Information for contributors

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IMPORTANT NOTE: From March 1, 2022 we will accept final versions of accepted papers only in LaTeX format, typeset using the appropriate ComSIS template. The template is also available on Overleaf.

Dear possible contributors, PLEASE bear in mind that in the last several months the editorial staff has been overloaded with submissions and that we can not react as promptly to your submitted articles and queries as you may expect. Regarding this development, please carefully assess whether the research described in your article is in the scope of the journal and consider your decision to send us your article with outmost care.

Scope and type of papers

Submitted manuscripts should make a contribution to knowledge in the field. Either or both quantitative and qualitative research methods may be employed. No one reference discipline is viewed as inherently superior. Acceptable research papers will most frequently join theoretical analysis with empirical investigation. Reviews and syntheses of prior research are also welcome, where significant implications for future work are drawn.

Prior publication policy

Manuscripts are accepted with the understanding that they have not been published, submitted or accepted for publication elsewhere and that, if the work received an official sponsorship, it has been duly released for open publication. If the manuscript is an extended version of a paper published in conference or workshop proceedings, it should be clearly indicated in the cover letter and first-page footnote in the manuscript itself. Also, the cover letter should contain a detailed explanation of all extensions / changes made in the extended version. If you have any questions, please contact the Editor-in-Chief, and always inform Editors in your submission cover letters of any possible conflicts.

Submission of contributions

The Editors will be pleased to receive contributions from all parts of the world. An electronic version of the manuscript written in English, intended for publication and prepared as described in "Manuscript Requirements", along with a cover letter containing the corresponding author's details should be submited online. Authors should keep the Editors informed of change of address.

At the explicit request from authors, a blind review process can be executed. In this case, authors are asked to follow the instructions available here.

During manuscript submission, the authors are asked to propose at least three potential reviewers by including their names, affiliations and e-mail addresses in the "Comments for the Editor" field during submission. This step is a prerequisite for the manuscript to enter the review phase.

Criteria for acceptance

Criteria for acceptance will be appropriateness to the field of the Journal, as described in the Aims and Scope, taking into account the merit of the content and presentation. The number of pages of submitted articles is limited to 25-30 using the appropriate template. Manuscripts should be clearly written. Abstracts should be self-contained and informative of what was learned from the research. Rigorous argument and presentation are expected throughout. ComSIS Editors reserve right to reject, without external review, any submission that does not satisfy journal academic standards.

There is no strict limit on the number of articles that may be submitted by the same author(s). However, it is our journal's policy to provide an opportunity for all interested and quality authors to publish their research results in our journal. Therefore, the Editorial Board retains the right, depending on the circumstances, to reject all submissions featuring the same author(s) that appear too frequently during the course of the year.

Manuscripts will be refereed in the manner customary with scientific journals before being accepted for publication. Upon receiving a manuscript, 3-4 members of the Editorial Board will examine it and if the paper is out of scope of the journal or does not meet the basic criteria for a journal article, it will be immediately rejected without further review (please note that this process may take up to two months to complete due to the large number of received submissions). Otherwise, the Editor-in-Chief will solicit reviews from at least two external referees. Based on the reviews, the Editor will make the decision on manuscript acceptance, or solicit additional reviews if the decision in unclear. Possible decisions are Accept without change, Accept conditioned on minor revision, Accept conditioned on major revision, Reject with encouragement to resubmit and Reject without encouragement to resubmit. Regarding conditional acceptance decisions, the Editor will distribute the revised manuscript to the reviewers for approval. In case of high discrepancy between opinions of reviewers, three core Editorial Board members will be assigned the task of consolidating the reviews.

Accepted papers

Authors of the accepted papers are responsible to submit a camera-ready paper in electronic form, both in source and PDF formats, according to the "Instructions for Camera-Ready Papers", which may be downloaded here.

After publishing, the authors will receive a free copy of the Journal.

Copyright and use agreement

Authors are requested to sign the "Transfer of Copyright" agreement before the paper may be published. The copyright transfer covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the paper, including reprints, photographic reproductions, microform, electronic form, or any other reproductions of similar nature and translations. Authors are responsible for obtaining from the copyright holder permission to reproduce the paper or any part of it, for which copyright exists.

Manuscript requirements

Authors are kindly requested to use our template for preparing their manuscripts.

General

The manuscript should be typed single-spaced throughout. Manuscripts should begin with the title of the paper, followed by the names and addresses of the authors. Phone and fax numbers and e-mail addresses should be included, where possible. In the case of co-authors, a corresponding author should be clearly indicated. An abstract must be included and placed after the author information.

Tables

All tables should be designated by Arabic numerals, sequentially increasing. A self explanatory title, indicating a content of a table should be included.

Figures

All figures should be designated by Arabic numerals, sequentially increasing. A self explanatory title, indicating a content of a figure should be included.

Equations and formulas

All equations and formulas should be typed in separate lines, and numbered by Arabic numerals in parentheses on the right, sequentially increasing. References to equations or formulas should be quoted in parentheses.

References and notes

References should be quoted in alphabetical sequence of author names, listed at the end of the manuscript, and numbered sequentially. The references should be cited in the main text only (not in abstracts and titles), by using the corresponding Arabic numbers in square brackets. To quote the references, please use the following model:

1. Agrawal, R., Srikant, R.: Fast Algorithms for Mining Association Rules. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Very Large Databases. Morgan Kaufmann, Santiago, Chile, 487-499. (1994)
2. Garcia-Molina, H., Ullman, D. J., Widom, J.: Database Systems: The Complete Book. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, USA. (2002)
3. Wang, X., Bettini, C., Brodsky A., Jajoida, S.: Logical Design for Temporal Databases with Multiple Granularities. ACM Transactions on Database Systems, Vol. 22, No. 2, 115-170. (1997)
4. Bruce, K.B., Cardelli, L., Pierce, B.C.: Comparing Object Encodings. In: Abadi, M., Ito, T. (eds.): Theoretical Aspects of Computer Software. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1281. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg New York, 415–438. (1997)
5. van Leeuwen, J. (ed.): Computer Science Today. Recent Trends and Developments. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1000. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg New York (1995)
6. Ribiere, M., Charlton, P.: Ontology Overview. Motorola Labs, Paris (2002). [Online]. Available: http://www.fipa.org/docs/input/f-in-00045/f-in-00045.pdf (current October 2003)

Note on (self-)plagiarism

During a routine check of articles published in Computer Science and Information Systems using plagiarism-detection software, two borderline cases of self-plagiarism were detected. The articles in question amply used excerpts from other papers by the same authors, to the point of obscuring the contributions of said articles.

Although the Editorial Board determined that the articles contain just enough novelty not to warrant retraction, we emphasize that we will implement a much stricter anti-plagiarism policy in the future. If a borderline case of self-plagiarism “slips through” and is published, upon later detection we will at the very least publicly label the article as such. Needless to say, as always, clear cases of plagiarism and self-plagiarism will be retracted immediately upon detection.

In the end, we hope not to have to deal with such issues again, and implore all prospective authors to carefully check the manuscripts intended for submission to our journal.