Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) - Topical Collections - Information for Guest Editors

Submitting a topical collection proposal

When making a proposal for a topical collection (or theme) of the CSCW Journal, the Guest Editor(s) should send the following information to the Editors-in-Chief, Kjeld Schmidt and Myriam Lewkowicz (for contact information, see the last section).

The full addresses (incl. email addresses) of the Guest Editor(s). In the case of more than one Guest Editor will be involved, one of the Guest Editors should act as the Assigning Editor (Guest Editors who see all manuscripts submitted to the collection, assign collection manuscripts to their fellow guest editors and make recommendations for all decisions).
The schedule, i.e., date for the call for manuscripts (if any), submission deadline, deadline for decisions, deadline for revised versions, and, most importantly, the deadline for handing over the complete revised manuscript for production.
- NB: In devising the schedule, one should expect that refereeing takes about two months and may require repeated and sometimes strong reminders.... And when asking authors to revise manuscripts, tell them to do it in no more than 4 weeks.

The Editors-in-Chief will inform the Guest Editor(s) of whether or not the proposal is accepted. From this point, the deadline for handing over the complete revised manuscript for production is a professional commitment, as delays may upset the journal's production schedule.

If a collection is to be offered as a follow-up to a conference or a workshop, Guest Editors are responsible for ensuring that the contents of the manuscripts submitted to the collection differ significantly from the conference manuscripts (we expect roughly 30% new content). Any potential copyright and self-plagiarism issues have to be avoided in advance. Extended manuscripts to be published on the collection should contain a specific note referencing the conference manuscript and providing information about the extended content.

Issuing a call for manuscripts

If a Call for Manuscripts (CfM) is to be issued, please make sure it gives the names, affiliations, and email addresses of the board of Guest Editors.

For configuring the CSCW Journal’s editorial workflow system (SNAPP) to support the collection, we will need to know a short title for the collection. This way, we will be able to create a special “Article Type Name” in SNAPP, so that authors, when submitting, will be able to identify their manuscripts as contributions to that collection. Please include this article type name in the CfM.

In the CfM, do not commit yourself to a fixed number of articles. If the number of high-quality articles exceeds 4-5, or if you do not meet the target of 4-5 article, we will find a solution. The aimed-for size of the special issue is to be agreed upon between the Editors-in-Chief and the Guest Editor(s).

In the CfM, please point to the Journal’s Instruction for Authors and emphasize that all submissions must adhere to the journal standard format for citations, references, etc. (https://www.springer.com/journal/10606 (this opens in a new tab)). If you include a list of references in the CfM (which may be very helpful), please make sure it is formatted in accordance with the Journal's standard (Chicago Author-Date).

Editing the special issue

General principles

Submitted manuscripts will be subjected to Springer’s standard quality assurance control before being assigned to editors. This process checks all manuscripts for possible technical deficiencies (author names, etc.), possible overlap with other publications (e.g., plagiarism), and so on. This may take up to a week but is a useful resource for editors.

Guest Editors appoint reviewers, correspond with authors and reviewers, and make the decision about acceptance/rejection of manuscripts.

The CSCW Journal’s norm is to have (at least) three reviewers. You should invite authors of submitted manuscripts to also act as reviewers. Since there is no a priori limit to the number of manuscripts that can be accepted for a collection, authors would not have a conflict. Guest editors may also want to step in as reviewers.

When inviting reviewers, it is advisable to aim to have the different relevant paradigms or research approaches represented.

Do not process the review and revise process in batch mode. That is, when a manuscript has been reviewed and revised and can be accepted for publication, please do not postpone the decision until the other manuscripts in the pipeline have been processed. Instead, make the decisions as manuscripts mature. This way, congestion in the production workflow is avoided (and articles can be published online and read on the journal’s homepage and then assigned to an issue).

If a Guest Editor is also a (co-)author of a submitted manuscript, the policy is that such manuscripts are assigned to the Editors-in-Chief who then either handle the review process or ask an associate editor to do it. The Guest Editor(s) will of course be blinded to the process. When (or if) the manuscript in question has been accepted for publication, the Guest Editors will have to decide, as a collective, if the manuscript is relevant for the collection. The rationale is straightforward: The CSCW Journal does not want to be accused of allowing collections to be an easy way for Guest Editors to score journal articles.

Using the Peer Review System "SNAPP"

Guest editors must use the journal's peer review system SNAPP for the review process (reminders and all). The Journal Editorial Office (see contact at the end of the document) is the contact point for any help regarding the system.

