Guide for Authors
(updated 3 March 2025)
Publication Principles:
The IEEE-JOE abides by the IEEE publication principles described in IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operation Manual, section 8.2.1 – Publication Principles
http://www.ieee.org/documents/opsmanual.pdf
The Journal publishes only original material that has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Prior publication of an abbreviated or preliminary form of the material in conference proceedings or abstracts shall not preclude publication in the Journal provided such prior publication is disclosed at the time of submission. Concurrent submission to other publications and this Journal is viewed as a serious breach of ethics and will result in immediate rejection of the submission. If a manuscript was previously reviewed and rejected by any other publication, authors must disclose this history at the time of submission. Authors must provide copies of the earlier decision letter as well as a response detailing how the Journal submission has addressed the decision letter issues.
Overview of the Manuscript Submission and Peer Review Process
The process consists of the following steps:
- The Corresponding Author submits a manuscript online at https://controls.papercept.net/journals/joe.
- The paper is prescreened to ensure that it conforms to the style and format required for review.
- An Associate Editor is assigned to oversee the review of the paper.
- The Associate Editor will solicit and assign Reviewers for the manuscript.
- The Reviewers evaluate the manuscript and return their comments to the Associate Editor.
- The Associate Editor evaluates the manuscript with the reviews and makes a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief.
- The Editor-in-Chief finalizes the decision and sends the reviews and publication decision to the Corresponding Author.
Depending on the decision in step 7:
- if recommended for publication, the Author submits a final version of the manuscript;
- if revisions are required, the Author submits a revised manuscript which goes back to step 4, depending on the extent of the revisions.
- if the paper is not suitable for publication in the Journal, no further action required.
Manuscript Preparation
Careful manuscript preparation is a crucial part of the publication process. Authors without extensive experience in writing journal manuscripts in English are advised to consult a specialized professional editing service, or a colleague with strong technical English language skills for help editing their manuscripts. Poorly written or prepared manuscripts will be returned to the authors without review.
Style: Manuscripts must be written in English using a clear and concise style, free of colloquialisms. The Journal conforms to usage prescribed by the Chicago Manual of Style. The Journal reserves the right to adjust a paper’s style to conform to IEEE Publication standards.
Format and Length: Manuscripts submitted for review should be double-spaced in a single column, with 12 pt. font. Page and line numbers are required. The length should be appropriate to the topic, there is no specific limit. For guidance, LaTeX and MS Word IEEE style files can be downloaded from https://template-selector.ieee.org/secure/templateSelector/format?publicationTypeId=1&titleId=17&articleId=3. When using these templates, please modify the formatting to double spaced in a single column, with page and line numbers.
Units: The Journal uses the International System of Units (SI units). Refer to the units list provided in Appendix I of the Information for Authors document available as a link in the IEEE Author Center mentioned above.
Abbreviations and Acronyms: Abbreviations must be fully spelled out on first appearance in the abstract and in the text of the manuscript. Acronyms should be avoided whenever possible, otherwise they must be fully spelled out on first appearance.
Title: The manuscript must contain a title and a short running title.
Authorship:
(IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operation Manual, section 8.2.1)
Each author or co-author of a manuscript bears full responsibility for its contents and availability for general dissemination. Affiliations and full postal addresses must be given for all co- authors.
Authorship and co-authorship should be based on a substantial intellectual contribution. It is assumed that all authors have had a significant role in the creation of a manuscript that bears their names. Therefore, the list of authors on an article serves multiple purposes; it indicates who is responsible for the work and to whom questions regarding the work should be addressed. Moreover, the credit implied by authorship is often used as a measure of the contributors’ productivity when they are evaluated for employment, promotions, grants, and prizes.
- The IEEE affirms that authorship credit must be reserved for individuals who have met each of the following conditions:
- Made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or experimental design, prototype development, and/or the analysis and interpretation of data associated with the work contained in the manuscript;
- Contributed to drafting the article or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content; and
- Approved the final version of the manuscript as accepted for publication, including references
ORCID:
All IEEE journals require an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) for all authors. An ORCID will be requested for each author during the manuscript submission process. ORCID is a persistent unique identifier for researchers and functions similarly to an article’s Digital Object Identifier (DOI). ORCIDs enable accurate attribution and improved discoverability of an author’s published work. The author will need a registered ORCID in order to submit a manuscript or review a proof in this journal. For more information about ORCID please refer to:
https://support.orcid.org/hc/en-us/categories/360000663174
Abstract Preparation: The abstract must be a concise yet comprehensive reflection of what is in your submission. In particular:
- The abstract must be self-contained, without abbreviations, footnotes, or references. It should be a microcosm of the full article.
