting, and learning from signals.

1.2. Publications of the IEEE Signal Processing Society.

The IEEE Signal Processing Society fully sponsors publication of the following transactions:

IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing

IEEE Signal Processing Letters

IEEE Signal Processing Magazine

IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

IEEE Transactions on Image Processing

IEEE Transactions on Information, Forensics, and Security

IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing

Transactions on Multimedia

Transactions on Computational Imaging

Transactions on Signal and Information Processing over Networks

2.0. OVERVIEW

2.1. Membership Status.

An AE is required to be a member of both the IEEE and the IEEE Signal Processing Society, except in rare cases, which will be determined by the Vice President of Publications.

2.2. Term.

AEs shall be appointed by the Editors-in-Chief (EiCs) and shall have an initial term of no more than three years. After their initial term, AEs may be extended up to two additional years. During their formal terms, AEs shall be voting members of the Editorial Board for the publication to which they were appointed. When an AE’s term has expired, AEs are required to complete their workloads, but they will no longer act as voting members of the Editorial Board. AEs may serve more than one term; however, such terms shall not be consecutive and should have a minimum break of two years between service.

2.3. Duties and Responsibilities

The AE, as a member of the Editorial Board of the publication, is responsible for ensuring that the publication maintains the highest quality while adhering to the publication rules and procedures of both the Society and of the IEEE. The AE is responsible for handling manuscripts and communications with authors and reviewers as well as advising the EiC on questions related to: special issues, overview papers, new AE nominations, suitability for publication, plagiarism, etc. In their advisory role, the AE attends Editorial Board meetings at major SPS conferences. The process for handling regular papers and letters is described in this section. The process for handling comments, corrections, and errata is covered in section 6.

2.3.1. Immediate Reject Assessment.

In order to reduce the burden on reviewers, papers that are clearly not suitable for publication may be rejected by the EiCs. Such decisions are referred to as “Immediate Reject.” In some journals, Senior Area Editors assist the EiC in identifying papers that should be immediately rejected. This process is described in separate guidelines. For journals that do not have Senior Area Editors, the AEs assist with this process.
After being notified that s/he is assigned a manuscript, the AE should first read the paper to determine whether it is suitable to send out for review. Within 7 days, the AE should alert the EiC when a paper is a candidate for Immediate Rejection, providing a summary of the reasons for this decision.

A paper is a candidate for an Immediate Rejection if it:

1. is clearly out of scope for the journal;
2. is limited in novelty (e.g., a straightforward combination of theories and algorithms that are well established and are repeated on a known scenario with no new experimental data nor new application);
3. is based on insufficient experimental data;
4. has inadequate bibliography;
5. is poorly written (e.g., has a large number of grammatical errors, illegible figures, etc.).
6. includes inappropriate or abusive language. In such cases, the AE should contact the EiC

2.3.2. Identifying and Securing Reviewers.

The primary role of the AE is to assign reviewers for each manuscript and manage the peer review schedule.

When a reviewer is chosen, the AE must check any inaccuracies regarding the reviewer's contact information in the S1M database or enter contact information for new reviewers. Corrections to the reviewer's information can only be made by the reviewer or the IEEE Signal Processing Society's publications staff.

Reviewers are generally found through peer contact, the reviewer database in the S1M system, or from references listed at the end of the manuscript. In rare circumstances, it may be necessary for the author to suggest possible expert reviewers.

When considering reviewers, the AE:

1. should select reviewers across a range of ability.
2. should assign no more than two original manuscripts to a single reviewer within a three month period.
3. is strongly encouraged to assign at least three independent reviewers, however, a minimum of two reviews are needed for a decision. If the AE feels confident with the first two reviews, the AE may edit the "# reviews required to make decision" from three to two and proceed with the decision.
4. should not serve as a reviewer on any paper for which s/he is AE per SPS policy.

2.3.3. Communicating with Reviewers.

AEs are the first line of communication when problems arise concerning the review. The AE must be available for such communication and responsive to such requests.

S1M automatically sends reminders to reviewers when they are late in returning reviews. Reminders in S1M are customizable per the EiC.  However, when reviews are significantly late, the AE should send personal notes to establish a new deadline or determine that a new reviewer must be invited.

Reviewers may also contact the AE with allegations of plagiarism or multiple publication. In such cases, the EiC should be informed immediately and confidentiality should be maintained. Handling of such cases is described in Section 3.