Snapp Campus (this opens in a new tab) is the place where Guest Editors can find detailed information and guiding through the peer review process
- Assess suitability
- Finding reviewers
- Making a decision recommendation.

Every Guest Editor will receive an individual login for Snapp. The Assigning Editor will be responsible for assigning manuscripts to the other Guest Editors. All Guest Editors will be expected to handle and distribute manuscript assignments among the reviewers that they will select.

Inviting reviewers

We recommend inviting three reviewers immediately and then setting up a further three as alternate reviewers. Reviewers selected as alternate reviewers can be invited if an invited reviewer declines, Unresponsive reviewers do not need to be uninvited, no reminders will be sent to them.
If your chosen reviewer is not already registered within the journal database, you can add a new reviewer and invite them to review. Before an email is sent to your reviewer, you have the options to:

Edit the invitation letter by selecting Customize. This is useful if you want to ask the referee to answer a specific question about the manuscript you are inviting them to review.
You can also alter the number of Days to Review.
Once ready, click Confirm Selections and Proceed to send the invitation letters.

We recommend you to add the text of the CfM for you collection (or at least the scope of it) in your invitation, so that the reviewers are aware of the topic of the collection while writing their reviews.

Authorship Change Request Form

It is not uncommon for the authorship to change during the revisions of a manuscript, however we require that all authors submit an Authorship Change Request Form when making changes to the authorship. Whenever a change is made after a revision, the Journal Editorial Office will reach out to the authors and ensure they fill out the form and this will then be sent to you for approval. We ask you to check the authorship changes, making sure the additions/removals are justified and the signatures look valid. If you have any concerns or queries, please contact the Editors-in-Chief for advice, especially if there are considerable changes, e.g., if several authors are removed or added. We do not permit any changes to authorship after acceptance, and this includes manuscripts that have received an “accept but incomplete” decision or similar.

Making a Decision

Reject Decisions

When rejecting a manuscript, whether before or after peer-review, it is important to provide authors with reasons for rejection and feedback that they can work on in future. We therefore ask you always to provide comments for the authors when rejecting manuscripts explaining your reasoning.

For manuscripts that are scientifically sound, but do not fall within the scope of the journal, there are two reject decision terms for the journal:

Reject (and transfer). This should be used for any out of scope manuscripts, or those that do not meet the high novelty requirements of the journal
Reject – do not transfer. This should be used for any manuscripts where you have ethical concerns about the manuscript or for manuscripts that obviously do meet the requirements of archival publication.

Accept Decisions

Accept recommendations should be made on the basis of at least one round of review, three robust and independent reviewer reports, and your own reading of the manuscript. These recommendations will be passed back to the Editors-in-Chief, for their ultimate decision. They will send the final decision to the authors via SNAPP.

A manuscript is only to be Accepted when it can be handed over to production without further revisions or amendments; that is, only when the Guest Editors are satisfied that all requests, recommendations, and suggestions made by the reviewers have been addressed to the Guest Editors satisfaction.

A manuscript is furthermore only to be Accepted when the manuscript is in accordance with the journal’s formatting standard as defined in the Instructions for Authors.

You should be aware that a reviewer might flag an issue not raised by the other reviewer(s) because they have more expertise in a particular aspect. If there are any issues you would like the authors to focus on, that have not been raised by the reviewers, you can add your comments on top of the ones from the reviewers. If you want to communicate particular comments to the Editors-in-chief, you can enter the comments in the ‘Confidential Comments to Editor’ box when submitting your recommendation, above any confidential comments made by reviewers and label them as your own.

Publication

Guest Editors are welcome to submit a preface/editorial for the collection once all manuscripts are accepted, and can liaise with the Editors-in-Chief and Publishing Editor regarding the requirements for this.

Once the Editors-in-Chief have accepted the manuscripts, they are transmitted to the publisher’s production department.

Please note that color figures and images are reproduced free of charge in electronic form. There is a page charge for color in print and for Open Access, please visit the journal homepage for more information.

When the collection appears in print, the title and names of the Guest Editors will appear on the cover and the contents page.

Key Contacts

Editor-in-Chief: Kjeld Schmidt (schmidt@cscw.dk)

Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Myriam Lewkowicz (myriam.lewkowicz@utt.fr)

Editorial Manager, Journal Editorial Office: Adrian Pagaduan (adrian.pagaduan@springernature.com)

Publishing Editors: Amin Fatemi (amin.fatemi@springernature.com) and Annette Hinze (annette.hinze@springer.com)

These guidelines can also be downloaded in PDF format here (this opens in a new tab)