- The abstract must be between 150-250 words. Over-length abstracts will be returned for editing.
- The abstract must be written as one paragraph and should not contain displayed mathematical equations or tabular material.
- The abstract should include three or four different keywords or phrases, as this will help readers to find it. It is important to avoid over-repetition of such phrases as this can result in a page being rejected by search engines.
- Ensure that your abstract reads well and is grammatically correct.
To enhance the appearance of an article on IEEE Xplore, a graphical abstract may be displayed along with the traditional text abstract. A graphical abstract, if submitted, should provide a clear, visual summary of the article’s findings by means of an image, animation, video, or audio clip. The graphical abstract is considered a part of the technical content of the article and must be provided for peer review during the article submission process.
For more information about graphical abstracts, refer to
Keywords: Three to five subject keywords suitable for indexing must be provided.
Text: The main text should be organized in consecutively numbered sections, and must contain at least an introduction, a development, and a conclusion. Tables, figures, equations and citations must be numbered consecutively in their order of appearance in the text.
Tables and figures should be embedded in the text for ease of review. Do not provide individual files for tables and figures until requested to do so.
Acknowledgments: An optional acknowledgments section may be included in the manuscript ahead of the references.
References: A numbered list of references must be provided at the end of the manuscript. The list should be arranged in the order of citation in the text, not in alphabetical order.
Video and Multimedia material: For information on producing videos, or preparing multimedia material for a manuscript, refer to https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/create-your-ieee-article/prepare-supplementary-materials/.
Post Submission
- After successfully submitting the paper, you will receive an acknowledgment by e-mail.
- The Corresponding Author can check the status of a submitted manuscript by logging on to https://controls.papercept.net/journals/joe.
- About three to four months after the submission of your review-ready manuscript you will receive a notification about the publication decision. Please do not contact the journal requesting a detailed status update until after this time has passed.
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
http://www.ieee.org/documents/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.
Plagiarism
(IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operation Manual, section 8.2)
If a manuscript is substantially similar to any previous journal submission by any of the authors, its history and some explanation must be provided to the Editors at the time of submission. If a manuscript was previously reviewed and rejected by the IEEE-JOE or a different journal, the authors shall provide to their Associate Editor copies of all correspondence involving the earlier submission and explain why they wish to submit it for publication in the IEEE-JOE. The authors of a manuscript found to have been plagiarized from others or to contain a crossover of more than 25% with another journal manuscript by any of the authors will incur sanctions.
Sanctions for the above-noted infractions may range from immediate rejection of the manuscript in question, to prohibition against all the authors for any new submissions, either individually or in combination with the authors of the plagiarizing manuscript, as well as in combination with new coauthors, to ALL the Society’s publications (journals, conferences, workshops). The prohibition shall continue for at least two years from notice of suspension.
Each new submission will be screened for plagiarism prior to review.
Copyright:
The IEEE owns the copyright to the technical material it publishes; thus authors are required to fill out an online IEEE copyright transfer form during the manuscript submission process. With this online IEEE copyright transfer form, authors certify that the material they submit for publication is available for general dissemination. It is the full responsibility of the authors, not the IEEE, to determine whether proprietary or classified restrictions of any kind apply to the material they submit, and to obtain prior consent from other parties when required. For additional information see: https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/copyright-faqs.html
Open Access:
This publication is a hybrid journal, allowing either Traditional manuscript submission or Open Access (OA) manuscript submission. Upon submission, if you choose to have your manuscript be an Open Access article in order to enable unrestricted public access, you commit to immediately pay the US$2,645 OA fee, plus applicable taxes. If you would like your manuscript to be a Traditional submission, your article will be available to qualified subscribers and purchasers via IEEE Xplore. Immediate payment is not required for Traditional submission.
