IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems is published bimonthly in February, April, June, August, October, and December. Each paper submitted is subjected to a thorough review procedure, and the publication decision by the editor-in-chief is based on reviewer and associate editor recommendations. Review management is generally under the direction of an associate editor. Our goal is to provide review results in approximately ten weeks.
Posting Preprints to Non-IEEE Servers
Authors should disclose postings on approved preprint services when submitting papers to SMCS Journals.
Consult relevant sections posted here.
The following statement must be included on the initial screen of the preprint site:
“This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessible.”
Upon acceptance of the article by IEEE, the preprint article must be replaced with the accepted version, as described in the section “Accepted article.”
A. Process for Submission of a Technical Paper to IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems
- All papers should be submitted electronically in Portable Document Format (PDF) or PostScript. The paper should print correctly on 8.5 by 11 inch paper. A text version of your abstract is required.
- Please utilize our manuscript submission system.
- While each paper should be self-contained (i.e., fully readable and understandable independently from the multimedia material), we encourage the submission of attachments with the paper. An attachment (video, animations, applets, code, data, etc.) should be referenced in the text of the paper and enhance the presentation. We currently accept avi files (PowerPoint animations), MPEG video files, Java applets, code with specific compilation instructions and execution instructions and machine specific information, and data sets with a description of the data format. More information on multimedia materials can be found here.
- Our primary objective is to publish technical material not otherwise available. If any portion of the manuscript has been presented, published, or submitted for publication elsewhere, a description of the prior publication must be included in the cover letter. In addition, the original publication must be cited in the manuscript.
- If the manuscript or a considerable part of it has been presented, published, or submitted for publication elsewhere, you must inform the Editor. In the cover letter, please explain the contribution of the present work and describe and cite the prior work so that the contribution of the new work is clear. Failure to do so may result in the immediate rejection of your manuscript. Our primary objective is to publish technical material not otherwise available elsewhere.
- The authors are required to suggest 6 reviewers. In your suggestion of reviewers, please do not suggest current associate editors for the journal. The list of associate editors appears in each issue.
- Papers not meeting these criteria will be withdrawn.
- ORCID Required: All IEEE journals require an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) for all authors. 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.
B. Style for Manuscript
- Use IEEE Transactions (two-column) format for all submissions. Such formatting is required for the editor to determine the length of the manuscript. Please ensure that your text fits 8.5 × 11in. (21.6 × 27.9 cm) sheets.
- Regular papers are 10 Transactions pages in length, including any author photographs and biographies, when requested and provided. Technical correspondences are 5 Transactions pages in. These page counts represent maximum submission lengths and are effective as of August 1, 2017 for all new submissions. Any additional page allocations must be approved by the editor-in-chief in advance of manuscript submission or through the review process, based on the recommendation of an associate editor or technical reviewer, and excess page charges will apply. Please see the below discussion on excess page charges when manuscripts exceed the maximum number of pages.
- The Transactions publishes only in English. Only manuscripts written in grammatically correct English will be accepted for publication. Papers not meeting this criteria will be withdrawn. English Language Editing Services. 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.
- Provide an informative 100 to 250 word abstract at the head of the manuscript.
- Provide a separate double-spaced sheet listing all footnotes, beginning with “Manuscript received… ” (date to be filled in by the editor-in-chief) and affiliation of the author(s), and continuing with numeric citation. Acknowledgement of financial support is placed at the end of the first footnote.
- References should appear in a separate section at the end of the paper, with items referred to by numerals in square brackets. References must be complete and in IEEE style: Style for papers: Author, first initials followed by last name, title in quotations, periodical, volume, page numbers, month, year. Style for books: Author, title. Location: publisher, year, chapter, and page numbers (if desired). See IEEE Style Manual for more details.
- Provide a separate sheet listing all figure captions.
- The publication will no longer be publishing authors’ photos and biographies in all papers. Only editorials and guest editorials will include author photos and biographies.