If a reviewer uses inappropriate or abusive language, the AE should ask the reviewer to remove the relevant parts of the review. If the reviewer refuses, the reviewer should be unassigned and the EiC should be informed.

2.3.4. Communicating with Authors.

The authors and the AE may communicate for many reasons throughout the peer review process.

Authors may contact AEs:

1. To request extensions for revisions. Maximum extension timeframes may vary per publication.
2. To clarify instructions for revisions.
3. To ask about peer review time. The AE should respond by either providing a reminder of the standard decision time or acknowledging that the decision is overdue and pending.
4. To appeal a decision. The AE should respond saying that the concerns are being forwarded to the EiC. For more information regarding the appeal process, please see the IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Section 8.2.3 “Appeal of Editorial Decisions”: 
5. To request their paper be withdrawn from consideration. AEs or authors may contact the journal administrators to withdraw papers from S1M at any time during the peer review process.

If an author uses inappropriate or abusive language in replying to a reviewer/AE, the AE should ask the author to remove the relevant part of the reply. If the author refuses, the AE may reject the paper after consultation with the EiC.

The AE will make a decision on the manuscript, based on the remarks of the reviewers and the AE's own assessment of the manuscript. The decision must be well justified and the AE must explain the decision in detail. AEs may also contact authors if their revisions are overdue.

2.3.5. Communicating with the SPS Publications Staff.

The SPS Publications Staff is your main point of contact and a dedicated resource for the AE during the peer review process. When questions arise, you are encouraged to email your staff contact. As much as possible, this communication should be via email. The Publications Office should be copied on all of your correspondences because it assists in building a complete file on a manuscript.

It is very important to notify the Publications Staff when an AE anticipates being out of contact for two weeks or more. An AE is not relieved of editorial duties during any protracted absences such as extended vacations or sabbatical. If an AE is unable to fulfill his/her responsibilities due to personal reasons, s/he must make arrangements with the EiC and the Publications Office.

2.3.6. Single-Blind Reviews.
Reviews of manuscripts submitted to SPS publications are "single-blind reviews”: the identity of each of the reviewers is never revealed to the author or others, but the author names are known. The AE must assure that the identities of the reviewers are kept confidential.

Single-blind review: The articles in this journal are peer reviewed in accordance with the requirements set forth in the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual. Each published article was reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers using a single-blind peer review process, where the identities of the reviewers are not known to the authors, but the reviewers know the identities of the authors. Articles will be screened for plagiarism before acceptance.

2.3.7. Workload.
An AE should not be assigned more than three manuscripts per month on average during his/her term of service. This does not mean that each AE will receive three manuscripts each month, but AEs covering popular EDICS categories may be more active than those covering more specialized EDICS. If such assignments are frequent, the AE may recommend to the EiC that new AEs be nominated. The AE should report any difficulties with workload immediately to the SPS Publications Staff for assistance.

3.0. AUTHOR MISCONDUCT

Author misconduct includes data misrepresentation/fabrication, plagiarism, simultaneous submissions, and duplicate/multiple publication. Author misconduct is unacceptable and may be actionable by the IEEE, as described in the guidelines for authors and the IEEE PSPB Operations Manual.

IEEE defines plagiarism as: the use of someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source.

A manuscript should only cite papers that are directly related to the topics covered in the manuscript and the authors should explain how each paper relates to the manuscript. Listing several papers without such explanations is unacceptable and known as citation stacking. According to Wikipedia: “Citation stacking or Coercive citation is an academic publishing practice in which an editor of a scientific or academic journal forces an author to add spurious citations to an article before the journal will agree to publish it. This is done to inflate the journal’s impact factor, thus artificially boosting the journal’s scientific reputation.”

Simultaneous submission of a single journal manuscript to two different journals, as well as the submission of two different journal manuscripts which overlap substantially in language or technical contribution, are considered acts of author misconduct.

Duplicate/multiple submission of an already-published paper (without proper citation) by the authors is also considered an act of author misconduct. Authors may only submit original work that has not been published elsewhere, or is not currently under review for another journal publication.