For any questions regarding IEEE’s Open Access policy, please refer to IEEE Frequently Asked Questions on Open Access: https://open.ieee.org/index.php/about-ieee-open-access/faqs/
IEEE Privacy Policy:
For information see: https://www.ieee.org/security-privacy.html
IEEE Nondiscrimination Policy:
For information see: https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p9-26.html
Suleman Mazhar has been working as a professor in Information & Communication Engineering at Harbin Engineering University (China) since July 2019. He did PhD from Tokyo University (Japan) and postdoctorate from Georgetown University (Washington DC, USA). He had BS-CS from FAST-NUCES (Lahore) and MS from GIK Institute (Pakistan). He is TYSP young scientist fellow (Ministry of Science & Technology China) and have won several research grants from international organizations such as DAAD (Germany), ICIMOD (Nepal), NRPU (Higher Education Commission Pakistan), WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) Pakistan. His research focus is deep learning and signal processing applications for environmental monitoring, with particular focus on underwater acoustics, and marine mammal conservation. He is a reviewer for professional journals such as Journal of Acoustical Society (America), IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Sensors Journal, Applied Acoustics, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Peng Ren is a full professor with the College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum (East China). He is the director of Qingdao International Research Center for Intelligent Forecast and Detection of Oceanic Catastrophes. He received the K. M. Scott Prize from the University of York, the Natural Science award (first rank) from China Institute of Electronics, and the Eduardo Caianiello Best Student Paper Award from 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing as one co-author. He has served as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
Mohd Rizal Arshad is a full professor at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia, where he specializes in ocean robotics technology and intelligent system. He received his B.Eng. in Medical Electronics & Instrumentation and PhD in Electronic Engineering from University of Liverpool, UK in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He completed his MSc. in Electronic Control Engineering from the University of Salford, UK in Dec 1995. He has supervised many postgraduate students and published extensively in local and international publications. He is a senior member of the IEEE, and was awarded IEEE OES Presidential Award in 2019.
Itzik Klein is an Assistant Professor, heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, at the Charney School of Marine Sciences, Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. He is an IEEE Senior Member and a member of the IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation (J-ISPIN) Editorial Board. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, he worked at leading companies in Israel on navigation topics for more than 15 years. He has a wide range of experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion from both industry and academic perspectives. His research interests lie in the intersection of artificial intelligence with inertial sensing, sensor fusion, and autonomous underwater vehicles.
John R. Potter (IEEE M’94, SM’02, F’18) graduated in the previous century with a joint honours Mathematics and Physics Degree from Bristol and a PhD. in Glaciology and Oceanography from Cambridge, UK studying Antarctic ice mass balance, where he spent four consecutive summers. This work helped underscore the non-linear fragility of polar ice to climate change and led to him receiving the Polar Medal from Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
Nick is a Visiting Fellow at the UK National Oceanographic Center, Southampton His nomination was endorsed by the Underwater Acoustics Technology Committee. He had worked as a Research Associate and Lecturer at University of Birmingham and has been working as a Research Scientist at the Applied Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin. He has also served as a Program Officer at the Office of Naval Research Global. He is a senior member of IEEE (OES) and a Fellow of Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Nick has also been serving as Assoc. Editor for IEEE JoE and JASA. He is widely acknowledged for his expertise are seabed acoustics, parametric array modeling, sonar beamformer, underwater signal processing.
Maurizio Migliaccio (M’91-SM’00-F’17) is Full professor of Electromagnetics at Università di Napoli Parthenope (Italy) and was Affiliated Full Professor at NOVA Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL (USA). He has been teaching Microwave Remote Sensing since 1994. He was visiting scientist at Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Lüft und Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He was member of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) scientific committee. He was member of the ASI CosmoSkyMed second generation panel. He was e-geos AdCom member. He was Italian delegate of the ESA PB-EO board. He was Member of South Africa Expert Review Panel for Space Exploration. He serves as reviewer for the UE, Italian Research Ministry (MIUR), NCST, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong Research board. He lectured in USA, Canada, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Italy. He was Italian delegate at UE COST SMOS Mode Action. He is listed in the Italian Top Scientists. He is an IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing AE, International Journal of Remote Sensing AE, and was IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering AE Special Issue on Radar for Marine and Maritime Remote Sensing, IEEE JSTARS AE of the Special Issue on CosmoSKyMed, Member of the Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics Editorial board. His main current scientific interests cover SAR sea oil slick and man-made target monitoring, remote sensing for marine and coastal applications, remote sensing for agriculture monitoring, polarimetry, inverse problems for resolution enhancement, reverberating chambers. He published about 160 peer-reviewed journal papers on remote sensing and applied electromagnetics.