- Accepted papers will appear on the Web in the IEEE Xplore™ system approximately three weeks after corrected page proofs are received from an author. This will typically be before the paper appears in the print version of the journal. Hence, papers will be disseminated to the research community faster utilizing electronic submission.
- “Information for IEEE Authors” and other information may be obtained at IEEE Author Center.
- IEEE supports the publication of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) author names in the native language alongside the English versions of the names in the author list of an article. For
more information, please visit the IEEE Author Digital Tool Box. - This journal accepts graphical abstracts and they must be peer reviewed. For more information about graphical abstracts and their specifications, please refer to this document.
C. Style for Illustrations
- Originals for illustrations (including tables) should be sharp, noise-free, and of good contrast.
- On graphs, show only the coordinate axes, or at most the major grid lines to avoid a dense hard-to-read result. Use patterns instead of colors to distinguish bar types of trend lines (unless paying for color printing).
- All lettering should be large enough to permit legible reduction of the figure to column width, sometimes as much as 4 to 1. There should only be one illustration per page and only illustrations should be included in the set of illustrations. Please be certain that your lettering is sufficiently large such that it will be readable after photo-reduction.
- If an illustration is to be reproduced in color the author is responsible for the incremental cost of printing in color.
D. Open Access
This publication is a hybrid journal, allowing either Traditional manuscript submission or Open Access (author-pays OA) manuscript submission. Upon submission, if you choose to have your manuscript be an Open Access article, you commit to pay the discounted $2,195 OA fee if your manuscript is accepted for publication in order to enable unrestricted public access. Any other application charges (such as over- length page charge and/or charge for the use of color in the print format) will be billed separately once the manuscript formatting is complete but prior to the publication. If you would like your manuscript to be a Traditional submission, your article will be available to qualified subscribers and purchasers via IEEE Xplore. No OA payment is required for traditional submission.
E. Voluntary Page and Excess Page Charges
After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, the author’s company or institution will be requested to pay a voluntary charge of $110 per printed page to cover part of the cost of publication. These page charges, like those for journals of other professional societies, are not obligatory nor are their payment a prerequisite for publication. A mandatory overlength page charge of $175 is required for each page in excess of the maximum 5 pages for a technical correspondence, the maximum 10 pages for a regular paper, and the maximum 15 pages for a survey paper. These charges are effective as of August 1, 2017 for all new submissions. Authors who are concerned with these latter charges are encouraged to estimate the length of their manuscripts prior to submission. Detailed instructions on payment of these charges will accompany the page proof.
F. Electronic Publishing
The final version of the manuscript must comply with IEEE Periodicals requirements for text and graphics processing. The author must submit final files electronically through the manuscript submission system. The required files include source file(s) (e.g., Latex or Microsoft Word), figures, and a pdf file of the entire manuscript. Figures can also be embedded in the source file of the manuscript. Acceptable formats for figures include Word, eps, ps, tiff, ppt, and Excel. Further details are contained in the information for authors accompanying the final acceptance letters.
For important information on preparing final manuscript materials visit the Tools for Authors web site.
G. Copyright
It is the policy of the IEEE to own the copyright to the technical contributions it publishes on behalf of the interests of the IEEE, its authors, and their employers, and to facilitate the appropriate reuse of this material by others. To comply with the United States Copyright Law, authors are required to sign a digital version of the IEEE Copyright Form with their original submission. Information about the electronic IEEE Copyright Form is available online.
H. Peer Review
The articles in this journal are peer reviewed in accordance with the requirements set forth in the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual. Each published article was reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers using a single-anonymous peer review process, where the identities of the reviewers are not known to the authors, but the reviewers know the identities of the authors. Articles will be screened for plagiarism before acceptance.
I. Video Abstracts
Authors are encouraged to publish an on-line “video abstract” to complement a regular paper or technical correspondence publication in the Journal. The SMC Society will host a video abstract as a supplement to a published paper through the SMC Society Resource Center. The Journal recommends author consideration of American Journal Experts for video abstract production. Please contact THMS Editorial Assistant for further information about making available a video abstract as part of your THMS publication.
