Instructions for Special Issue Guest Editors and Authors

If you are interested in working on a special issue for the journal, a three-stage process is in place:

1. Proposal submission: To propose a special issue, guest editors should submit to the following information in raw text:

Title of conference/workshop (if applicable) or special issue. The special issue should have a well-defined focus, reflected in its title. Together with the title, please submit a detailed description of the focus..
Contact information for primary guest editor
Names, affiliations, and attached CVs, and Google Scholar URLs, of all guest editors
Responses to the following questions:
- When will the conference take place (if applicable)?
- What will your review process be?
- How many papers would you like to include in your issue?
A timeline for the selection of the papers, review process, and submission of the final package.

If the proposed special issue is not the result of a conference/workshop, the Call for Papers that the guest editors plan to issue should be included as part of the proposal submission.

The journal Editors-In-Chief will communicate to the guest editors whether the proposal shows promise for a special issue, and provide specific guidelines, if appropriate.

2. Preliminary paper submission: To ensure that the special issue papers are within the scope and style of the journal, the journal editors preview the individual preliminary papers and communicate any suggestions or concerns to the guest editors before major effort has been invested in revising or refereeing them.
If the papers selected for the special issue have been published in short form in a conference or workshop, guest editors should send them in their previously published form, as soon as they become available. If the papers have not been published elsewhere, guest editors should send their initial versions before sending them out for review. The preliminary paper submission should contain the following in a single zip file (to facilitate review):

The papers in pdf format. The name of each pdf file should consist of the last names of the authors separated by dashes.
In a single plain text file, the following information:
- name and affiliation of guest editor(s)
- for each paper:
  - the paper title
  - author names, author affiliations
  - reviewer names, reviewer affiliations (if known).
    In selecting reviewers, please ensure the requirement is met that the reviewers be at arm's length from the authors, as explained under item #6 below.
  - action editor (the person in charge of inviting reviewers, reading the reviews and making a recommendation to the editor-in-chief on the paper), in case of more than one guest editor. If the special issue has a single guest editor, he/she will be the action editor for all the papers.
  - An action editor cannot be the editor of his/her own paper. This is resolved by having more than one guest editor, or by asking the editor-in-chief in charge of the issue to serve as action editor for the particular paper authored by the guest editor.

Validation. Papers published in CI must contain a substantial validation of their claims, either as a theoretical development (proofs), or as a thorough experimental evaluation and detailed comparison with existing methods, demonstrating the significance of the proposed methods. Conceptual frameworks that lack such validation are not acceptable. Preliminary papers submitted must contain a sufficient validation component to proceed to the next stage.

3. Full paper package submission. The papers that have been identified as potentially suitable for publication by the journal editors in stage 2 above will be extended by the authors (if previously published) and sent to referees at arm's length from the authors by the guest editors. The refereeing process (reviewer assignment and review submission) will be carried out through the journal's Manuscript Central Submission Site

The authors will submit their papers to Manuscript Central following the Submission Instructions, noting on the first (title) page of the paper,
and the cover letter (step 5 of the manuscript submission process, in the free text box, not in an attached file):
(a) the full names and email addresses of the guest editors.
(b) the full title of the special issue.
(c) full name, abbreviation and date (YYYY-MM-DD) of the conference or workshop on which the special issue is based (if applicable).
The proposed special issue editor(s) will serve as the action editor(s) for each paper for which he/she is not an author.

4. Guest editor set up on Manuscript Central
Guest editors should create their own Manuscript Central accounts by:
- visiting http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/coin and selecting "Create Account" in the upper right corner of the page.
- sending email to , so that their account is upgraded to Action Editor status.

In case of more than one guest editor, manuscripts will be assigned to the guest editor specified in step 2, by the journal Editor-in-Chief (EIC) responsible for the special issue. To send email to the EIC, the guest editor should click on the EIC's name in the Manuscript Central display of the manuscript. This way the manuscript information is automatically included in the email, and the message is archived.

5. Content guidelines
For papers published elsewhere, it is required that the special issue versions be substantially different from their already published forms. New proofs, theories or experimental results would qualify, while extending referenced literature, or slightly changing the writing would not. As a guideline, there should be at least 30% new research results in the journal version compared to a prior conference or workshop version. Special issues must be under 200 pages, with papers at least 5,000 words long. Using the Wiley-Blackwell Author Guidelines, a typical 5,000 word submission is between 14-22 pages. To conform with this requirement, a maximum of 10 papers can be submitted for review for a special issue.

6. Responsibilities of the guest editor

to submit the preliminary versions of the papers for a brief review by the journal editors to ensure suitability
to identify and invite qualified reviewers at arm's length from the authors for the papers of the special issue through Manuscript Central.
Furthermore, the action editor of a paper should always be at arm's length from the authors.
"At arm's length" means that the reviewers should not be from the same institution as the authors, they should never have had a supervisor-student relationship, and they should not have co-authored papers or participated in the same projects over the last six years.
Each manuscript should obtain three reviews. A decision based on two reviews is acceptable only if the two reviews are in strong agreement.
Reviews should be substantive. Nominal reviews that are too brief and lack content and critical comments will not be accepted.
to oversee revisions of the papers until the reviewers are satisfied with the manuscript
to come up with a title for the special issue that reflects the focus of its contents

The editors-in-chief have the right to reject any paper for which the above guidelines have not been followed, at any point during the process.

For any questions, please contact: