Special Issues – Artificial Intelligence Journal

See the Elsevier website for currently open special issues and published special issues.

How to Propose a Special Issue for the Artificial Intelligence Journal:

The following instructions are intended to help those who are interested in proposing special issues of the AI journal.

Purpose. Special issues are intended to introduce readers to an area of AI that has not received sufficient attention through regular submissions, either because little work has been published in this area yet, or substantial new developments make it worthy of attention. Issues on the same topic should not have been published in AIJ or other major journals in the last two years. Proposals to publish the papers from a workshop or conference will not be considered, although the holding of a workshop could be the impetus for a special issue with broader participation. Special issues should only be proposed by recognised experts in the area.
Proposal. Special issue proposals should be submitted to the Editors in Chiefs (EICs) and contain
- title of the proposed issue
- a short description of the topic, justification of the timeliness of the issue, including a review of recent special issues on similar topics
- names, email addresses and web pages of the editors, and their qualifications for editing the special issue
- list of potential contributors
- tentative schedule of call, submissions, reviewing, and publication.
Call for papers. All special issues will have an open public call for papers. Calls will be posted at least on the Elsevier AIJ home page.
Reviewing. All papers in a special issue will be refereed according to AIJ’s normal standards. SI editors make recommendations on each paper to the handling EinC through the Editorial Manager system, who then makes the final decision on each version of a submitted paper, and will communicate this decision to the author. AIJ’s normal conflict of interest rules apply; the issue editors can submit papers of their own, and the EICs will manage the reviewing of these papers. Papers submitted to the issue but found to be inappropriate for it can be recommended to the EICs as regular submissions. Editors are encouraged to keep articles to fewer than 40 journal pages.
Introduction to the issue. The editors are strongly encouraged to write a comprehensive review of the area covered by the special issue. At minimum, an article introducing the papers of the issue should be prepared and will be reviewed by the EICs.
Record keeping. All submitted papers, reviewer names and decisions will be recorded in the AIJ’s editorial support system, to which special issue editors will be given access.
Management of submitted papers. Reviewing of special issue papers should follow AIJ’s standard reviewing schedule. Except under special circumstances, reviewers should be asked to submit reviews no later than 6 weeks after receipt and sent a reminder in 5 weeks. If reviews are not submitted on time, reviewers should be sent weekly reminders until reviews are received. Authors should be given 3 months for a major revision of their papers, if necessary, and regularly reminded thereafter until revisions are received. Provisionally accepted papers whose revisions are not received in 6 months should be generally rejected from the special issue. Second round reviews should be sought in 4 weeks, and second revisions should be done in one month. Final versions of accepted papers should be sent to Elsevier as soon as possible for preliminary publication on the web.