Special Issues
Preparing Your Special Issue Proposal
● Prospective Guest Editors are required to submit a detailed Special Issue proposal for our Editorial Board's consideration. Completed proposals can be sent to the Managing Editor or to the [email protected]
● The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor will preview proposals and possibly suggest initial improvements and updates to ensure that the proposals meet the required expectations. The Editorial Board takes about three to four weeks to review proposals. The Editor-in-Chief then makes the final decision.
Structure of Special Issue Proposal
The Special Issue proposal must contain the following information.
Introduction/Overview : Description of general topic and overall theme with sufficient background material easily understood by specialists outside the area, as well as data highlighting the growth of the area.
Importance of topic to the TTACAT readers: Description of why the proposed Special Issue will be important to a broad audience from different specialties.
Guest Editors biographical information : Biographies of Guest Editors along with a brief list of representative publications in the particular area.
Overview of proposed papers : List of the papers, including titles and abstracts, and biographies of lead authors.
Tentative schedule : The time frame for each stage of the Special Issue development including the deadlines for first submission, completion of the review process, final paper submission, as well as expected publication date.
Managing Your Special Issue
● Once a Special Issue proposal is approved, Guest Editors will confirm the list of papers, deadlines, and page count with the TTACAT editorial board as early as possible, reach out to prospective authors and confirm expected submission date.
● Guest Editors should direct authors to Instructions for Preparing Your Paper.
● Managing the Peer Review Process
All papers submitted to the Proceedings of the TTACAT must undergo a rigorous peer-review process. Guest Editors are responsible for ensuring the quality of the Special Issue. If required, the Guest Editors can serve as one of the reviewers. Reviewer selection should meet the usual criteria, such as, no co-publications with the authors within the last 5 years, no direct adviser/student relationship and others.
Workflow In ScholarOne Manuscripts
Assign Associate Editor: Once a paper is submitted to a Special Issue, the chief Editor assigns an Associate Editor to handle the paper.
Assign Reviewers: Associate Editor invites reviewers for the paper immediately to avoid delays. Reviews should be returned in 3-4 weeks. Automated reminders are sent when reviews are due in 1 week, and when reviews are past due.
Make Decision: Associate Editor is notified by email when 3 reviews are returned, and makes a decision promptly. Authors have 14 days to return a minor revision, 30 days to return a major revision. Associate Editor can modify deadlines if required.
Revisions of papers follow the same workflow as original submissions.
Plagiarism and Copyright Information
All papers submitted to the TTACAT are screened for possible plagiarism using a plagiarism detection tool, Turnitin, which generates a report highlighting similarities to previously published work. Guest Editors are expected to work with the journal editorial board members to review high-scoring papers and handle communication with the authors.
Finalizing your special issue
● Once all the papers for the Special Issue have been accepted, the following information must be finalized by the Guest Editors.
Scanning the Issue
Written by the Guest Editors, Scanning the Issue introduces the issue to the readers and briefly reviews the contents of each paper. It should:
Introduce the topic to the reader and provide rationale for why this Special Issue is timely.
Provide some history of the topic and some context for the reader by stating why the subject of this Special Issue is distinguishable from other closely related topics.
Provide an overview of the coverage by summarizing each paper in the order the papers appear.
Explain what has not been included in the issue, where additional information can be found on other related topics, and where research and future developments are headed.
Include acknowledgements if appropriate.
Include Guest Editors’ photographs and biographies.