Limited overlap with prior journal publications with a common author is allowed only if it is necessary for the readability of the paper. If authors have used their own previously published work as a basis for a new submission, they are required to cite the previous work and briefly indicate how the new submission offers substantively novel contributions beyond those of the previously published work. It is acceptable for conference papers to be used as the basis for a more fully developed journal submission. Still, authors are required to cite the related conference paper(s); the papers cannot be identical; and the journal publication must include novel aspects.

If an AE suspects author misconduct, s/he should immediately contact the EiC to determine the proper course of action. The AE may be asked to provide documentation explaining the allegation, including a marked-up version of the manuscript involved, and an electronic version of the plagiarized source. The EiC will take over the communication with the authors and with any reviewer making an allegation.

Please see the IEEE PSPB Operations Manual Section 8.2.4 “Allegations of Misconduct”.

4.0. PEER REVIEW IN SUPPORT OF TIMELY PUBLICATION

For a basic timeline of peer review, please click here.

4.1. Manuscript Submission.

Please be familiar with the following terms and how they are used during the peer review process:

1. Original Submission: An original submission is a manuscript that has not been submitted to that specific publication before. Original manuscripts appear in the system with a simple ID number. Note: A manuscript is still considered “original” to SPS if it was submitted to one publication after being rejected from a different publication. However, any paper still in review in another publication MAY NOT be submitted to any SPS publication.
2. Revision: A revision is a manuscript that has received a formal decision to revise (RQ, AQ, or AQE -- see Section 4.2.5 for the definitions of decisions) in a previous round of review. These manuscripts appear in the system with a ".R1," ".R2," ("Revision-1," "Revision-2"), etc. suffix at the end of their ID numbers.
3. Resubmission: Resubmission of Previously Rejected Manuscripts: A resubmission is a manuscript that has received Reject decision in any journal. After rejection, authors may resubmit a manuscript only once. The authors will resubmit the manuscript as a “new manuscript” in the ScholarOne Manuscripts system. Authors should provide the following:
   1. supporting documentation identifying the previous manuscript submission’s AE and manuscript ID number (if the previous submission was an IEEE SPS journal);
   2. a detailed "response to reviewers" document
4. Special Issue Paper: A special issue paper is a paper submitted to a special issue being organized by a Guest Editorial Staff. Authors should only submit to a special issue after careful consideration of that special issue’s Call for Papers, which outlines the scope of the special issue.
5. Comment Correspondence, Correction, and Errata: See Section 6 of this guide.
6. Overview Article: Overview Articles are intended to be of solid technical depth and lasting value, and should provide advanced readers with a thorough overview of various fields of interest. For more information, please see the Overview Articles page.
7. Conference to Journal Papers. It is acceptable for conference papers to be used as the basis for a more fully developed journal publication. However, authors are required to cite their related prior work, either in the introduction or in a footnote. The papers cannot be identical, and the journal paper should be justified by a clearly identifiable benefit that its publication offers to the research community beyond the already published conference paper. For example, the journal paper may include additional analysis, novel algorithmic enhancements, added theoretical work, completeness of exposition, extensive experimental validation, etc. The added benefits of the journal paper must either be apparent from a reading of the introduction or abstract, or should be clearly and concisely explained in a separate document that accompanies the submission.

4.1.1. New Submissions.

All new submissions are entered electronically by the authors via the S1M portal for all publications except for the Transactions on Multimedia. (Please go to S1M Transactions on Multimedia to submit to Transactions on Multimedia.) Staff and AEs will access the manuscript electronically via this system. Upon submission to the S1M system, the manuscript is issued a Manuscript Tracking Number, which is an entry into the database containing the author's contact information, the electronic version of the manuscript, the review status, all communication to the authors and reviewers, and other pertinent information necessary to track the manuscript through peer review.

4.1.2. Manuscript Submission Length.

During submission, authors are required to provide an electronic copy of their manuscript in single-space, double-column format. The copy will be used by the Publication Office as a measure of the estimated length of the paper in final publication format. The initial submission must be no longer than 13 pages for a regular transactions manuscript, 2 pages for a comment correspondence, and 4 pages for a letters manuscript. Revised versions of regular transactions papers may grow up to 16 pages in length. AEs are asked to monitor the length of papers throughout the review process. Exceptions to page limits may be approved by the EiC in consultation with the VP Publications.

As per the Society's Publications Board, authors are required to pay mandatory overlength page charges for any published manuscript that exceeds 10 pages in length, as described in the “Information for Authors” for the associated periodical.

