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Publications

ATTENTION: This publication is a hybrid journal allowing either:

Traditional manuscript submission

Open Access (author-pays OA) manuscript submission at the discounted rate of US$2195 per article, as of 1 January 2022.

The OA option, if selected, enables unrestricted public access to the article via IEEE Xplore. The OA option will be offered to the author at the time the manuscript is submitted. If selected, the OA fee must be paid before the article is published in the journal. If you have unusual circumstances about this, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

The traditional option, if selected, enables access to all qualified subscribers and purchasers via IEEE Xplore. No OA payment is required.

The IEEE peer review standard of excellence is applied consistently to all submissions. All accepted articles will be included in the print issue mailed to subscribers.

ORCID

All IEEE publications require an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) for all authors. ORCID is a persistent unique identifier for researchers and functions similarly to an article’s Digital Object Identifier (DOI). ORCIDs enable accurate attribution and improved discoverability of an author’s published work. To create an ORCID, please visit https://orcid.org/register. The author will need a registered ORCID in order to submit a manuscript or review a proof in this journal.

Follow these steps to link a ScholarOne account to a registered ORCID:

  1. Login to ScholarOne and click on your name in the top right corner of the screen.
  2. Click E-mail / Name in the dropdown menu.
  3. In the ORCID section at the top of the page, click the appropriate link to either register for a new ORCID or associate the account with an existing ORCID.
  4. A new page will open to create and/or validate your ORCID. Once the validation is complete, the new page will close and you will return to ScholarOne.
  5. 5. Save the changes to your ScholarOne user account.

Authors who do not have an ORCID in their ScholarOne user account will be prompted to provide one during submission.

For more information on ORCID please visit the IEEE Support Center

Guidelines for Manuscripts

  • IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials is targeted for the generalist throughout the field of communications and communications networking. Intended readers include those involved in research, development, deployment, or instruction in fields related to communications.
  • All articles, both tutorials and surveys, should be tutorial in nature and should be written in a style comprehensible to readers outside the specialty of the article. Distinctions between tutorials and surveys are given below.
  • Typically, mathematical equations should be kept to a minimum, and not be used unless they are vital to the presentation. Articles intended to instruct in a mathematical area should be presented at a level comprehensible to readers with appropriate backgrounds, and the appropriate background should be carefully delineated in the introductory section of the article.
  • Although there is no specific requirement, the new manuscript should be kept around 30 pages in double-column format. After revision, the manuscript should be less than 40 pages.
  • Tutorial. A tutorial article in IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials should be designed to help the reader to become familiar with and learn something specific about a chosen topic. The specific topic of the tutorial, its objectives, and the background required by the reader should be clearly identified at the outset. Where appropriate, references for obtaining the background should be provided. The objective of citations in a tutorial should be to provide the reader with references where concepts can be studied more deeply, and these should be selected carefully rather than comprehensively. Indeed, the bibliography should be more appropriately titled "Selected references."
    • As an example, a tutorial may have the title "Developing Communications Applications using C++." Such an article may have the objective of having the reader understand how C++ is appropriately used, possibly illustrating philosophical differences between object-oriented and procedural programming and explaining the role of class libraries in developing good programs. Code sections that illustrate concepts might be given. Such an article might contribute significantly to the quality of programs that might be developed by practitioners in the communications field, especially novices. The article might also help those using some other language to decide whether to make the change to C++.
  • Survey. The term survey, as applied here, is defined to mean a survey of the literature. A survey article in IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials should provide a comprehensive review of developments in a selected area, covering its development from its inception to its current state and beyond, and illustrating its development though liberal citations from the literature. Such citations would naturally lead to an authoritative and comprehensive bibliography. The objective is to provide the reader with a sense of the history, development, and future of the topic area, including its interactions with other areas, and enough information to comprehend the development and identify the major players.
    • As an example, the article "A survey of markup languages" might discuss a number of markup languages, such as WML, XML, HTML, CHTML, and voiceXML. The article might define the term "markup language" and describe some general features and objectives by way of introduction. The article might then provide a time-line of events leading to the advent of markup languages, citing major milestones and breakthroughs. From there, the article might describe the markup languages in chronological order, showing how previous languages developed from previous ones through liberal citations to the literature. The article might conclude by giving the author's well-thought-out opinions on the future.
  • References must be numbered sequentially, not alphabetically. The basic reference format is: [#] L. Brakmo and L. Peterson, " TCP Vegas: End to End Congestion Avoidance on a Global Internet," IEEE JSAC, vol. 13, no. 8, Oct. 1995, pp. 1465-80.
  • Authors must clearly state the category of the article in the abstract and again in the introductory section and also clearly state the scope of the article. For example, there must be a statement of the form "This article surveys the literature over the period 1990-2001 on turbo codes as they apply to wireless communications."
  • Authors are encouraged to consider inclusion of multimedia materials in cases where such material would substantially improve the value of the article to the reader.
  • Figures and tables should be used liberally.  
  • In addition to the IEEE policies, pre-publication author misconduct, such as double-submission or plagiarism, will result in rejection of the manuscript(s), and a minimum 6 month ban on submissions to fully owned ComSoc publications by the author(s).”
  • Additional Information/Guidelines for Authors

