Reviewers will be asked to answer the following questions when completing a review on an article:
- Does the paper contribute to the body of knowledge?
- Is the paper technically sound?
- Is the subject matter presented in a comprehensive manner?
- Are the references provided applicable and sufficient?
*Please note that suggesting one’s own references as a reviewer if not relevant to the article, or at an excessive level, is unethical and is not permitted. - Are there references that are not appropriate for the topic being discussed? If there are, then please indicate which references should be removed.
The criteria for an article to be accepted for publication in IEEE Access include:
- The article should be original writing that enhances and contributes to the existing body of knowledge in the given subject area. Original review articles and surveys are acceptable, even if new data/concepts are not presented, but there must be a clear advance over existing work.
**If you have any concerns about plagiarism, please alert the Associate Editor or article administrator immediately. Please do not run the manuscript through any plagiarism software. Each article submitted to IEEE Access is scanned for plagiarism and evaluated during our thorough prescreening process. - Results reported have not been submitted or published elsewhere (although expanded versions of conference publications as well as preprints are eligible for submission).
- Experiments, statistics, and other analyses are performed to a high technical standard and are described in sufficient detail.
- Conclusions are presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data.
- The article is written in Standard English with correct grammar.
- Appropriate references to related prior published works must be included.
- The article falls within scope of IEEE Access.
Since IEEE Access uses a binary decision process, you may recommend decisions of either Accept or Reject. However, IEEE Access does offer two reject options, one where resubmission is allowed, and another where it is not. In the case of allowing resubmission, the authors are not required to resubmit to IEEE Access and may choose to submit elsewhere. The decision options you can choose from when reviewing an article are detailed below:
ACCEPT, minor edits permitted
Reviewers should only recommend accept if there are minor edits required prior to publication (grammar, minor edits to figures or graphs, etc.). Ideally, the article should be able to be published as is. Please keep in mind that when you recommend acceptance of an article, the authors will not be expected to show the changes made. It is also worth noting that you should only recommend accept if the article fits the criteria for an article to be accepted in IEEE Access (listed in the next question).
REJECT, updates required before resubmission
You should recommend this decision if the article has merit but requires updates before it can be published. If this is the final decision made by the Associate Editor, upon resubmission authors will be required to supply a list of changes made, and a “response to reviewers” document that addresses each reviewer’s concern. You will be invited to review if the authors choose to submit the revised article.
*Please note that IEEE Access allows authors to revise and resubmit their article only one time.d acceptance of an article, the authors will not be expected to show the changes made. It is also worth noting that you should only recommend accept if the article fits the criteria for an article to be accepted in IEEE Access (listed in the next question).
REJECT, resubmission not permitted
You should recommend this option if you feel the changes needed are too significant, if additional revision would not improve the manuscript, or if the article was previously rejected (updates required before resubmission) but the authors did not sufficiently address the reviewers’ concerns and the article is still not ready for publication. If the Associate Editor follows this recommendation, the authors will not be permitted to resubmit the article to IEEE Access.
Reviewers can request a deadline extension as needed.
Since IEEE Access has an expedited peer review process, we can only provide deadline extensions of 1 – 2 weeks maximum.
Reviewers reviewing a resubmission (i.e., a previously rejected article) should consider the following:
You should evaluate the updated manuscript, any supplementary information, as well as the authors’ response to reviewers’ document to determine if all your concerns have been addressed, and that you are satisfied with the updates. You may also wish to comment on how well the authors addressed the concerns of the other previous reviewers as well, or if you agree or disagree with the feedback from the other reviewers (based on the response to reviewers provided by the authors).
While we typically ask the original reviewers to take another look at the revised article, sometimes one or more are unavailable. Since IEEE policy requires that every article is reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers, we may need to invite a new reviewer on a resubmission. If you are reviewing a previously rejected article and did NOT review an earlier version, we still ask that you evaluate as outlined above and decide whether you have new feedback to provide for the authors.