4.2. Peer Review Schedule.

The transactions published by the IEEE Signal Processing Society will function according to the following review timeline and every effort will be made to keep all parties involved in the peer review to this schedule.
See Section 9 for helpful S1M links.

4.2.1. Compliance Tests

The SPS Publications Staff checks the manuscript for submission criteria, such as format and length. If the manuscript is non-compliant in one or more criteria, staff will unsubmit the manuscript and inform the authors of the corrections needed.

4.2.2. AE Assignment

Manuscripts passing the compliance test and the initial screening step with a Senior Area Editor (if the journal has this mechanism) will be assigned by the SPS Publications Staff or the EiC to the next available AE based on EDICS and AE workload within one week of either submission or completion of pre-screening. Upon selection of the AE, S1M sends an e-mail message to the AE, notifying the AE that the manuscript is in his/her AE Center. If the AE does not think the manuscript is a good fit for his/her expertise or has a conflict of interest with any of the authors on a manuscript that has been assigned to him/her, s/he should alert the Publications Staff and the EiC so that it can be reassigned. Conflicts of interest include recent collaborators and colleagues in the same institution.

4.2.3. Assignment of Reviewers

1. The AE is given two weeks to select qualified reviewers. The AE can choose from existing entries in the S1M reviewer database or has the option of entering new reviewers into the S1M system. New entries should be created only if the reviewer does not already have an S1M account. Further, AEs are required to check existing reviewer information and provide updates for inaccurate or outdated information to the staff, who are the only ones who can amend the reviewer’s user account information.
2. When a reviewer is invited via S1M, the system will send an email containing the abstract of the paper and a set of links that enable the reviewer to respond directly to the invitation. For reviewers who do not respond quickly enough, the system will generate reminder-e-mails for the invited reviewer. Once a reviewer has “agreed” to review the paper in the system, a confirmation email containing instructions and a link to the paper is sent to the reviewer. The manuscript will also appear in the S1M Reviewer Center of the agreed reviewer. SPS recommends that an AE secure at least three to four reviewers when beginning peer review, as the number of reviews recommended to post a decision on a paper is three (the minimum requirement is to receive two).

4.2.4. Monitoring the Peer Review Process

1. Reviewers are given six weeks to return their reviews, which should include a completed review scoresheet and a set of comments for the paper. For papers submitted to Transactions on Computational Imaging, reviewers are given four weeks to return their reviews. Reviews must be uploaded to S1M and cannot be sent in offline.
2. If a reviewer is late, S1M is configured to send automatic reminders to the overdue reviewer. However, the AE’s active involvement is critical during the review period as most significant delays occur during this stage.
3. S1M will generate automatic emails to notify the AE both when a review has been submitted and again when the required minimum number of reviews have been uploaded to the paper.

4.2.5. Step 4: AE First Decision

1. At the point where at least two reviews are available and the six-week deadline has passed, the AE should look at the reviews to see if a decision is clear. If the AE is comfortable enough with the reviews already submitted, he/she can go forward with a decision based on the available reviews. The AE should also include his/her own assessment of the paper. The AE should post the decision within one week of receiving all required reviews.

