Archives: Questions

At IOP Publishing, we want to take your ebook idea from conception to reality. We are here to guide you every step of the way.

A well-designed ebook proposal is an effective tool to convey why the ebook you intend to write will make an impact in the scientific community. Your proposal should provide an overview of the ebook, including a technical description, intended readership, approach, features, and the overall aim and scope. We have a proposal form, designed to enable authors to provide a full description of the intended work and facilitate the reviewing and assessment process.

There are various reviews throughout the assessment and publishing process including at the proposal and draft manuscript stages,  all of which serve as independent critical steps in publishing a successful ebook.

Reviewers will be reading your proposal to identify strengths and weaknesses of the proposed project. It is therefore important your proposal describes the intended ebook and its market clearly. Some of the most important aspects reviewers are asked to comment on include:

• Has the author properly assessed a need for this ebook and addressed it with quality, clarity, and organization of the material presented?
• What is the technical level of this ebook?
• Is the author’s coverage of the topic adequate?
• What are strengths of the proposed ebook? What are weaknesses of this proposed ebook and how can we improve and strengthen this work?
• Is the author qualified to write this ebook?
• Is the author aware of any competing books and made clear how their ebook will differentiate itself from the others?

Technical description

While you are preparing your ebook proposal, it is important to communicate exactly what your ebook will do for the reader. After you have clearly identified the market and audience, try to express a broad overview of the ebook’s features, the purpose of the ebook, and what the reader will learn by reading your ebook. Consider the ebook’s approach, coverage, and organization and how these aspects demonstrate its value.

Key features

Communicating and highlighting the key features of your ebook throughout your proposal is critical. What makes your ebook a valuable resource? Perhaps you’re using a simplified approach to an otherwise difficult subject area, or you have included extensive tables and figures, software code, worked examples or case studies. If your ebook has textbook potential, consider including chapter summaries, appendices, or end-of-chapter problems with a solutions manual. Well thought-out features can make a dramatic impact on the final product.

Competition

Identifying competition is essential. Not only will we better determine and understand the market for your ebook, but you will also have the opportunity to discuss what distinguishes your ebook from the rest. How your ebook differs from the existing books in the area will be a focal point in our marketing and distribution strategy for your title.

Referees

Your proposal will be assessed by our editorial staff and also by independent subject specialists from around the world to gain insight on the content and structure of your publication on a global level. Feedback from reviewers and readers is used not only to assess the quality of proposal or manuscript, but to provide constructive feedback to allow IOP to work with you to develop and maximize the potential of your ebook.

As a reviewer for IOP journals, you will be expected to complete your review within 7–28 days, depending on the journal and type of article you are reviewing. When this is not possible, we will consider requests for extensions where appropriate. You will be expected to comment on multiple aspects of the paper, most commonly scientific rigour, novelty, quality, impact and importance. More information on how to complete a review is given in the next section.

We understand you are busy and we try not to send anyone too many tasks. You can always decline any request you are sent. If you are a Board Member or on an Advisory Panel for one of our journals you may receive requests more frequently.

We manage all our submissions and peer review through a web-based system called ScholarOne. It is really easy to set up your account and keep it up to date. Watch this video to find out how.

ScholarOne now supports login and account creation via your ORCID iD. See our help guide for further details.

How to create an account on ScholarOne

IOP Conference Series uses author-supplied PDFs for all online and print publication. Authors must prepare their papers using Microsoft Word or LaTeX, according to the guidelines and templates, and then convert these files to PDF.

It is important to ensure that when you submit your paper, it is in its final form ready for publication, and has been thoroughly proofread. IOP do not copy edit or reformat papers and will not send out author proofs prior to publication. Post-publication changes are not permitted, so please ensure that your paper has been checked for errors.

As a general rule we would advise that an author does not submit more than two articles to a conference. This includes papers that they have co-authored.
Our guidance on what constitutes authorship is available here: https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/questions/ethics-of-authorship/

By submitting a paper an author and all co-authors are assumed to agree with the terms of the IOP Proceedings Licence.

Do not submit your papers directly to IOP Publishing; please contact your conference organizer for submission instructions.

Paper format

• The paper size is European A4.
• Margins are 4cm (top), 2.5cm (left and right) and 2.7cm (bottom).
• There are no page numbers, headers or footers within the paper.
• Text is single spaced, not double spaced.
• All fonts are embedded.
• All pages are portrait (landscape pages should be rotated).
• The abstract text should be indented 25mm from the left margin and there should be 10mm space after the abstract before you begin the main text of your article, starting on the same page as the abstract.

Paper content

• The paper includes the author name(s) and affiliation(s) (full address including country).
• All articles must contain an abstract.
• Papers must use inclusive language. At IOPP we follow these industry-wide Guidelines on Inclusive Language and Images in Scholarly Communication.
• All figures and tables should be numbered in numerical order. Please ensure that figure/table numbers are not duplicated or missed.
• Figures are legible and placed within the text, not collected at the end of the document.
• If section headings are numbered, ensure that they are numbered numerically, and no numbers are duplicated or missing.
• Displayed equations should follow a naming convention in numerical order, i.e. (1), (2), (3) etc or by section, i.e. (1.1), (1.2) etc. Ensure every displayed equation has its own number and none are duplicated or missing.
• Reference lists are checked for accuracy. References can only be linked via CrossRef if they are correct and complete. Check the templates and guidance page for further reference styling information.
• If numbering references (Harvard system) ensure that references are numbered numerically, every reference has its own number and no numbers are duplicated or missing.
• Ensure that all references are cited in the text and that all citations have a corresponding reference.
• Finally, please ensure that the paper is thoroughly proofread to check the standard of English and ensure wording is clear and concise.

