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An open access journal in theoretical computer science |
Policies and ethical guidelines
Submissions requirements
Originality
Authors guarantee that their proposed article is original, and that it does not deliberately infringe any intellectual property right of any other person or entity. Authors guarantee that their article has not been published previously and is not simultaneously submitted to any other journal.
Plagiarism and self-plagiarism
Any form of plagiarism implies rejection of the article; this includes but is not limited to:
- outright plagiarism (presenting the work of other researchers, whole or in part, as one's own, either verbatim or rephrased);
- self-plagiarism (presenting one's own previously published work, whole or in part, as novel);
- deliberate replication of already known results and concepts, whole or in part, under new names or in new notation, without an appropriate reference and justification.
A previous conference version of an article does not count as "previously published work" with respect to self-plagiarism.
Articles with a previous conference version
TheoretiCS welcomes the submission of full versions of papers that appeared in proceedings of conferences. Such versions should be revised and extended if necessary. The version submitted to TheoretiCS is expected to be the full and definitive version of the paper, and will be evaluated as such. Not only should it contain full proofs, it should also contain all necessary examples and explanations. The goal is to ensure that readers of TheoretiCS can understand the paper without undue effort. TheoretiCS intends to attract a broad audience which is wider than that of a specialized conference. It has to be mentioned in the article at which conference proceedings those conference versions appeared.
References
Authors guarantee that they appropriately cite all publications used in their work and all related publications that are relevant for assessing the contribution of the work, to the best of their knowledge.
Conflicts of interest
Authors shall disclose any potential conflict of interest, whether it is professional, financial or other, at the moment of submission, if this conflict could be interpreted as having influenced their work. An author is in conflict of interest with an editor or reviewer when belonging to one or more of the following groups: family member or close friend; current or past Ph.D. advisor/advisee; postdoctoral mentor/mentee within the last five years; person with the same affiliation; frequent or recent collaborator.
Authors that believe to have a conflict of interest for a reason not listed above are asked to contact one of the Editors-in-Chief.
Authors shall declare all sources of funding for the research presented in the article.
Use of Artificial Intelligence
The use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in the writing
process is only permitted to enhance readability and language. The application of technology
must be done under human supervision and control, and authors must carefully review and
edit the output, as AI can generate incorrect, incomplete, or biased output. AI-assisted
technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author, nor cited as an author.
Defamatory Statements
Authors guarantee that their article does not contain defamatory, hateful, fraudulent, or knowingly inaccurate statements.
Policy on P vs. NP and other long-standing problems
The study of long-standing open problems in theoretical computer science, and in particular of the P vs. NP problem, is in the scope of TheoretiCS. However, extraordinary claims must be supported by extraordinary evidence, and so submissions to TheoretiCS claiming to solve such problems must meet the highest standards of rigorousness and quality of presentation.
In particular, such submissions must not only be correct; they must also be presented in the clearest and simplest possible way, with no ambiguities, and in a clear grammatical language. The logic must be impeccable, and the presentation must follow the highest standards of expository writing. Reviewers should not have to invest additional time understanding the material because of poor or obscure notations, missing or unclear definitions, or any other reason.
In addition, such submissions must include a cover letter with a clear and convincing high-level explanation of the new ideas they contain, and why they solve a problem that has remained open despite decades of active study.
Submissions judged not to satisfy these criteria will be rejected without refereeing, and their authors will not be allowed to submit a new paper to TheoretiCS on the same topic until a period of one year has elapsed.
The goal of this policy is to ensure that the valuable reviewing resources of our community are used efficiently.
Reviewing
The reviewing process is based on single-blind peer review (the authors’ names are known by the reviewers, but the reviewers are not revealed to the author). More detail can be found on our review process here.
Conflicts of interest
Members of the Editorial Board and reviewers are requested to declare a conflict of interest with submissions when they are in conflict of interest with one of the authors. An author is in conflict of interest with an editor or reviewer when belonging to one or more of the following groups: family member or close friend; current or past Ph.D. advisor/advisee; postdoctoral mentor/mentee within the last five years; person with the same affiliation; frequent or recent collaborator. Any editor encountering a conflict of interest with a submission will be blinded from the editorial workflow for that submission. Editors, or reviewers that believe to have a conflict of interest for a reason not listed above are asked to contact one of the Editors-in-Chief.
Impartiality
Each article submission is considered impartially, and its merits are judged without distinction of gender, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnic origin, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the authors.
Other guidelines and policies
Publication costs
There is no charge to publish in the journal or to access published papers.
Post Publication Discussions and Corrections
If authors discover an error in their published article, please contact the Editors-in-Chief immediately. Together with the Handling Editor, they will determine whether a correction should be made and what form it should take.