2. Based on the reviews of the manuscript, an AE may decide:

1. 1. R - Rejected: to reject the paper. Manuscripts that fall into this category will fail to meet the criteria of novelty and appropriateness, may be poorly written or targeted for a different audience, or require such significant editing that the edit cannot reasonably occur in the timeframe the author is allotted for revision. The reasoning for a Reject decision should be made clear in the AE’s comments. AEs may encourage resubmission in the decision letter if they feel that is appropriate.
   2. A - Accepted: to accept the paper with no changes. This manuscript requires no additional reviews, although there may be some small fixes--typos, etc.--which the AE indicates must be corrected. This manuscript will, essentially, be published "as is," with no additional action by the reviewers or AE.
   3. RQ - Major Revision: to request major, required revisions that will facilitate a second full review cycle by the original reviewers. This manuscript, although meeting the criteria of novelty and appropriateness, is seriously flawed as to disclosure (either technical or literary or both), and requires a major rework by the author.
   4. AQ - Accepted with Mandatory Revisions: to accept the paper with minor but required changes. This manuscript meets the criteria of novelty and appropriateness, but requires a few fixes, usually of the technical variety (more than typos or grammatical corrections). This decision should not be used if the AE wishes to return the manuscript to any or all of the reviewers; instead, the AE will check for the changes him/herself when the authors submit their revised version.
   5. AQE - Accept with Mandatory Minor Revisions Including English Usage: to accept the paper with minor but required changes, specifically regarding the use of English in the manuscript. This manuscript meets the criteria of novelty and appropriateness, but requires a few fixes, usually typos or grammatical corrections. The authors are not required to use an English language editing service at this time. This decision should not be used if the AE wishes to return the manuscript to any or all of the reviewers; instead, the AE will check for the changes him/herself when the authors submit their revised version.
   6. AQE2 (**only after AQE decision has already been given previously) - to accept the paper with minor but required changes, specifically regarding the use of English in the manuscript, This decision requires authors to send their paper to American Journal Experts (AJE) or another professional English editing service for English editing before it can be formally accepted. (Authors can view the IEEE Author Center "Refining the Use of English in Your Article" for more information.) The AQE2 should only be used after an AQE decision has already been given to the authors once. It is the responsibility of the author(s) to provide supporting documentation as proof that the manuscript was reviewed by AJE. This decision should not be used if the AE wishes to return the manuscript to any or all of the reviewers; instead, the AE will check for the changes him/herself when the authors submit their revised version.

3. The AE posts the decision through the S1M system. When posting the decision, the AE will be able to generate and edit a decision letter that will be sent to the authors to inform them of the decision and provide them with the reviews. This letter will also be sent to the reviewers who posted reviews via blind-copy. The AE decision should elaborate on the comments of the reviewers. The relevant points can be emphasized and irrelevant or inappropriate comments can be deemphasized. In the case of mandatory revisions, the AE has to specify precisely what revisions are required to make the paper acceptable.

4.2.6. Revision of Manuscript
The author is required to upload the revised version of the manuscript and the response-to-reviewers letter within six weeks (if the decision is RQ) or three weeks (if the decision is AQ). If the revision cannot be made within this period, the author has to contact the AE and the Publications Office and agree upon an amended revision deadline. Two weeks is a customary extension, but longer extensions can be granted if deemed appropriate by the AE/EiC. Authors who do not upload their materials to S1M on schedule and do not respond to attempts to contact them regarding the material will have their manuscripts withdrawn.
When the author submits the revised manuscript and clicks the "submit" button, S1M generates an e-mail to the AE that notifies them that the revision has been submitted.

4.2.7. Review of Revised RQ Manuscript

1. The AE invites, once again, the reviewers that previously agreed to review the manuscript by clicking on the "agreed" button. This provides access to the reviewers to the revised manuscript and sends an e-mail message to notify the reviewers of its availability. Additional reviewers can be invited, but this should only be for exceptional circumstances, e.g. if one of the original reviewers is not available.
2. Reviewers re-review the RQ manuscript and provide comments/recommendations as they did in the first round.
3. The AE makes a decision: A (accept), R (reject), AQ or AQE (accept with minor mandatory changes). If the manuscript requires anything other than minor changes, the manuscript must be rejected. Posting an RQ decision more than once is highly discouraged.
4. The "accept" e-mail contains information on final manuscript submission. The SPS Publications Office staff is copied on the message.

 4.2.8. Review of Revised AQ Manuscript

The AE reviews the amended AQ manuscript and makes the final decision ("accept" or "reject") using the S1M system.

1. For revisions of AQ decision papers, the AE is to make a decision after assessing the author’s changes without returning the manuscript to reviewers.
2. AEs may return AQ revisions to reviewers, but only for clarification. The AE may change the "# reviews required to make decision" to any number, depending on how many of the reviewers he needs clarification from before making his decision.
3. The AE then makes a decision: A (accept), or R (reject). AQ or AQE (accept with minor mandatory changes). The "accept" e-mail contains information on final manuscript submission.

4.2.9. Extended Peer Review Process

To ensure quality reviews, the Signal Processing Society has created an Extended Peer Review process. The Extended Peer Review process allows Reviewers to have a conversation about an article outside of the ScholarOne (S1) system, while still remaining anonymous. This process is now available if further discussion or clarification on the article decision is needed. The AE will initiate this process by contacting the SPS journal administrator and open a discussion forum. The SPS journal administrator will create a post in our Extended Peer Review system and invite the Reviewers to have a discussion. The AE and Reviewers will discuss the merits or specific point of the submitted article in order to come to a decision consensus. Once the discussion is closed, the AE will post the final decision in S1.