He has developed various types of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and related application technologies including navigation methods, a new sensing method using a chemical sensor, precise seafloor mapping methods, a precise seabed positioning system with a resolution of a few centimeters, a new sensing system of the thickness of cobalt-rich crust; and more. He has shown, by using these technologies that AUVs are practicable and valuable tools for deep-sea exploration.
Donna Kocak has had an outstanding career in defense and scientific projects developing and applying solutions in subsea optics, imaging and robotics. She graduated with an M.Sc in Computer Science in 1997 from the University of Central Florida; an MBA in 2008 from the University of Florida; and M.Sc in Industrial Engineering in 2011 from the University of Central Florida. She is currently a Senior Scientist, Advanced Concepts Engineering, and Fellow at the Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida, where she has developed novel optical imaging and communication solutions for under-sea defense and scientific projects. Prior to 2008 Donna Kocak was Founder and President of Green Sky Imaging, LLC (GSI) who developed laser/video photogrammetry software for underwater inspection and survey. Her earlier career positions were with Naval Training Systems Center, Florida; Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Florida; eMerge Interactive; and the Advanced Technologies Group in Florida.
John Potter has a Joint Honours degree in Mathematics and Physics from Bristol University in the UK and a PhD in Glaciology and Oceanography from the University of Cambridge on research in the Antarctic, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal in 1988. John has worked on polar oceanography, underwater acoustics, ambient noise (including imaging), marine mammals, communications, IoUT, autonomous vehicles and strategic development. He has 40 years’ international experience working at the British Antarctic Survey in the UK, NATO in Italy, SIO in California, NUS in Singapore and most recently at NTNU in Norway. John is a Fellow of the IEEE and MTS, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE OES Distinguished Lecturer, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer & an International Fellow of the Explorer’s Club.
Dr. James V. Candy is the Chief Scientist for Engineering and former Director of the Center for Advanced Signal & Image Sciences at the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy received a commission in the USAF in 1967 and was a Systems Engineer/Test Director from 1967 to 1971. He has been a Researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1976 holding various positions including that of Project Engineer for Signal Processing and Thrust Area Leader for Signal and Control Engineering. Educationally, he received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Control System Engineer in the state of California. He has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, University of Santa Clara, and UC Berkeley, Extension teaching graduate courses in signal and image processing. He is an Adjunct Full-Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Candy is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and elected as a Life Member (Fellow) at the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall College). He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies. He was elected as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Candy received the IEEE Distinguished Technical Achievement Award for the “development of model-based signal processing in ocean acoustics.” Dr. Candy was selected as a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for oceanic signal processing as well as presenting an IEEE tutorial on advanced signal processing available through their video website courses. He was nominated for the prestigious Edward Teller Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy was awarded the Interdisciplinary Helmholtz-Rayleigh Silver Medal in Signal Processing/Underwater Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America for his technical contributions. He has published over 225 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports as well as written three texts in signal processing, “Signal Processing: the Model-Based Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1986), “Signal Processing: the Modern Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1988), “Model-Based Signal Processing,” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2006) and “Bayesian Signal Processing: Classical, Modern and Particle Filtering” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2009). He was the General Chairman of the inaugural 2006 IEEE Nonlinear Statistical Signal Processing Workshop held at the Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has presented a variety of short courses and tutorials sponsored by the IEEE and ASA in Applied Signal Processing, Spectral Estimation, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Applied Model-Based Signal Processing, Applied Acoustical Signal Processing, Model-Based Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing and Bayesian Signal Processing for IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society/ASA. He has also presented short courses in Applied Model-Based Signal Processing for the SPIE Optical Society. He is currently the IEEE Chair of the Technical Committee on “Sonar Signal and Image Processing” and was the Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on “Signal Processing in Acoustics” as well as being an Associate Editor for Signal Processing of ASA (on-line JASAXL). He was recently nominated for the Vice Presidency of the ASA and elected as a member of the Administrative Committee of IEEE OES. His research interests include Bayesian estimation, identification, spatial estimation, signal and image processing, array signal processing, nonlinear signal processing, tomography, sonar/radar processing and biomedical applications.
