An online peer review process is used through Manuscript Central. The overall peer review process is summarized with the following steps.

1. Author submits paper
2. Administrator checks that electronic file is readable and conformal to the author's guideline and then passes it to Editor-in-Chief
3. Editor-in-Chief runs the cross-reference check via professional similarity check software, and, if passed, asks an editor to conduct review process
4. The assigned editor checks for scope and conflict of interest
5. The assigned editor requests reviewers
6. The assigned editor passes information to reviewers that agree to review paper
7. Reviewers review paper
8. The assigned editor collects reviews
9. The assigned editor notifies reviewers that did not send in a review that their help is no longer needed
10. The assigned editor makes a preliminary decision
11. Editor-in-chief reviews preliminary decision. If approved, a letter is sent to author with a copy to the assigned editor. Separate emails sent to each reviewer with decision and copies of all reviews. If preliminary decision is not approved, the paper is returned to The assigned editor with explanation of what to do next
12. If paper is accepted or rejected, then no further action needed
13. If the decision is "accept with minor revisions" or "reconsider, major revisions," then the author may submit a revised paper, response to reviewers, and response to editor-in-chief. When this occurs, the assigned editor is informed via an automatic email
14. The assigned editor decides whether second round of review is needed. If so, the author passes information to the reviewers. For reviewers of the original paper, step 5 is skipped. However, step 6 must be performed (using the "agreed" button in the tool at Manuscript Central).
15. Steps 8 and 9 are repeated for the revised paper.
    

For a "correction" item, you may evaluate the validity of the correction without outside review, or you may send it out for one or more reviews. For "comments" and "reply" items, the following apply:

1. Ideally, one of the authors of the item being commented on should be assigned as a reviewer. This author should ideally be the submitting author of the item being commented on. To minimize compromising the anonymity of this reviewer, at least one independent reviewer should also be assigned.
2. Once the comments item is accepted, the submitting author of the item being commented on needs to be invited by the assigned editor to submit a reply within a reasonable amount of time (2 months). The reply should be submitted as a correspondence item using the online tool. The editor-in-chief will assign this reply to the same assigned editor that handled the comments item. The assigned editor should review the reply, as well as the same independent reviewer used for the comments item.
3. The Publishing Editor will wait to publish both the comments and the reply items together.

Note that the submitting author for the paper being commented on can be determined from the online tool by the editor-in-chief. The submitting author may delegate responsibility of the reply to another of the authors. The submitted author may choose not to replay at all.

Receiving a Paper
First Review Cycle
What to Send to Reviewers
Special Considerations
Author Inquiries
Frequently Asked Questions
Acknowledgements

The Transactions on Vehicular Technology are published by the IEEE and sponsored by VTS

Modified:  June 2017