Conversion to PDF

• The PDF file is editable and not password protected.
• The PDF is free of formatting errors (e.g. corrupt equations, missing or poor-resolution figures), since conversion from Word to PDF can introduce formatting errors.
• There are no blank pages.

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IOP Publishing (IOP) is committed to recognising and rewarding peer review. Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy as a reviewer: 

• When you review for an IOP journal you may claim a 10% discount towards the cost of publishing an article in any IOP Publishing-owned journal on a gold open access basis, within two years of your review. Any author on a manuscript may claim a 10% reviewer discount. Read the Terms and Conditions of our reviewer discount programme here. 
• We recognise our best reviewers via IOP Trusted Reviewer certification. You can be fast-tracked towards IOP Trusted Reviewer certification by completing our free training course here.
• We offer free, interactive online peer review workshops for our reviewers. Register your interest here.
• By reviewing for our journals you will be eligible for the IOP Publishing Reviewer Awards.
• For participating journals you can opt in to publish your reviewer reports and view other reviewer comments via Transparent Peer Review.

Benefits through Publons

Through our partnership with Publons, you can access the following benefits.

• Receive notifications when the paper you have reviewed is published (even if in a different journal)
• Automatically sync your peer review activity in Publons with your ORCID activity
• Share or request credit for any co-review activity
• Export your reviewing history as a Publons CV.

Please ensure you opt in for Publons recognition during the review process or claim your review after completion.

IOP ebooks is an award-winning book programme that brings together innovative digital publishing with leading voices in scientific, technical, engineering and medical (STEM) research to create the essential collection of books for a digital world.

Centred around e-publication, our books programme allows authors and readers to benefit from cutting edge digital publishing capabilities, rapid publication times, and enhanced reader experience as standard that users have come to expect from our online publishing platform. With our book and journal production being XML driven, we are able to offer authors the opportunity to publish content in new and exciting ways with interactivity and user customisation at the heart of this.

By choosing to publish with us, your book will become part of a collection that will play an essential role in communicating STEM research of the highest quality. We are able to offer all our authors true global exposure, with ebooks being hosted on our integrated, device dynamic platform IOPscience.

Through our journal portfolio we have built strong ties and presence in the scientific community. We have established partnerships with some of the leading societies and are proud to be working with publishers, Morgan & Claypool, American Astronomical Society, Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, and the Biophysical Society in our books programme thus far.

Some key features of the IOP ebooks programme:

• No DRM: designed specifically for electronic delivery, IOP ebooks allows DRM-free simultaneous access for all users
• Fully integrated platform: book and journal content in one place on IOPscience.
• E-reader compatibility: books and chapters are published in HTML, ePub3, PDF, and MOBI (Kindle) formats for maximum reader flexibility
• Rapid publication times: books will be published within 12 weeks of acceptance of final manuscript
• Multimedia and interactive content: becomes part of the book rather than an additional aspect. Additionally files such as codes or data sets can also be embedded in the work.
• Full-colour print: as standard for author copies and print on demand
• Free unlimited access for all readers: at the point of use for those at purchasing institutions
• Flexibility: we can make updates to the books after publication.
• Books can range in length from as little as 50 pages up to several hundred pages.

There are no specific qualifications needed to be a reviewer, but most reviewers will have a PhD. You certainly need to be able to prove you know the field of study well enough to be able to assess the novelty, quality, impact and importance of the research.

If you have never been a reviewer before, we strongly recommend you take our free, state-of-the-art course on how to write an excellent reviewer report (registration required).

IOP Publishing allows authors of articles published on a subscription basis to post the accepted manuscript version (the version after peer review but before copy-editing and typesetting), including citation details for the published version of the article, on their personal website immediately or on an institutional or subject repository 12 months after publication of the final article.

For UK authors to comply with the requirements of the HEFCE post-2014 REF policy, IOP Publishing allows closed deposits on repositories within certain specified time-frames. To see full information on this, please refer to our Author Rights Policy.

If you are publishing the results of research funded by a US government agency or if you are employed by the US government then please see our guide to US public access.

IOP deposits papers in PubMed Central automatically for authors funded by the NIH, unless an author requests otherwise, after the 12-month embargo period.

IOP Publishing supports the sharing of preprints. View our preprint policy.

Would you like to peer review cutting edge science and contribute to the scholarly community?

If you already have experience of peer review, you can volunteer to review for our journals using this link.

Please note: All reviewers are carefully chosen by our editors, who balance experience levels, research interests, publication history, and volunteer status, among other factors. Volunteers are flagged in our system, but we cannot guarantee that you will be selected as a reviewer for one of our journals.

The quickest way to be invited to review a manuscript for IOP Publishing is to complete our free Peer Review Excellence online training course. The course takes 1–2 hours to complete and will provide you with the skills and confidence to be an excellent reviewer. You can read more about the Peer Review Excellence course here.

 

For more information about reviewing for IOP Publishing please visit our Publishing Support homepage for reviewers or see our Reviewer Guide.