While IEEE Access is a multidisciplinary, broad scope journal, it also provides authors the opportunity to publish their research in more narrow-scoped IEEE Society Sections or IEEE Access Special Sections. These sections within IEEE Access provide authors the benefit of publishing their research in a quality, open access IEEE journal, while also grouping their article with other relevant research.
IEEE Access hosts 11 permanent IEEE Society sections. These sections are organized and implemented by editors within the respective IEEE Society. In order to make open access publishing options more widely available to authors publishing in these areas, these societies partnered with IEEE Access to create sections that focus on the areas of interest of that Society.
Articles submitted to these sections are still published in IEEE Access, but are grouped together in the society section on IEEE Xplore, giving authors the opportunity to have their research reach millions of global users.
All authors, society and non-society members alike, are welcome to submit their article to these sections as long as their research fits the scope of the section. Each article submission still undergoes the same rigorous peer review process of IEEE Access, but the submission is managed by specialized editors selected by the society or council.
A Special Section is a collection of articles sharing a central theme that focuses on unique or cutting-edge topics, and may be interdisciplinary or boundary-pushing.
Our IEEE Access Editorial Board members propose these trending topics, as well as well as the lead editors with extensive experience and recognized contributions in the subject area to run the sections. Once proposals are approved, an open Call for Papers (CFP) is posted and authors may submit articles to the Special Section during the open CFP period, generally about 4 to 6 months.
IEEE Access no longer allows proposal submissions from editors who have not been directly invited.
Articles published in Special Sections are grouped together on IEEE Xplore, under “Topics.” Each Special Section includes an editorial that introduces the collection by providing a summary of each published article.
All authors are welcome to submit their article to these sections as long as their research fits the theme of the section. Each article submission still undergoes the same rigorous peer review process of IEEE Access.
During the article submission process on the IEEE Author Portal, the first question authors will be asked is “What kind of manuscript are you submitting?”.
There will be a dropdown list with all of the section options.
Select the relevant section you would like to submit to. If you are not interested in submitting to a section, you should pick “Regular Manuscript.”
If the editors managing the section decide your article does not fit the scope of their section, the article will be returned to draft and you will have the option to resubmit to another relevant section, or you can submit the article as a “Regular Manuscript”.