IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - May 2022 - 49

News & Information
DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2022.3165003
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IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems: A Success Story
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Michael Rice , Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
INTRODUCTION
When I joined the Aerospace and Electronic Systems
Society (AESS) Board of Governors in 2016, the AESS
Vice President for Publications, Dale Blair, made it one of
the AESS goals to see the journal impact factor (JIF) for
IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems
(TAES) reach the 2.0 mark. At the time, the TAES JIF
was 1.975 and the goal seemed attainable.
When I became the TAES Editor-in-Chief in 2018, the
TAES impact factor was 2.063 (this is the 2017 number,
the latest available at the time). I also learned that the
TAES review process was slow: TAES had the third-longest
average time to first decision in all IEEE! This is not
a criticism of my predecessors. Several significant administrative
changes-the move to online-only submissions
and the adoption of a web-based manuscript management
system, the implementation of IEEE-mandated term limits
for all editors, and a change in publisher, to name a few-
consumed my immediate three predecessors. By the time I
became Editor-in-Chief, TAES was in a position to tackle
the issue of time to the first decision.
In 2018, the AESS Vice President for Publications,
Maria Sabrina Greco, made it a top priority to reduce the
time to the first decision for TAES. This short article
documents the efforts to reduce the average time to the
first decision, the average time to publication, and the
impact we believe these efforts had on the TAES JIF.
REDUCING TIME TO FIRST DECISION
All reviewers are unpaid volunteers who devote hours of
service to reading and commenting on submissions.
Many, especially those working in private industry or in
research laboratories, perform this service on their own
time. All professionals are busy, and many of us are
Authors' current address: Michael Rice, Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Brigham Young
University, Provo, UT 84602, USA (e-mail: mdr@byu.edu).
Manuscript received March 18, 2022; accepted April 2,
2022, and ready for publication April 2, 2022.
Review handled by Daniel O'Hagan.
0885-8985/22/$26.00 ß 2022 IEEE
MAY 2022
overworked. For this reason, reducing review times can be
tricky. Even so, reducing the time to the first decision benefits
everyone. Authors receive feedback and an eventual
final decision sooner, reviewers benefit by the shorter
interval between their reviews of the initial submission
and its revision, and the time to publication is reduced for
accepted manuscripts. Reducing the time to publication
benefits the readers of the journal; because publication of
important work occurs closer to the time of its completion,
journal content is more relevant to contemporary issues.
We introduced eight changes to the review process in
TAES over the past five years in an attempt to reduce the
time to the first decision. These changes are described in
the following paragraphs.
The first change made to the TAES review process
was to shorten the time given to both reviewers and to
authors. The review times were shortened from 60 to 45
days. The revision deadline for authors who were invited
submits revisions for a second round of evaluations was
shortened from 90 to 45 days.
The second change addressed the three most important
elements of editorship: training, training, and training. We
held training sessions to familiarize associate editors with
TAES policies and procedures. This was especially important
for newly appointed associate editors. The training
proved important in two significant ways. First, it presented
an opportunity for editors to ask questions, often
quite specific, about the procedure, policy, and terminology.
We often adopt, as our own terminology, the jargon
of the manuscript management system. The jargon sometimes
means nothing to editors new to the process. Consequently,
policies that rely on this jargon are often opaque.
Second, it gave us a much better understanding of what
policies were not clear and where improved explanations
were needed. We used this information to update our policies
and procedure documents. When properly trained,
associate editors are better equipped to navigate nonideal
situations and to use more effectively the feedback
obtained from the review process.
The third change was to establish a process to quickly
identify manuscripts that have fallen behind schedule. The
messages to the associate editors of these manuscripts
range from a gentle reminder to an offer of help. In some
instances, associate editors have difficulties identifying
IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
49
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5150-4792
IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - May 2022

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