5.0. PUBLICATION QUALITY

5.1. Novelty and Appropriateness.
The two most important scores a manuscript will receive are:

1. Novelty: Does the manuscript disclose new science or contain fresh, new approaches to established science?
2. Appropriateness: Is the manuscript a good "fit" for the publication, appealing to the publication's "audience?" Is the manuscript "complete," not requiring propping up by other work to permit understanding of the disclosure.

These criteria must be affirmative for the manuscript to be accepted.

6.0. COMMENTS, CORRECTIONS, AND ERRATA

6.1. Definitions.

There are three types of short correspondences that may be submitted to the transactions:
(A) Comment Correspondence: A two-page paper that comments on a previously published paper from the same transactions. A Comment Correspondence (and any rebuttal to follow), must be focused on technical matters only and may not contain any personal or derogatory remarks.
(B) Corrections: A short note, typically from one of the original authors, which provides any technical correction that were missed in the review and proofing process.
(C) Errata: The IEEE publishes errata due to production errors introduced during the publishing process.
Corrections/Errata should be emailed directly to the Editor-in-Chief and the Publications Office by the corresponding author. Comment Correspondences are submitted in the same manner as regular manuscripts, but will be reviewed as described below.

6.2. Review Procedure for Comment Correspondence.

1. Comment Correspondences should be reviewed similarly to a regular manuscript, except as determined below. The AE should designate at least two reviewers and be actively involved in the procedure to guarantee speed. A Comment Correspondence should be published rapidly after the original paper, otherwise the comments are obsolete. This should be possible because of the short length of this type of submission.
2. The authors of the original paper being commented upon in the Comment Correspondence are not to be used as reviewers to eliminate the parallel development by those authors of a competing paper. Further, the AE should avoid using as reviewers all those who may have a conflict of interest with the Comments Correspondence, e.g., individuals who share the same employers as any/all of the authors of the original paper.
3. In the event a Comment Correspondence is accepted for publication, the AE sends the authors of the original paper a copy of the Correspondence and invites them to rebut the Correspondence within a reasonably short period (approximately 3 weeks). The rebuttal will be handled by the same AE and peer reviewed by the same reviewers as the original Comment Correspondence. However, the rebuttal is not under any circumstance to be shared with the authors of the Comment Correspondence, preventing the formation of an off-line correspondence loop.
4. Once both the Comment Correspondence and any reviewed and approved rebuttal are recommended for publication, the AE shall notify the EiC of the transactions. The EiC will review both the Comment Correspondence and the rebuttal and make the final decision regarding publication of the Comment Correspondence or the Comment Correspondence and the rebuttal.

If the decision of the EiC is to publish both the Comment Correspondence and the rebuttal, the authors of the Comment Correspondence will be provided with a copy of the rebuttal. However, at this point, the author of the Comment Correspondence will be permitted no further comment (no rebuttal of the rebuttal).

5. The Comment Correspondence author, upon reviewing the rebuttal, may choose to request that his/her Comment Correspondence be withdrawn. If the Comment Correspondence is withdrawn, neither the original Comment Correspondence nor the rebuttal will be published in the transactions. If the decision of the original Comment Correspondence author is not to withdraw, then the Comment Correspondence and the rebuttal will appear together in a future issue of the transactions. NO FURTHER REBUTTALS will be published.  

7.0 SUMMARY

The IEEE Signal Processing Society is committed to reducing the time from manuscript submission to publication, realizing that timely publication increases the quality of a journal, and its desirability among top authors as a publication venue for their work. The Society's goal is to help researchers make new discoveries, collaborate with their colleagues, and provide support to expand boundaries of knowledge for the benefit of humanity.
The IEEE Signal Processing Society values its volunteers’ commitment and the support they provide toward these goals.

8.0. ScholarOne Manuscripts (S1M) Links

• ScholarOne Manuscripts Signal Processing Society
• ScholarOne Manuscripts Transactions on Multimedia
• ScholarOne Manuscripts Information

9.0. Publication Activities Webpages

• SPS By-Laws
• SPS Policy & Procedures
• IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual
• Signal Processing Society Guidelines

10.0. Associate Editor Best Practices

• AE Best Practices