Biomedical Engineering Letters - Purpose and Editorial Process of Topical Issues

Purpose of Special Issues (Topical Issues)

Biomedical Engineering Letters runs special issues to create collections of papers focusing on specific area of research that has a broad appeal and falls within the aims and scope of Biomedical Engineering Letters. The purpose of publishing special issues in Biomedical Engineering Letters is to provide authors and readers with the opportunity to review specific research topics, propose and develop new approaches, exchange perspectives, and encourage new line of research in the field of biomedical engineering. 

Editorial Process of Special Issues

There are two ways to choose the topic of a special issue and the guest editor for each special issue. 

1. The editorial board of Biomedical Engineering Letters selects the topics for the next year's special issues, and the guest editors for each topic are chosen by the editorial board considering potential guest editors’ research achievements, reputation in the field, and future potential. 
2. Proposals for special issues and guest editors received irregularly are evaluated by editorial board considering the importance and timeliness of the proposed special issue topics if the proposed topic is within the aims and scope of Biomedical Engineering Letters. Again in this case, the proposed guests editors are evaluated in terms of the research achievements, reputation in the field, and future potential.  

After the subject of the special issue and the guest editors are decided, the editor-in-chief and guest editors determine whether to organize a special issue with only invited papers or to collect papers through on call-for-paper. The guest editors drafts the call-for-paper if necessary. 

The editor-in-chief assigns the role of associate editor to two or more guest editors, and the assigned guest editors select the reviewers and recommend the review results (‘accepted’, ‘minor revision’, ‘major revision’ or ‘rejected’) to the editor-in-chief based on the reviewers’ paper evaluation. The editor-in-chief makes the final decision. The editor-in-chief directly handle the paper submitted by the guest editor or requests other guest editor or editorial board member to handle paper. All special issue papers, including invited review papers, go through the same review process as other regular papers, and are sent to two or more reviewers for evaluation.

Special Issue Publication

Each issue of the Biomedical Engineering letters of the month with a special issue contents consists of 5~8 special issue papers and 2~5 regular papers.

Volume 8, Number 2 - example of Special Issue Publication