Guest Editors

A Special Issue of this journal is a collection of articles focusing on a theme or themes relevant to the journal's aims and scope and is often produced by one or more Guest Editors with the assistance of the Journal Editor. Each Special Issue may contain between five and 20 full-length articles that provide excellent opportunity to address particular theme(s), examine previously unaddressed aspects, propose and develop new approaches, exchange perspectives and encourage new lines of research. 

Guest Editors may be approached directly by the Journal Editor to handle this issue. Alternatively, the Guest Editor(s) may be appointed by the Journal following an application from an expert in the field.

Benefits of being a Guest Editor

Each Guest Editor will receive article processing charge waiver for two research and/or review manuscripts to their own Special Issue.

Additional benefits of being a Guest Editor include:

• Improving your academic profile and marking you out as influential within your discipline
• Being at the forefront of scientific communication
• Exerting creativity in the inception and development of a topic
• Assembling and working with other Editors
• Networking with like-minded colleagues around the world and forging new contacts with field leaders
• Handling manuscripts close to your professional interests and gaining a better understanding of editorial processes
• Seeing articles from your Special Issue referenced and cited in future articles
• Feeling you have contributed to the development of a journal

Proposing a Special Issue

A qualified researcher who wish to be a Guest Editor may apply in writing to the Journal Editor indicating the topic and the ability to attract contributors in providing manuscripts for the topic(s) chosen.

Responsibilities of Guest Editors

The Guest Editor is primarily responsible for the intellectual content of any Special issue itself and the manuscripts that comprise it. This includes not only securing manuscripts from contributors, but also doing a preliminary review, working with the contributors to make necessary revisions, and arranging for further expert review. Additionally, it is the responsibility of the Guest Editor to ensure that authors follow the guidelines provided for contributors by the journal. As appropriate, the Guest Editor is responsible for adhering to the deadlines and page limits.

Choosing a topic

The Guest Editor should choose a topic close to his/her own research interests. The topic should be of increasing interest within his/her field that will attract wide readership of the articles. If he/she has noticed a surge in interest in a particular subject at recent conferences, for example, this is a good sign that a related proposal will generate significant interest.

The Guest Editor should ensure that the proposed topic is within the scope of the journal. The scope of the proposed Special Issue should be broad enough to attract a reasonable number of submissions but narrow enough to provide a cohesive collection of articles.

Preparing a Call for Papers

The Special Issue proposal should take the form of a Call for Papers, which will be submitted to the Editorial Board of the journal for assessment. If the proposal is approved, the Call for Papers will help researchers to find the Special Issue and submit their manuscripts.

The Call for Papers should provide enough background information to entice submissions but does not need to be overly detailed. Concise proposals are more likely to catch and hold the attention of qualified researchers, leading to higher quality submissions.

Selection of papers and decision process 

• The Guest Editor is responsible, in cooperation with any other guest editor for the Special Issue and for ensuring that the review process is conducted in an appropriate manner and in line with normal review practices of our journal. 
• The selection of papers should be based on the scientific quality of the content and the topic should clearly fall within the scope of the Special Issue and the journal hosting it.
• The Guest Editor will typically make the preliminary decision on all manuscripts based on reviews but all manuscripts (and revisions) will then be transferred to the Journal Editor who normally has the sole right to review and/or reject any manuscript or arrange for any manuscript(s) to be independently peer reviewed prior to final acceptance for publication.

Selection of reviewers

• The Guest Editor will select reviewers who have suitable expertise in the field and must review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest made by reviewers in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias. For each manuscript for the Special Issue, the names of reviewers and their comments on each manuscript will usually be submitted to the Journal Editor.
• Research articles must typically be reviewed by at least an external and independent reviewer at this stage.

The Production Process

• Throughout the entire production process, the Journal Editor will remain in close contact with the Guest Editor. If at any point in the process the Guest Editor and authors have questions, they should immediately contact the Journal Editor.
• Having completed the review process and confirmed that the article manuscripts meet the require quality for publication and follow the journal guidelines, the Guest Editor will provide the articles to the Journal Editor for final peer-review and approval.
• For articles that are approved by the Journal Editor, revisions may be requested. The revision will include language, quality/suitability of content, format, length of article, figures and tables, etc. It will not include substantial content editing, which is the responsibility of the Guest Editor prior to submission.
• Copy editing will be undertaken by the Journal Editor. During the copy-editing stage, authors will be given an opportunity to review their manuscripts and asked to answer any questions (articles authored by more than one person will be sent to the lead author). If the author(s) cannot review the article, the Guest Editor may need to answer any outstanding editorial queries.
• Final acceptance of the articles for publication in the journal will be undertaken by the Journal Editor.