The corresponding editors and a short description for each department can be found on the CiSE website, under the "Write for Us" menu choice:
Department Guidelines.
Guidelines for Authors of Department Articles
CiSE department articles are either written by the department editors themselves, or may be solicited by editors from authors outside the editorial board. In either case, these guidelines govern the form and content of those articles.
CiSE is an interdisciplinary magazine, and articles must avoid use of jargon and be written for a general, technical audience. No advertisements or commercial endorsements will be accepted. Department articles are typically up to 3000 words in length, including the abstract, references, author bios, figures, and all other text in the article. When counting words, note that tables and figures should be counted as 250 words each. The minimum word count is 1000 words unless you want the article limited to a single page.
Reference lists should have less than twelve items. As a matter of style, do not use references as parts of speech. Citation numbers (e.g., [3]) should be treated as silent elements in sentences that read correctly without them. Note that the IEEE article style in LaTeX will typeset the reference numbers as superscripts.
The length of articles and reference lists are limited because a) the goal of department articles is to give readers rapid insights into a particular topic, and this is best done with a short article that can serve as a guide to further exploration; and b) CiSE has a total page budget set each year by the IEEE Computer Society, and respecting length guidelines means the other parts of the magazine don't have to cut back to account for our overrun.
We have no official template for department articles and any rationally organized, readable form of text is acceptable. If you wish, you can use the standard article template for Computer Society magazines. See the "Article Template" section of the
Write For Us page on our website, and follow the link to the IEEE Template Selector.
Department articles are not submitted to the magazine via ScholarOne unless the department editor has identified this as a peer-reviewed submission; review of department articles is the responsibility of the department editors and the Associate Editor-in-Chief for Departments (AEiC/D). Articles may be submitted to the department editors via email or document share as .doc(x) or .tex files (with all accompanying style, bibliography, etc. files, usually all collected in a .zip file), or they may be submitted via Authorea. Once they have approved a submission the department editors are responsible for transmitting the manuscript to the AEiC/Departments who completes a final review and copy edits the article for style and correctness.
Optional Authorea workflow
Authors who are invited to contribute a department article may choose to write or upload their article to the Authorea platform, then send the manuscript to us for review via the green "Submit" button on our
Authorea collection. Note that authors will have to create a free Authorea account to take advantage of this option. We will not consider unsolicited articles sent to us via this route.
After review by the department editors, and the Associate Editor-in-Chief for departments, an article sent to us via Authorea can be made public on the platform as an electronic preprint, and will be assigned a DOI. This achieves Green Open Access for the piece. The editorial comments submitted to the author via an Authorea review can also be made public as a preprint. After the version of record is published in CiSE (in print, and online on
IEEE Xplore and the
Computer Society Digital Library), Authorea will eventually link the two artifacts and display the DOI of the version of record on the preprint.
Guidelines for Department Editors
Expectations for Department Articles and Scheduling
CiSE targets about four or five department articles each issue, depending on the content balance for the issue. Each department should plan to contribute at least two articles per year, ideally three. Articles should be complete and transmitted to the AEiC/D two weeks before the closing deadline for issue content. The Editor-in-Chief (EiC) or the Associate Editor-in-Chief for Departments (AEiC/D) can provide these dates, but they can also be found on the team's "Editorial Schedule" Trello board. All CiSE editors are invited as members to the Trello workspace. The date that we use for department articles corresponds to the “Final decisions” date, which is two weeks before the “Materials due” date. This period of two weeks is to provide input on the article content and for the AEiC/D to do a copy editing pass.
As a reference, these are the deadlines for department articles to appear in 2022 issues:
- Jan/Feb issue: 11/10/2021
- Mar/Apr issue: 1/13/2022
- May/June issue: 3/11/2022
- July/Aug issue: 5/5/2022
- Sep/Oct issue: 7/1/2022
- Nov/Dec issue: 8/26/2022
The EiC and the IEEE publications team is responsible for scheduling completed and approved department articles into issues. If you have an interest in being scheduled into a specific issue, let the AEiC/D know when you plan to submit.
