SIURO Editorial Information

SIURO Goals

The goals for SIURO are:

• To motivate students to engage in and continue their research by providing a venue for them to publish;
• To give undergraduates a first-hand experience in the peer-review process; and
• To publish well-written applied and computational mathematics original undergraduate research that may not be ready for submission to a regular journal but could serve as a stepping stone.

Conflicts of Interest and Re-routing

It is vital that conflicts of interest be avoided. Therefore, it is SIAM policy that editors not review papers authored by students, or recent former students. The same policy applies to referees: editors should not send papers to referees who work at an author's institution or who are known to have close ties to the author. To help avoid conflicts of interest, it is SIAM policy that editors who receive manuscript submissions or who are assigned manuscripts that present a conflict of interest contact SIAM and the editor-in-chief to request that the manuscript be reassigned.

If the associate editor is unable or unwilling to handle a given submission, either because of workload difficulties, because the submission is outside their areas of expertise or for any other reason, he or she should email the editor-in-chief and copy the SIAM office. The editor-in-chief will reassign the manuscript to another editor.

Manuscript Review

Once the SIAM office contacts the associate editor about the assignment, the editor should contact referees through the Assign Potential Referees interface in the web-based system. SIAM asks that referees complete their review and send their reports in an accelerated time frame, preferably within 45 days. If reports lag, the associate editor or the SIAM office will prompt the referees.

Referees are required to complete a report and the review editor may choose to include it in their decision letter to the author. The referees' names are always kept confidential.

Option for Editor-in-Chief Assistance

There may be some instances in which the review editor feels uncomfortable making a decision on a paper or communicating a decision to the author. In such cases, the associate editor has the option of contacting the editor-in-chief for assistance or to request that the editor-in-chief make the decision and/or communicate the decision to the author.

Status Changes and Communicating with Authors

It is vital that, in all communications with authors, editors avoid wording that could make the status of the paper seem unclear (e.g., in a rejection message to the author: Is the intent to reject clear, or is a revision being implicitly encouraged?).

Papers may also be deemed withdrawn when an author fails to revise a paper within a reasonable amount of time and has not responded to inquiries. The decision to close out a manuscript is made jointly by the SIAM office and the editors. Files are never closed out without first giving the author ample opportunity to respond to prompts and submit a revision.

Reviewer Guidelines (PDF)

Reviewer Considerations

• Submissions are written by undergraduates;
• Submissions are well‐written. Do note that the extent to which a paper contributes to the field may be generous given the shorter time frame in which the research typically occurs. Undergraduates may not have the same amount of time to devote to a research project due to completing research prior to their graduation or due to completing their work as part of a summer REU;
• Sometimes in undergraduate research, pieces of a larger project are completed by different groups over the course of years. SIURO provides a place to publish their pieces before the “big picture” is ready for a regular publication; and
• References in bibliography may slightly differ from those cited in regular journal publications.

The Role of the Associate Editor (AE)

The Associate Editor (AE) serves as the primary point of communication between the reviewer and student author. The AE does not include the faculty advisor(s) in communication associated with the manuscript review. The identity of the reviewer is not revealed to the student author. Reviewers are asked to complete reviews within 45 days. Reviewers are asked to submit one of the following recommendations along with their review:

• Publish as is
• Return to the author for minor revision, outlined in comments
• Return to the author for major revision, outlined in comments
• Reject outright
• Reviewers may be asked to read a manuscript that has been revised to reflect their review.