Peer review policy for Journal of Physics: Conference Series

Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS) asks Conference Organisers to handle the peer review of all papers and the detailed procedures will vary from event to event according to the custom and practice of each community.

To support and enhance the peer review process for large conferences, JPCS has licensed a commercial peer review management system called Editorial Manager™, which is used by thousands of journals worldwide. By arrangement, large international conferences are provided with a dedicated Editorial Manager conference submission and peer review web site.

All conferences are requested to adhere to the following minimum standards:

• Unbiased consideration is given to all manuscripts offered for publication in the proceedings regardless of race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy of the authors.
• Conference papers should meet all the usual standards of quality for an IOP Publishing journal. However, referees should take into account the conference nature of the articles and so consider background papers more favourably than would be normal for a regular journal paper. These allowances should not go so far as to approve papers of low scientific standard or papers that have been published in written form elsewhere. Review papers are also welcomed and accepted.
• Referees should give a clear statement of recommendation for each paper and supply comments to support their recommendation suitable for transmission to the author.

It will be of great help to the Conference Organisers if referees could consider the following key points related to scientific content, quality and presentation.

Technical
1. Scientific merit: notably scientific rigour, accuracy and correctness.
2. Clarity of expression; communication of ideas; readability and discussion of concepts.
3. Sufficient discussion of the context of the work, and suitable referencing.

Quality
1. Originality: Is the work relevant and novel?
2. Motivation: Does the problem considered have a sound motivation? All papers should clearly demonstrate the scientific interest of the results.
3. Repetition: Have significant parts of the manuscript already been published?
4. Length: Is the content of the work of sufficient scientific interest to justify its length?

Presentation
1. Title: Is it adequate and appropriate for the content of the article?
2. Abstract: Does it contain the essential information of the article? Is it complete? Is it suitable for inclusion by itself in an abstracting service?
3. Diagrams, figures, tables and captions: Are they essential and clear?
4. Text and mathematics: Are they brief but still clear? If you recommend shortening, please suggest what should be omitted.
5. Conclusion: Does the paper contain a carefully written conclusion, summarizing what has been learned and why it is interesting and useful?