JCOMSS: About

Aim and scope

The Journal of Communications Software and Systems (JCOMSS) focuses on high-quality, internationally reviewed papers, that advance the state-of-art and applications in communications software engineering and communications systems particularly including new technologies, methods and algorithms, as well as reports on experiments with analysis of performances, and prototypes. The subjects covered by this journal include all aspects in communications software and systems in wired and wireless communications and multimedia technologies that have a significant potential to impact the enormous technical and commercial opportunities in the ICT sector. The journal is particularly interested in research results that add to the scientific understanding of the impacts that communication software engineering can have on systems and services management, quality control and reliability issues. The aim is to give opportunity the reader to benefit from experience, problems and solution described.

Peer review process

Review Procedure

All submitted manuscripts that satisfy the conditions pointed out in the previous paragraphs undergo the peer reviewing procedure (single blind peer review) which includes the preliminary reading by the area editor, reviews by the selected independent international referees and the editorial board review/decision final step. Referees reports are fully considered by the editorial board and some of the review comments may be directed to assist the author in revising the paper. Authors must track the process and revise the text if requested by editor.

Reviewer Instructions

Most important decisions in science and academic are based on peer-reviewed publications. Peer review is the fundamental mechanism by which the quality of research is judged.

The quality of the peer-review process together with the quality of the editorial board are the primary factors which define a journal’s reputation, impact factor, and position in the research community.

Scientific journals publishing peer-reviewed articles depend heavily on the scientific referees or reviewers who typically volunteer their time and expertise. In addition to fairness in judgment and expertise in the field, peer reviewers have significant responsibilities toward authors, editors, and readers.

Reviewer’s benefits

Reviews completed for JCOMSS will automatically be added to Publons (if enabled in person’s profile) as part of Publons partnership with the Journal.
Reviewers who provide significant and timely comments will receive a discount codes (only after the final decision of the reviewed paper) which can be used for paper personally submitted to the journal.

All valid vouchers can be applied to one invoice. Once an invoice has been issued, vouchers can not be applied anymore. In case of rejection the paper, voucher can be reapplied in the next submission.

Peer-reviewer responsibilities toward authors

Providing written, unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the work, together with the documented basis for the reviewer’s opinion
Indicating whether the writing is clear, concise, and relevant and rating the work’s composition, scientific accuracy, originality, and interest to the journal’s readers
Avoiding personal comments or criticism
Maintaining the confidentiality of the review process: not sharing, discussing with third parties, or disclosing information from the reviewed paper

Peer-reviewer responsibilities toward editors

Notifying the editor immediately if unable to review in a timely manner and providing the names of potential other reviewers

Alerting the editor about any potential personal or financial conflict of interest and declining to review when a possibility of a conflict exists

Complying with the editor’s written instructions on the journal’s expectations for the scope, content, and quality of the review

Providing a thoughtful, fair, constructive, and informative critique of the submitted work, which may include supplementary material provided to the journal by the author

Determining scientific merit, originality, and scope of the work; indicating ways to improve it; and recommending acceptance or rejection using whatever rating scale the editor deems most useful

Noting any ethical concerns, such as any violation of accepted norms particularly at substantial similarity between the reviewed manuscript and any published paper or any manuscript concurrently submitted to another journal which may be known to the reviewer

Refraining from direct author contact

Peer-reviewer responsibilities toward readers

Ensuring that the methods are adequately detailed to allow the reader to judge the scientific merit of the study design and be able to replicate the study, if desired

Ensuring that the article cites all relevant work by other scientists

Publication frequency

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE AND SYSTEMS (ISSN 1845-6421) is quartely published by the Croatian Communications and Information Society (CCIS) in cooperation with FESB, University of Split.

Open access policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Indexing info

Journal’s DOI: https://doi.org/10.24138/jcomss

Papers published in the JCOMSS are indexed in Scopus , EBSCO , INSPEC , CrossRef , Publons , Google Scholar , DOAJ , and WoS (ESCI) , and are expected to be indexed in IEEE Xplore , Science Citation Index Expanded and other ISI products and services.

