Information for JAIR Authors Working Document -- Last Updated 6/24/97 Compiled by Steven Minton Send questions/comments to jair-editor@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov This information sheet is for authors interested in submitting to JAIR. Because the journal is still evolving, some of our policies may evolve as well. This is the first fully-refereed electronic journal in artificial intelligence and we expect to learn some things as we begin publishing. Please consider this a "working document". I - ABOUT JAIR General information about JAIR is available via our World Wide Web home page at http://www.jair.org/ You can also obtain information by anonymous FTP from P.GP.CS.CMU.EDU in the file /usr/jair/pub/help.doc or from FTP.MRG.DIST.UNIGE.IT in the file pub/jair/pub/help.doc. This file can also be obtained by sending a message to jair@cs.cmu.edu with the subject "autorespond" and the body "help". Or you can contact jair-ed@isi.edu if you prefer to correspond with a human being (but please try the automated methods first). II - SUBMISSIONS JAIR will only publish articles of the highest quality. Submissions will be evaluated on their originality and significance. We invite submissions in all areas of AI, including automated reasoning, cognitive modeling, knowledge representation, learning, natural language, neural networks, perception, and robotics. We strongly encourage authors to be concise. Short, high-quality articles will be welcomed, in addition to the more lengthy articles that traditionally appear in AI journals. JAIR will also publish research notes and survey articles. Research notes are very brief papers that extend or evaluate previous work. Survey articles can be either tutorials or literature reviews, but they should contribute an analysis or perspective that advances our understanding of the subject matter. Authors should describe work that is interesting to a broad spectrum of AI researchers, including theoreticians and system builders. All claims should be clearly articulated and supported either by empirical experiments or theoretical analyses. When appropriate, authors are encouraged to implement their work and to demonstrate its utility on significant problems; any experiments reported should be reproducible. Papers describing systems should clearly describe the contributions or the principles underlying the system. Papers describing theoretical results should also discuss their practical utility. In general, it should be clear how the work advances the current state of understanding and why the advance matters. Papers should report on what was learned in doing the work, rather than merely on what was done. Authors must clearly acknowledge the contributions of their predecessors. If a paper introduces new terminology or techniques, it should also explain why current terminology or techniques are insufficient. Authors should not needlessly reinvent terminology and techniques. Submissions must be original. The work cannot have previously been published or be pending publication in another journal, and submissions cannot be under review by any other forum. We will, however, publish work that has previously been reported in conferences or workshops. If the work has appeared in an "archival" conference, such as AAAI or IJCAI, we would expect the submission to extend the conference paper; normally we will not publish the conference paper as is. Authors must notify the editor about previous or pending conference publication at the time of submission to JAIR. Articles may be accompanied by online appendices containing data, demonstrations, instructions for obtaining source code, or the source code itself (if appropriate). We strongly encourage authors to submit such appendices along with their papers. (Note: if an online appendix contains source code, we will require you to sign a release form prior to publication to reduce our potential liability.) If a paper is accepted, the editor and reviewers may require minor revisions. The author should return the revised paper as soon as possible. Normally we expect revisions to be completed in 3 months or less. Upon receiving a revised paper, the editor may ask the reviewers to re-review the revised paper. If a paper requires substantial revisions, it will not be accepted. In this case, the editor may recommend that the author submit a revised version, but there is no guarantee it will be published. A paper may be revised and resubmitted at most once. After a paper is accepted, authors will be required to transfer copyright of the article to the publishers. The article cannot be reprinted in another publication without the publisher's permission. The Review Process To promote rapid publication of research results, articles sent to JAIR will be reviewed and returned to the authors in approximately seven weeks. If an article is longer than usual, or the article is submitted prior to a major conference (IJCAI, AAAI or the main conference in the subfield for which the article is intended), we may require more time for the review. In this case, authors will be notified of the required review period by email after we receive their article. Normally, authors will be given up to three months to accomplish their revisions. Electronic publication will occur immediately after we receive the final version of an accepted article. Our plans for a rapid turnaround time on reviewing/publication are a considerable departure from the standard practice in current AI