Policy On Special Tracks

JAIR will occasionally publish special tracks or virtual collections. Each special track will have a separate page on JAIR's web site that includes a preface written by the editors of the special track, a table of contents and links to the papers. The papers included in the special track will be handled by its editors, but they will go to production and appear online asynchronously as soon as they are ready. Once the papers designated for the special track are published, the virtual collection will be created.

Procedures

  1. Special tracks can be proposed by a group of editors that include at least one current or former JAIR Associate Editor, which will serve as the "contact editor" for the special track.
  2. A written proposal for a special track should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief, outlining the motivation for, intended content, timetable and editors of the special track. The proposal will be circulated to JAIR's Advisory Board and Associate Editors for comment. A final decision will be made by the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor-in-Chief within one month of the proposal submission.
  3. Once selected, the editors of the special track will be responsible for advertising the call for papers and setting up a period of time during which papers can be submitted. This period will include the earliest time and deadline for submission of papers to be considered for the special track. This information should be clearly indicated in the call for papers.
  4. All the papers submitted to a special track will be submitted via the normal web-based process. Each paper should clearly identify the special track it is submitted for in a note under "Special information for editors" on the submission form.
  5. Papers submitted to a special track will be assigned in JAIR's tracking system to the contact editor of the special track, who will coordinate their handling with the other editors.
  6. The editors of a special track may co-author some of the submissions, but these submissions will be assigned to an Associated Editor who is not editing the special track.
  7. The review process will be conducted following the usual procedure (with reviewer selection and acceptance decisions made by the editors of the special track and coordinated by the contact editor). The standard JAIR policies and form letters should be used. JAIR will keep track of the process and send reminders to the reviewers as done with all other papers. The turn-around period for JAIR papers is between 2-3 months and we expect it to remain the same for papers submitted to special tracks.
  8. Decisions will conform to the usual JAIR standards, with at most two rounds of reviewing. Papers that require a major revision will not be accepted, but the authors could be encouraged to resubmit the paper. While we usually don't limit the time period for major revisions, in the case of a special track, authors will get no more than a few months to resubmit the paper. The exact period will be determined by the editors of the special track.
  9. Accepted papers will go to production and will be published as soon as they are ready. Papers will be published first as part of a usual JAIR pipeline and placed online.
  10. As soon as all the bulk of the papers designated for a special track are published, the editors will provide a preface, and the virtual collection will be created. The appearance of the virtual collection will be announced together with the usual JAIR's announcements of newly published papers. Papers submitted for the special track that are still under review when the virtual collection appears will be added when they are published.