FAQ
- The journal Semantic Web – Interoperability, Usability, Applicability has an open and transparent review process; what does this mean?
- The open and transparent review process seems novel and uncommon; why is it so important for the journal?
- Is there a page limit for submissions?
- We have devloped tool X - is it suitable for your Tools and Systems call?
- We intend to run a workshop at a major conference. How can we do a related journal special issue?
- How do I suggest a journal special issue?
- I have additional questions...
(A1) All submitted manuscripts are posted on the journal's website and are publicly available. In addition to solicited reviews selected by members of the editorial board, public reviews and comments are welcome by any researcher and can be uploaded using the journal website. All reviews and responses from the authors are posted on the journal homepage. All involved reviewers and editors will be acknowledged in the final printed version. Solicited reviewers can choose to remain anonymous, but this should only happen in exceptional cases. More details about the review process, the possibility to submit anonymous reviews, as well as the removal of rejected papers from the website are available at the For Reviewers page.
(A2) There are a number of reasons:
(I) To ensure quality, reviewers have to invest substantial time to judge the quality of a manuscript and provide fruitful comments and inspiration to the authors. By doing so, they directly contribute to the quality of the manuscript and hence should be acknowledged for their work. If writing reviews, however, becomes a obligatory exercise (and the review load seems to increase) this may have negative consequences for the quality of reviews on the long term. Since reviews for Semantic Web – Interoperability, Usability, Applicability are generally non-anonymous and publicly accessible, and since reviewers are explicitly acknowledged in the final versions of the papers, the reviewers receive at least a little bit of visibility and acknowledgement of their contribution.
(II) Fair reviews require that there is neither a positive nor negative conflict of interest between the reviewers and the authors. To keep track of who co-authored, supervised, or organized research papers or events together is a difficult or even hopeless task. Additionally, one should ensure that the same reviewers do not review the papers of specific authors again and again. While this could be tracked within a single journal, it cannot be tracked across journals or even conferences. In the worst case anonymous reviewers could try to reject or promote manuscripts for other reasons than their quality, e.g., to favor contributions which cite their own work. Transparency avoids such problems from the very beginning.
(III) By having submitted papers and non-anonymous reviews openly accessible, the decision process becomes transparent. Consequently, the objectivity (or not) of the decision process can be judged by everybody, rather than having to blindly trust that the editors and editorial board members stay objective.
(IV) Even anonymous reviews are only anonymous to a certain degree since editors, steering committee members, program chairs, and sometimes other reviewers have access to them. For this reason, and to reduce potential conflicts of interest to a minimum, sometimes editors and organizers of conferences and workshops do not submit papers to these events or journals. The downside, however, is that organizing scientific events becomes less attractive as one cannot contribute own work. This is especially problematic for workshops as they usually cover emerging or highly specialized research ares. As a consequence, reviewers often face the difficult situation to review a contribution of a workshop organizer. Finally, even if this contribution would get non-positive reviews, it is still not transparent why it was accepted or rejected as this would require access to the reviews of all submitted manuscripts. Open and transparent reviews would ease the situation for reviewers and allow editors and organizers to be involved without provoking allegations.
To make a long story short, open and transparent reviews protect editors, organizers, and reviewers from conflicts of interests and allegations, ease the matching between reviewers and manuscripts, and acknowledge the time and effort reviewers and editors invested in the publication process.
(Q3) Is there a page limit for the submission types listed at the For Authors page?
(A3) No, there is no strict page limit. Authors, however, have to ensure that the number of pages is appropriate with respect to the presented content. The question whether the length of a manuscript is appropriate is part of the review criteria.
(Q4) We have devloped tool X - is it suitable for your Tools and Systems call?
(A4) Note that we're looking for mature systems (i.e., no prototypes). Note also the review criteria mentioned on http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/authors :
Submissions will be reviewed along the following dimensions: (1) Quality, importance, and impact of the described tool or system (convincing evidence must be provided). (2) Clarity, illustration, and readability of the describing paper, which shall convey to the reader both the capabilities and the limitations of the tool.
In fact, you'll find an enlightning discussion about this at http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/special-call-semantic-web-to...
Hence, if you can make a convincing case that your tool is mature, important and has impact, then it's good for our tools and sytems call. Impact and importance is most easily shown by already having a user base (or a prominent application), but if you can give convincing evidence that the tool will (or should) have impact, then this may also suffice.
If, however, you implemented the prototype to advance the state of the art, i.e. if it's mainly a research contribution, then you could consider submitting a regular paper to the journal. See http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/authors for types of submissions.
(Q5) We intend to run a workshop at a major conference. How can we do a related journal special issue?
(A5) The Semantic Web journal does not, in general, publish special issues which are exclusively based on extended workshop papers. However, if you have a suggestion for an interesting topic for a special issue, and you are running a workshop on the same or a similar topic at the same time, then they can be coupled, e.g., by adding pointers between the two calls for papers.
Our guidelines for such special issues are the following, but feel free to discuss it with the Editors in Chief:
- Guest editors must be aware of the high expected quality of contributions to the Semantic Web journal. Typical workshop papers will have to be extended considerably for them to be suitable for the journal.
- The journal special issue cannot be limited to extended workshop papers, but must be accompanied by an open call.
- We usually expect an adjusted editorial board for the special issue, which may overlap with the workshop PC.
- All papers, including extended workshop papers, must undergo a review process according to the journal guidelines, and this process must be separate from the workshop review process. However, it is certainly possible to use the same reviewers, if applicable.
- Editors must take note of the (non-standard) review procedures of the Semantic Web journal.
(Q6) How do I suggest a journal special issue?
(A6) Please see http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/suggestions-special-issues
(Q7) I have additional questions...
(A7) Please feel free to contact us at contact @ semantic-web-journal . net.