Kenneth Foote is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University in 1973. He was an engineer at Raytheon Company, 1968-1974; postdoctoral scholar at Loughborough University of Technology, 1974-1975; research fellow and substitute lecturer at the University of Bergen, 1975-1981. He began working at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, in 1979; joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999. His general area of expertise is in underwater sound scattering, with applications to the quantification of fish, other aquatic organisms, and physical scatterers in the water column and on the seafloor. In developing and transitioning acoustic methods and instruments to operations at sea, he has worked from 77°N to 55°S.
René Garello, professor at Télécom Bretagne, Fellow IEEE, co-leader of the TOMS (Traitements, Observations et Méthodes Statistiques) research team, in Pôle CID of the UMR CNRS 3192 Lab-STICC.
Professor Mal Heron is Adjunct Professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and is CEO of Portmap Remote Ocean Sensing Pty Ltd. His PhD work in Auckland, New Zealand, was on radio-wave probing of the ionosphere, and that is reflected in his early ionospheric papers. He changed research fields to the scattering of HF radio waves from the ocean surface during the 1980s. Through the 1990s his research has broadened into oceanographic phenomena which can be studied by remote sensing, including HF radar and salinity mapping from airborne microwave radiometers . Throughout, there have been one-off papers where he has been involved in solving a problem in a cognate area like medical physics, and paleobiogeography. Occasionally, he has diverted into side-tracks like a burst of papers on the effect of bushfires on radio communications. His present project of the Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network (ACORN) is about the development of new processing methods and applications of HF radar data to address oceanography problems. He is currently promoting the use of high resolution VHF ocean radars, based on the PortMap high resolution radar.
Hanu Singh graduated B.S. ECE and Computer Science (1989) from George Mason University and Ph.D. (1995) from MIT/Woods Hole.He led the development and commercialization of the Seabed AUV, nine of which are in operation at other universities and government laboratories around the world. He was technical lead for development and operations for Polar AUVs (Jaguar and Puma) and towed vehicles(Camper and Seasled), and the development and commercialization of the Jetyak ASVs, 18 of which are currently in use. He was involved in the development of UAS for polar and oceanographic applications, and high resolution multi-sensor acoustic and optical mapping with underwater vehicles on over 55 oceanographic cruises in support of physical oceanography, marine archaeology, biology, fisheries, coral reef studies, geology and geophysics and sea-ice studies. He is an accomplished Research Student advisor and has made strong collaborations across the US (including at MIT, SIO, Stanford, Columbia LDEO) and internationally including in the UK, Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Sweden and Norway. Hanu Singh is currently Chair of the IEEE Ocean Engineering Technology Committee on Autonomous Marine Systems with responsibilities that include organizing the biennial IEEE AUV Conference, 2008 onwards. Associate Editor, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2007-2011. Associate editor, Journal of Field Robotics 2012 onwards.
Milica Stojanovic graduated from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 1988, and received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, in 1991 and 1993. She was a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2008 joined Northeastern University, where she is currently a Professor of electrical and computer engineering. She is also a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Milica’s research interests include digital communications theory, statistical signal processing and wireless networks, and their applications to underwater acoustic systems. She has made pioneering contributions to underwater acoustic communications, and her work has been widely cited. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, and serves as an Associate Editor for its Journal of Oceanic Engineering (and in the past for Transactions on Signal Processing and Transactions on Vehicular Technology). She also serves on the Advisory Board of the IEEE Communication Letters, and chairs the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society’s Technical Committee for Underwater Communication, Navigation and Positioning. Milica is the recipient of the 2015 IEEE/OES Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.
Dr. Paul C. Hines was born and raised in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. From 1977-1981 he attended Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating with a B.Sc. (Hon) in Engineering-Physics.