Author Information: Rights and Responsibilities

  • Original Work Manuscripts submitted for publication to IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials should be original work submitted exclusively to the journal, should not have been published before, and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
  • Clearance IEEE assumes that material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination to the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not IEEE, to determine whether disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties and, if so, to obtain it.  
  • Content Statements and opinions given in works published by the IEEE are the expressions of contributors. Responsibility for content of published papers rests with the authors, not the IEEE.  
  • IEEE Copyright It is the policy of the IEEE to own the copyright to technical contributions it publishes on behalf of the interests of the IEEE and its authors and their employers, and to facilitate the appropriate reuse of this material by others. To comply with IEEE policy under the U.S. Copyright Law, authors are required to sign an IEEE copyright transfer form before publication. This form returns to authors and their employers, full rights to reuse their material for their own purposes.
  • IEEE Copyright-related Information Completed and signed copyright form must be on file prior to publication. For information on IEEE copyright policy please visit the IEEE Intellectual Property Rights page.

Submission Guidelines: Manuscripts for Consideration for Publication

  • Submission of articles to IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials is via IEEE Author Portal, https://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/comst-ieee

  • The authors can submit either a pdf file or a Microsoft WORD file.
  • During preparation of the article for submission, prospective authors may wish to consult the guidelines for manuscripts and the Author Kit applicable to authors whose papers have been accepted. Time may be saved by paying careful attention to those instructions at an early stage.
  • Also, potential authors may wish to consult the guidelines used by the referees in reviewing manuscripts and preparing comments and critiques to authors. While each referee will have an additional set of considerations, the general guidelines are used by ALL referees, so authors may save considerable time by considering those guidelines.
  • For resubmission of papers, which were previously REJECTED but given the chance to resubmit and stated in the decision letter explicitly, the authors need to submit a point-by-point response to the previous review comments and highlight the changes made in the resubmitted manuscript. However, note that, the paper will be treated as a NEW submission and the paper could be sent to a completely new set of reviewers.
  • Potential authors should note that the primary difference between submission for review and submission of the final manuscript for publication is that the publisher needs original text in order to be able to lay out the journal while the reviewer needs only a clean, readable version.

Submission of Materials for Accepted Papers

Please submit all final files through the “awaiting final files” queue in your author center on IEEE Author Portal. Please make sure your final package is correct and complete upon submission. Once you have completed the submission of your final files you will not be able to make changes until you have received page proofs from the IEEE. During the final submission process, please also make sure all metadata in IEEE Author Portal is correct and complete.

Guidelines for Author Supplied Electronic Text and Graphics

English language editing services can help refine the language of your article and reduce the risk of rejection without review. IEEE authors are eligible for discounts at several language editing services; visit the IEEE Author Center to learn more. Please note these services are fee-based and do not guarantee acceptance.

Page Charge Policy

All papers submitted after January 1, 2020 that are accepted for publication are subject to a mandatory page charge of US$220.00 for each Journal page exceeding 30 printed pages but not 38 printed pages. Hence, the maximum number of pages subject to mandatory page charges is eight. This means a paper with 38 pages and a paper with 50 pages will both incur a mandatory page charge of US$220 * 8 = US$1760

Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Generated Text

The use of artificial intelligence (AI)–generated text in an article shall be disclosed in the acknowledgements section of any paper submitted to an IEEE Conference or Periodical. The sections of the paper that use AI-generated text shall have a citation to the AI system used to generate the text. For more information, visit the IEEE Author Center.