REVIEW AND PRODUCTION PROCESS

Since its inception in 1991, UMUAI has extensively relied on electronic reviewing and production. All articles are now being submitted, reviewed and produced electronically (hardcopies are still acceptable if authors cannot submit electronically). The preferred format is PDF, but virtually all other formats can be accommodated as well.

Upon submission, the editor sends the titles and abstracts of articles to UMUAI's Editorial Board, and to Special Reviewers of the journal as well as other qualified referees, in order to solicit volunteers for a review. Papers become electronically forwarded to 3-4 carefully selected and balanced reviewers who are asked to following questions:

• What is the scientific contribution of this submission? (both in the authors’ view and your own, if different)
• How relevant is this submission to the scope of this journal?
• How novel is the described research? Are the authors aware of related work?
• How significant is the described research?
• Is the article technically sound?
• Do the authors describe the limitations of their approach in a satisfactory manner?
• Does the title of this paper clearly and sufficiently reflect its contents?
• Is the presentation, organization and length satisfactory?
• Can you suggest additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper?
• Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts?
• Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable?
• Are the references adequate and are they all necessary?
• Are the key words and abstracts/summary informative?
• Is the paper
  (a) acceptable for publication in its present form?
  (b) acceptable for publication with minor revisions?
  (c) acceptable for publication with major revisions only?
  (d) unacceptable for publication, even with major revisions?
  Please provide a short summary justification for this assessment:
• If you checked (a) or (b) above: would you want to nominate this paper for the James Chen Annual Award for Best UMUAI Paper?
• To what extent does this paper fall within your area of expertise?
  ( ) fully ( ) well ( ) partially ( ) hardly
• Please list any other general comments or specific suggestions.
• Confidential comments to the editor

Upon the receipt of all reviews, the editor compiles a summary review which is being sent both to the authors and to all reviewers in anonymous form.

After acceptance, authors submit the source files of their articles to the publisher electronically. Proofs are returned to the authors in PDF format. The final articles are posted on the publisher's website, first as pre-prints and then collected into journal issues. The electronic articles can be accessed by individuals and institutions who hold an electronic subscription. The paper versions of journal issues appear around 6 weeks later and are being mailed to insititutional and individual subscribers. After a few more weeks, a designated author receives 25 free offprints.

This extensive exploitation of electronic communication and electronic publishing benefits the authors, the editor, the reviewers, and the publisher. Reviewers do not receive papers unexpectedly, but are informed about incoming submissions and can pick those papers in which they are interested and which they are willing to review within a certain period of time. Both the quality and the punctuality of the reviews is thereby considerably improved. UMUAI aims at evaluating regular papers within two months, and submissions to special issues within three months. UMUAI's success rate in this respect is currently above 80%. Since electronic papers can be directly processed by the publisher, the error rate is also minimized and the production costs are decreased.

Submission instructions

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