Aims and scope

The IEEE Transactions on Information Theory publishes papers concerned with the transmission, processing, and utilization of information. While the boundaries of acceptable subject matter are intentionally not sharply delimited, its scope currently includes Shannon theory, coding theory and techniques, data compression, sequences, signal processing, detection and estimation, pattern recognition, learning and inference, communications and communication networks, complexity and cryptography, and quantum information theory and coding. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory papers normally contain a strong conceptual or analytical contribution.

Special editorial policies for certain areas

Cryptography: Submissions in the editorial area of cryptography will be accepted for review only if they relate to information or coding theory or are clearly outstanding contributions to cryptography.

Sequences: Submissions in the editorial area of sequences will be accepted for review only if they are clearly outstanding contributions. Else, they will be processed only if their motivation is not primarily mathematical and if they relate to information or coding theory.

What kind of papers are suitable?

The novelty of a paper will usually lie in original results, methods, observations, concepts, or applications, but may also reside in synthesis of, or new insights into, previously reported research. Novelty alone does not assure publication; the significance of a paper and its usefulness to this Transactions’ readership will also be assessed.

The title, abstract, introduction, and summary should be sufficiently informative to make the gist of the paper clear to the broadest possible audience and to place the contributions of the paper in context with related work. The body of the paper should be understandable without undue effort by its intended audience. Submissions that are not written carefully and thoroughly proofread will be returned without review.

Policy on prior publication

Contributions should comprise novel and previously unpublished material; however, prior publication at conferences does not preclude publication in this Transactions, provided this is properly referenced in the paper at the time of submission to the Transactions. Parallel/concurrent submission of your paper to this Transactions and to conferences is precluded. After submission to this Transactions, submission to other journals is precluded, unless the paper is rejected by this Transactions, or is withdrawn.

If all or part of the paper was previously presented at one or more conferences, a statement such as the following must be included in the authors' footnote on the first page of the paper at the time of submission:
"This paper was presented [in part] at ... [and ...]."

Some conferences allow for the submission of supplements, which are not required to be reviewed, and which are sometimes included in online proceedings. Such supplementary material will not be considered to be part of the conference publication when included in the manuscript submitted to the Transactions.

If authors submit a paper that is a nearly verbatim copy of a prior conference publication, they have to indicate to the editors in a cover letter why they feel that republication is warranted.

Editorial decisions will take into account any previous publication of submitted material.

Manuscripts based on papers previously rejected by this Transactions must be accompanied by a cover letter indicating, in detail, how the issues that led to rejection of the previous manuscript were addressed. Submission of manuscripts based on papers previously rejected by this Transactions without indicating that the paper or parts thereof had been rejected previously may result in a three-year publication ban from this Transactions.

Preparation of manuscripts

Each paper should include an abstract of not more than 250 words, which must be a concise yet informative summary of what is in the article. The abstract must be self-contained, written as one paragraph without abbreviations, footnotes, references, displayed mathematical equations or tabular material. A list of index terms (key words and phrases) should be given after the abstract, a total of five to ten words in length. The terms should be relatively independent and, as a group, should characterize the paper. Authors should be prepared to supply, upon notification of acceptance, originals of figures, biographical sketches, and a signed copyright form (see also the pdf document about manuscript preparation for final submission). Further manuscript preparation information is available from the IEEE Author Center, available online at https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/.

Please note that a single-column version of a submission is required for reviewing. Authors are encouraged to limit their submitted manuscripts to fewer than 50 pages in single-column format to ensure a timely review. 

Submissions

Papers should be submitted via the ScholarOne Manuscripts web-based manuscript management system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/t-it. Authors should be prepared to supply, upon request, electronic copies of any reference material that is both essential for the reviewing process and unavailable to the reviewers.

The IEEE Information Theory Society encourages authors to post preprints of their submitted papers on the arXiv preprint server at the time of submission.

Peer Review

The articles in this journal are peer reviewed in accordance with the requirements set forth in the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual (https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/files/opsmanual.pdf). Each published article was reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers using a single-blind peer review process, where the identities of the reviewers are not known to the authors, but the reviewers know the identities of the authors. Articles will be screened for plagiarism before acceptance.

ORCID Required

All IEEE journals now require an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) for all authors. ORCIDs enable accurate attribution and improved discoverability of an author’s published work. The author will need a registered ORCID (available online through orcid.org) in order to submit a manuscript or review a proof in this journal. Information on ORCID and how to link a ScholarOne account to a registered ORCID is available here.

Supplementary Material

Posting, in electronic form on IEEE Xplore, of supplementary material (e.g., additional tables, figures, data, multimedia, computer code, etc.) associated with an accepted paper is now possible. Such posting of electronic supplements will be considered solely at the request of the author(s), provided that all supplementary material is submitted for review simultaneously with the manuscript. Electronic supplements will undergo review along with the submitted paper. All supplementary material must be referred to in the paper. Authors bear full responsibility for formatting and production of the supplementary material in a suitable file format. Authors should note that electronic supplements may have a non-archival status. That is, the IEEE does not warrant that such files will remain compatible with future read-back software in perpetuity. All materials must follow copyright guidelines and may not include material previously copyrighted by another author, organization, or company.

Graphical Abstract

To enhance the appearance of your article on IEEE Xplore, a graphical abstract can be displayed along with traditional text. The graphical abstract should provide a clear, visual summary of your article's findings by means of an image, animation, video, or audio clip. Please note that the graphical abstract is considered a part of the technical content of the article, and you must provide it for peer review during the article submission process. More information about graphical abstracts and their specifications is available.

Author Names in Native Languages

IEEE supports the publication of author names in their native language alongside the English versions of the names in the author list of an article. Authors must provide the native language name in Unicode characters to be displayed in the byline of the article, in parentheses, after the English version of the name. The manuscript can be prepared using the Insert Symbols list in Microsoft Word or, for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, the CJK ASCII Unicode for LaTeX. It is essential that authors carefully check article proofs prior to publication to verify the correct rendering of author names in their native language. More information can be found here.

Open Access

This publication is a hybrid journal, allowing either Traditional manuscript submission or Open Access (authorpays OA) manuscript submission. Upon submission, if you choose to have your manuscript be an Open Access article, you commit to pay the discounted $1,750 OA fee if your manuscript is accepted for publication in order to enable unrestricted public access. Any other application charges (such as over-length page charge or charge for the use of color in the print format) will be billed separately once the manuscript formatting is complete but prior to the publication. If you would like your manuscript to be a Traditional submission, your article will be available to qualified subscribers and purchasers via IEEE Xplore. No OA payment is required for Traditional submission.

Copyright

It is the policy of the IEEE to own the copyright to the technical contributions it publishes on behalf of the interests of the IEEE, its authors, and their employers, and to facilitate the appropriate reuse of this material by others. To comply with the U.S. Copyright Law, authors are required to sign an IEEE Copyright Form before publication. This form, which can be accessed online, returns to authors and their employers full rights to reuse their material for their own purposes.

Assignment of papers

The Editor-in-Chief assigns papers to Area Editors, who in turn assign submissions to individual Associate Editors taking into account their current editorial load and according to their expertise.

Appeals

Reject decisions may be appealed by writing to the Editor-in-Chief.