Information and Guidelines for Reviewers
Review Criteria
Papers for TCPS must meet the traditional high standards of ACM transactions and fall within the scope of cyber-physical systems. TCPS publishes original research papers and survey papers. The reviewer should adopt the standards as appropriate to each submission. Moreover, regardless of the reviewer's recommendation, reviews should be professional and constructive, as well as provide useful feedback towards making the paper as good as it can be, whether it is already acceptable or in great need of help. Normally, a paper must contain valuable content that benefits TCPS readers. Some main ingredients for a paper to be acceptable include:
- Originality
- Significance
- Validity
- Completeness
- Clarity
Few papers excel in all of the ingredients, but a substandard level in any of them is sufficient ground for rejection. Many papers require substantial revisions before acceptance, and reviewers should not hesitate to recommend that a paper be rejected pending changes that are required for completeness, correctness, or to substantially improve clarity.
Keeping Confidential and Anonymous
Every TCPS reviewer has the responsibility to protect the confidentiality of the ideas represented in the submitted paper until the paper has been published online. The reviewer is also expected to maintain anonymity forever. Moreover, requesting citations primarily to the reviewer’s work may thwart anonymity and, therefore, should be avoided.
Conflict of Interests
TCPS seeks unbiased reviews and defines conflict of interests as:
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Your Ph.D. advisor and Ph.D. students forever.
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Family relations by blood, marriage, or domestic partnership forever.
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People at your current institution or at the prior institutions you were affiliated with in the past three years.
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Collaborators in the past five years, including co-authors of paper or grant submissions no matter whether their statuses are accepted, rejected, or pending.
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Sponsors who fund your research, and researchers who you fund.
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Anyone with whom you believe a conflict of interest exists or have a bias for or against.
Editorial Board Submissions
An associate editor (but not the editor-in-chief) may submit his/her paper to TCPS. The editors-in-chief will select another associate editor with no conflict of interest to handle the paper, and the paper will be held to the same standards. As usual, the anonymity of the reviewing process will be not be compromised by associate editor submissions.
Reviewer Rights
ACM TCPS recognizes that reviewing is a service to the profession. The Rights and Responsibilities in ACM Publishing lists an extensive collection of rights that ACM provides its reviewers, underscoring ACM's commitment to those who play a critical role in ensuring quality in its publications. ACM TCPS guarantees all of those rights.