HV: Research : SCS Transactions

Referee's Instructions for SCS Transactions on Simulation

With a new editor-in-chief (Bernard Zeigler), the journal now has a more well defined scope. In contrast to the Simulation Journal, the Transactions will focus on articles that are methodological in nature and whose application to general modeling and simulation issues is clear. In particular, purely mathematical, computational, or empirical results, however valuable, are considered more appropriate to the many journals specializing in these areas.

As referee, you have the most important task of all: enabling us to produce a timely, high quality forum for research. Your work will be acknowledged in an annual listing, but the greatest reward is the ability to learn first hand of results of interest to you and the role you play in shaping the progress of the field. Once you receive the manuscript we will expect feedback from you within 45 days. Only evaluations received within this time window will be considered further in the process. Some ways to meet this deadline are suggested below.

Please keep the following in mind when evaluating a paper.

• Is the content of the paper, independent of the manner in which it currently expressed, worth publishing from the standpoint of contribution to the methodology of modeling and simulation?
• If not, recommend rejection and state why the content is unworthy. This will speed up our turnaround time back to the author.
• If yes, but there is one glaring problem, you may skip the rest of the evaluation since the problem needs to be corrected before anything else. In this case, state the problem with some cogent evidence and recommend rewriting the whole paper and resubmitting. This again will speed the turnaround to the author.
• Otherwise, recommend acceptance (usually with revisions), and state what has to be done to bring the paper up to the standard of quality publication? Attached are some points to consider at this stage.

You may write up your comments in any form you wish for use by the author in revising the paper. Please provide specific citations of the literature or handles on it wherever you can. For example, instead of saying "this has all been done before", give a concrete reference to the earlier work. Remember a major function of refereeing is to expand the perspectives of the author and thereby to enable us all to appreciate the contribution. We will also allow the author to request clarification of points (through an anonymous process).

Some points to consider in evaluating a manuscript for SCS Transactions:

• Title -- would it attract the interest, and not mislead, a person scanning a list or references?
• Abstract -- would it accurately convey the contents to a browser in an abstracts information service?
• Introduction -- does it properly position the contribution of the paper within the existing literature of modeling and simulation methodology? Does it consider that many readers will not be experts in the specific problem area and provide explanation of such background.
• Content -- Does the body provide a good technical exposition, Should the paper be made more readable and more convincing about its general applicability. For example should it:
  • hide in an appendix, or omit altogether, long mathematical expressions and proofs in favor of conceptual explanations with the help of figures
  • use a simple example, taken from a real application context, to illustrate the approach. The context of the example should be described and illustrated with figures in the introduction. The example itself should be used in each section to illustrate the main idea of that section.
  • include a section that demonstates the results of the approach applied to the example, and perhaps to more complex examples
  • discuss the practicality of the approach, review the advantages/disadvantages in comparison with existing methodology, and indicate where future research and development needs to be done, not just for the sake of mathematics, but for actual application.
• Language -- is the paper acceptable from the perspective of English grammar, style and spelling.? If not, give an example of such a problem and how it might be corrected.