Member of: PILA Crossref/Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate.

For the information about the Journal Ranking, please visit the Clarivate Journal Citation Report (JCR) and SCOPUS Report .

Publishing ethics

Papers that have been published or submitted to other journals, conferences, or books will not be considered for publication in the Journal of Communications Software and Systems (JCOMSS). Revised and extended versions of papers printed in conference/symposium/workshop proceedings may be submitted to the journal with an appropriate cover note. Submission of an original manuscript to the Journal will be taken to mean that it represents original work not previously published, that it is not being considered elsewhere for publication; that the author is willing to assign copyright to the journal as per a contract that will be sent to the author just prior to publication and, if accepted for publication, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in any language, without the consent of the editor. Authors may make their papers available on their own web sites, with an acknowledgement of the journal board copyright. Authors must take full responsibility for all figures, etc. and present them as camera-ready copy.

Plagiarism

Authors must not use the words, figures, or ideas of others without attribution. All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wording must be limited and be attributed or quoted in the text. If authors have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they must cite the previous articles and indicate how their submitted manuscript differs from their previous work. If the similarity score of the manuscript is too high and if there are “copy paste“ blocks, authors are required to reduce “copy paste” actions. Such text blocks should be revised in a way that only the most important sentences/eqs/figs/tables for the journal paper can be reproduced, however by citing the source. Authors are requested to cite and discuss the relationship with all published articles.

NOTE: The similarity score of the manuscript is checked with the Crossref Similarity Check system to detect submissions that overlap with published and submitted manuscripts.

Authorship and Acknowledgements

It is supposed that all listed authors significantly contributed to the research in the manuscript and agreed to be an author. Changes in authorship must be declared to the journal and agreed with all authors. Anyone who contributed to the research or manuscript preparation, but is not an author, should be acknowledged by permission.

Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest arise when non research issues noticeably affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment.

Some general conflicts can be mentioned as follows:

Conflicts include the following:

funding including other payments or services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization
friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections
competitors or someone whose work is critiqued.

Authors must consider all potential conflicts of interest. If there are none, the authors should in the copyright form check “The author(s) declare(s) that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.” Corresponding author is responsible for co-authors declaring their interests.

Authors can declare potential conflicts of interest which will be considered by the editor and the reviewers.

Editors and reviewers should consider involving in the process in the following potential situations:

co-authoring publications or other works with any of the authors,
sharing an affiliation with any of the authors,
collaborating with any of the authoirs,
financial interest in the subject of the work,
feel unable to be objective.

Reviewers must declare any questionable interests in the response to “Article Review Request” letter., which will be considered by the editor.

Editors and reviewers must not ask authors in the review comments to include references merely to increase citations to their own or an associate’s work, to the journal, or to another journal they are associated with.

Organizers of the Special Issue: Conflicts of Interest

A member of the of Guest editor (GE) team can be (co)author of no more than 3 papers in total in the special issue.
The paper submitted by GE will be handled by the JCOMSS chief editor(s), directly or appointing an Area editor (AE) to handle the paper.
To ensure a high-quality special issue and to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, the GEs are reminded that all scientists including: a person in the same organization as any of the authors, a research collaborator of any of the authors, or any people closely related to any of the authors, should be excepted from the review process.

If a GE member is in any of the above categories, that GE member should not handle a paper and another GE member should be selected. If all the GEs fall into the above categories for a particular paper, the JCOMSS chief editor(s) should handle the review of the paper.

Author's benefits

Upon request, the author will receive up to 3 free hardcopies of the journal. One copy could be directed to institution’s library. Electronic versions of the publication will be available to authors and subscribers at the journal web site.

Journal Sponsorship

Publisher

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE AND SYSTEMS ISSN 1845-6421 (Print), ISSN 1846-6079 (Online) is quartely published by the Croatian Communications and Information Society (CCIS) in cooperation with University of Split, FESB

Croatian Communications and Information Society (CCIS)