Editorial Workflow

JIS operates under a single anonymous peer-review system. Reviewers are aware of authors' names and affiliations, but review reports provided to authors are anonymous. 

Publication of research papers by JIS depends primarily on their scientific quality and contribution as judged by our external expert editors and peer reviewers. The review process will also assess whether the writing is comprehensible and whether the work represents a valuable contribution to the field.

Submitted manuscripts are generally reviewed by at least three experts. Reviewers evaluate whether the manuscript helps the scientific community advance its capacity to deal with a clear and relevant research problem, whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, whether the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication, and whether it meets the ethical standards adopted by the journal and defined by the Brazilian Computer Society. Reviewers will also be asked to indicate how interesting and significant the research is. Editors will reach a decision based on these reports, and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board.

JIS has no Article Processing Charges (APC) or charges for authors and readers.

Workflow

JIS operates in a continuous flow process: submissions can be made at any time, and as soon as a paper gets accepted and the Editorial Committee approves its camera-ready version, it receives a DOI number and is published online. ORCID registration is mandatory to authenticate the authors' identity. Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions. Submissions typically go through the following steps:

  1. Pre-analysis by the Editorial Board: submissions are analyzed by the Editors-in-Chief (EC) according to the journal guidelines to authors and are desk rejected if they do not meet the journal requirements (e.g., incomplete or out-of-scope submission). If a submission is rejected at this stage, authors are notified, and the submission is archived.

  2. Analysis by an Editor: if approved in step 1, EC will assign the submission to a responsible editor (RE) who will analyze whether the submission is ready to be sent for review. The RE may require complementary materials or changes in the submission files before proceeding to step 3. Submissions may also be rejected at this stage if the RE judges they are not ready for the review process.

  3. Review: manuscripts are generally reviewed by three independent experts who will appreciate the submission (see the Evaluation Criteria suggested to reviewers below) and make a recommendation (e.g., accept, reject, resubmit). When more information is necessary, or recommendations from experts do not converge, the RE may change or add new reviewers.

  4. Editorial Decision: based on the comments from reviewers, the RE will conduct a meta-review and make an editorial decision: i) accepting, ii) rejecting, or iii) resubmitting. When the submission is accepted, the authors will receive instructions to prepare the camera-ready version of their manuscript (step 5). When the submission is rejected, the authors receive a notification with the editorial decision, and the submission is archived. When the submission must be resubmitted, authors must revise their submission considering the review round's feedback and submit a new version along with a cover letter answering the comments from reviewers and explaining the changes made. Although a submission usually goes to two or three review rounds, the RE will send the submission to as many review rounds (step 3) as necessary until a final editorial decision (acceptance or rejection) is made.

  5. Copyediting: once a submission is accepted, authors receive the information to produce the camera-ready version, including a DOI number that will be assigned to the paper. The EC will verify whether all the recommendations from the RE and the reviewers were addressed and whether the journal template is properly adopted. Authors are required to have an ORCID number and are invited to share supplementary materials. The submission will be approved by the EC only after meeting all the journal publication criteria. Therefore, the Editors-in-Chief may reject the submission at this stage if the authors fail to meet the journal publishing criteria. See the Camera Ready Checklist section below.

  6. Production and Publication: after approval by the EC the paper is published online in PDF and openly accessible with all the supplementary materials provided by the authors. The submission is archived and the DOI is sent to deposit. After this moment, any changes required by authors must follow the journal's Post-Publication policies. 

  7. Indexing: after the DOI is deposited (within 30 days after publication) the paper is registered at DOAJ and authors receive a notification. 

JIS depends on its editorial board and reviewers' dedicated and high-quality voluntary work. Therefore, the editorial process will take as much time as needed based on the quality of the submitted work and the availability of the editorial workforce. Considering the editorial activities since 2020, the average days are:

  • First editorial decision (i.e., desk reject, send to review): 18 days
  • Reject submission: 204 days
  • Accept submission: 221 days
  • Publication after acceptance: 28 days
  • DOI deposit: 15 days

While JIS strives to provide timely answers to authors, guaranteeing a transparent and rigorous process is the journal’s priority. JIS is also committed to educating and supporting authors, reviewers, and editors toward more rigorous, critical, and ethical practices. 

Evaluation Criteria

In addition to the Authors Guidelines, JIS provides the following guidance to reviewers.

“For each submission, authors must have presented a cover letter pointing out the research problem their paper is approaching and the main contribution it is offering to our capacity to understand, solve, or deal with the problem. The cover letter must also list up to the five key original contributions the paper offers to the scientific community.

Dear reviewer, based on your expertise, please evaluate this submission regarding:
- Presentation quality, including English style.
- Problem and solution clarity, originality, and relevance.
- Rigour: submissions must be clear regarding how rigor was applied to research design, development, and analysis.
- Reproducibility: submission must present authors' critical thinking and discussions, offering everything readers need to reproduce the work or to understand the research rationale. The use of AI-generated content must be properly acknowledged.
- Responsibility: the reported work must be seen through the lens of social responsibility, mainly regarding ethical concerns. Authors must comply with the Brazilian Computer Society's Code of Conduct.
- Relevant work is properly cited: articles may neglect relevant references from women, researchers from developing countries (e.g., the ones from the Brazilian Computer Society) and underrepresented groups, small journals and conferences.
- If the submission is an extended version of a conference paper, at least 40% new material must be provided (more is welcome), and the cover letter must indicate how the authors have extended the paper and why it constitutes a worthwhile extension of the original work.

Please, leave your comments to support editors to make a decision regarding this submission and support authors to improve their work.”

The review form also requests reviewers to analyze the submission's alignment with Open Science practices, adding to the research's reproducibility. Reviewers can contact the RE and the EC at any time during the review process and provide confidential information relevant to the review process.

Reviewers are requested to declare that they have no conflict of interest with the submitted work or its authors and declare that they will not use, divulge, or reproduce any part of the evaluated content before its publication. 

Camera Ready Checklist

When a submission is accepted, authors are required to prepare the camera-ready version of their paper following these general instructions:

  1. Comply with all suggestions and recommendations from the review stages and follow the JIS 2024 LaTex template.
  2. Check the ORCID number both in SOL and in the article PDF file: the OJS system sends an email with a link to authenticate the ORCID account; without this authentication by all the authors, the paper cannot be published.
  3. Update the article header with year, volume, and issue metadata: Journal on Interactive Systems, <year>, <volume>.
  4. Insert the DOI number of the article in the first-page header: <DOI>.
  5. Include the key dates for your submission: Received •Accepted • Published. The Editors will provide you with this information in a discussion message. Contact them if you do not receive it. 
  6. Update the header from the second page with the article title (short if necessary) on the left side and authors' last names on the right side (use first author + "et al." for more than three authors).
  7. Check whether references are correct and complete: authors' names, year of publication, title of the work, vehicle, page numbers, and DOI are essential data for the correct citation. Ensure that every work is correctly identified with the primary information.
  8. Ensure representativeness in your bibliography: articles may neglect relevant references from women, researchers from developing countries, and underrepresented groups.
  9. Background: the submission must be duly situated within the context of relevant related works already available on the main databases and journals, including JIS and SOL.
  10. Update your article metadata in the system: authors' information, article's title, abstract, keywords, and references must be precisely the same both in the pdf file and the system. 
  11. Publish other files and complementary research materials: JIS allows research materials (raw data, source code, spreadsheets, etc.) to be published with the accepted article, favoring research reproducibility and contributing to open science. If you have files to share with the article, please submit them when sending the camera-ready version.
  12. Share the link to access and edit the project or attach the entire latex project zip file.