Topics for department articles are selected by the department editor(s), and often written by them as well. Department articles are not submitted or managed in ScholarOne, the IEEE's peer-review system.
Publication Workflow: Other than Authorea
When a department editor has an article ready for publication and Authorea has not been used to create or deliver the article, they should follow these steps:
1. Assemble article source
Assemble the final text in a source format convenient for you and broadly used. Editors not taking advantage of Authorea typically deliver .doc(x) or LaTeX source files. This form should include the text features that you believe will help readers navigate the article, including the title, abstract, body text, and subheadings (if applicable), along with tables and figures. As noted above, there is no template, so any rationally organized, readable form of the text is acceptable.
If you are using word-processing software that supports advanced revision and collaboration features (such as MS Word or Google Docs), make sure that the final document is free of tracked changes and make sure the document has no comments; comments that include information for the AEiC/D should be included in the transmitting email, not in the article source.
2. Render the article in final typeset form
It is helpful for department editors to have a PDF version of the article in order for the publications staff to validate that what they get as a proof from the publishing system has the elements you intended in the locations you intended. This is an optional step but does help to minimize confusion.
3. Assemble high-resolution images
Please include “native” images at the highest resolution available as separate files when you deliver your article; many word processors automatically transform inserted images so that the higher-resolution original is not recoverable. Please make sure each image file is clearly named.
- If you are using software that includes some layout ability (such as MS Word or Google Docs), you should include a version of the image in your document, about where it should appear in relation to the text. Include a short, meaningful caption, and number the element (i.e., Figure 1, Table 2, …). Then when you transmit your high-resolution version for publication, use the element label and number (i.e., Figure-1) in the file name such that it is clear to someone with no background in computing or knowledge of your article which element from your document the high-resolution version is intended to replace.
- If you are using flat text (i.e., a LaTeX file), include the element label and number along with a short, meaningful caption in the text near the content that supports it. Then, use the element label and number (i.e., Figure-1) in the file name such that it is clear to someone with no background in computing or knowledge of your article where the element goes in your article.
4. Transmit content
Transmit the content to the AEiC/D by email or by a file-sharing service. If you are emailing, be sure to attach all the parts of your article to an email that includes whatever extra information the editor may need.
Department editors have access to a shared Google Drive space maintained by the AEiC/D, and content may be uploaded there. Within this space select the “Departments” folder, select your department and create a folder in which to deposit your article source and related files. You may name it anything sensible, and the AEiC/D will change it to match the convention. Note that when using this option the submitting editor must notify the AEiC/D of the submission by email; failure to do so may result in a delay in publication.
If you are using a personal file-sharing service, you may use whatever platform (i.e., Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, etc.) you prefer. Email the link/share the directory to the AEiC/D. You should create a new directory for the submission that contains
- only the content related to this specific article
- all of the content that relates to this article, and
- only the final version of that content to prevent confusion (no drafts, earlier versions, etc.).
What happens next
The AEiC/D will acknowledge your submission by email, generally within 1-2 business days of when it is received. After receipt, the submission will be logged into the tracking spreadsheet, which is available for all department editors to review. After verifying compliance with guidance and resolving any issues or questions, the AEiC/D will transmit the submission to IEEE publications, notify the Editor-in-Chief that the article is ready to be scheduled into a future issue, and update the status in the log. IEEE publications will deliver pre-publication proofs to the authors directly for review.
Publication Workflow: Authorea
CiSE has been trialing the Authorea service for collecting department articles, conducting informal peer review (when the article is by outside authors), and posting of preprints—this achieves Green Open Access. When a department editor has an article ready to be delivered in Authorea, they should follow the steps described below. The figure provides a graphic overview of the full process, as we have implemented it, including various manual notifications.