journals, where articles are often published more than two years after their initial submission. We have modified the standard reviewing procedure in several respects in order to speed up the process. For instance, the process will be conducted via electronic communication whenever possible. Also, editorial board members have agreed to review papers within the required deadlines. Nevertheless, to be successful, we also require the help of additional reviewers who support our goals. The editorial board is listed at the end of this document. Membership on the editorial board is a two-year commitment. Formatting Authors are responsible for formatting their papers in PostScript. (Professional services are available if the author does not have the proper software.) JAIR will electronically distribute multiple versions of a paper, including a PostScript version and an ASCII text version. The text version will normally be the source file used to create the PostScript version (e.g., a Latex file), and need not include the figures since we assume it will be used primarily for text search. We also strongly encourage authors to submit an HTML version of their article to accompany the "official" PostScript article. The HTML version should be identical in content to the PostScript article. You may find the Latex2HTML translator helpful (See the URL http://cbl.leeds.ac.uk/nikos/tex2html/doc/latex2html/latex2html.html For a guide as to what the HTML article should look like, see the HTML version of Schlimmer and Hermens' article in JAIR Volume 1.) For the review process authors are required to submit a PostScript file, an ASCII text file containing the abstract, and if they wish, a source file. Currently, the PostScript file is required to be less than 1.5 Megabytes in order for us to process it. After a paper is accepted, authors will be given formatting instructions and a sample paper. In addition, we will distribute macros for several different document preparation systems, including Latex and FrameMaker. (Authors may request the formatting instructions and macros prior to submission. We also plan to issue guidelines for producing PostScript files so that they will be compatible with most printers/previewers.) The editorial staff will assist in the final preparation, but the primary responsibility for proper formatting lies with the author. The editorial staff can recommend professionals who will provide this service for a fee. To Submit To submit a paper authors should email the following to jair-editor@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov: - a cover letter which includes the authors' email and physical addresses. - an ascii text file containing the abstract of the paper. Also include the authors' names and their email addresses. - a PostScript file containing the paper. The first page of the paper should include the title and the authors' names and email addresses. Currently, we require that the PostScript file be less than 1.5 Megabytes in order to process it. The PostScript file must contain the entire article in a single file. - (optionally) a source file (e.g Latex file). If there are multiple source files, such as files containing figures, just mail the main source file. If there is no single source file that makes sense to mail, or there is no readily available source file for your document prepration system, don't worry about it. - (optionally) files containing online appendices. Each of the above should be mailed in a separate message. If the Postscript file is very large, rather than emailing it, we would prefer if you would make the file available via anonymous FTP, and give us the address in your cover letter. You should receive a reply from us confirming that we have received your submission. If you don't get a confirmation message back within three business days, please check with us. If a paper includes empirical experiments, the data can be published in an online appendix. Similarly, source, code, or instructions for obtaining code can also be published in an appendix. As noted above, we strongly encourage authors to submit such appendices along with their paper. For each appendix, the author should email a separate file along with their paper. We strongly encourage authors to use standard fonts (such as Times Roman) in their submissions to reduce potential problems in printing their paper. Once a paper is accepted, authors will be required to format their paper for publication, but this is not necessary for submission. Nevertheless, if they wish, authors can obtain formatting instructions and macros from our WWW sites or by anonymous FTP from P.GP.CS.CMU.EDU in the directory /usr/jair/pub/information/format or from FTP.MRG.DIST.UNIGE.IT in the directory pub/jair/pub/information/format. Because of our quick turnaround time, authors may be tempted to "test the waters" with papers that are less than they should be. We request that authors only submit papers that have been carefully proofread and polished. Papers that are clearly unacceptable will be returned by the editor without being reviewed. Authors must notify the editor if their submission has been previously published elsewhere or is submitted for publication elsewhere during the JAIR review/publication process, so as to ensure that JAIR's standards for originality (see submission requirements above) are adhered to. After Publication Authors may publish "forward pointers" to subsequent articles on the same topic by contacting the executive editor.