FAQ

CHES has moved to a journal model in 2018 – starting with CHES 2018, all accepted papers are published in the Transactions of Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES). For more details see the FAQ below.

The IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems have been initiated by the CHES steering committee as a way to improve reviewing and publication quality while retaining the successful CHES conference. This journal has been modeled on the success of other conference/journal hybrids such as FSE, JETS, PETS, and PVLDB. We have copied and modified the FSE FAQ liberally.

What are the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems?

The IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems is a scholarly journal for timely research papers on cryptographic hardware and security in embedded systems that seeks to combine the benefits of fast conference turnaround with consistent journal reviewing.

  • How will this journal be published?
    The IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems will be published as a Diamond-Open-Access journal by an academic publisher, the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. It will be published only in electronic form. It is a fully refereed journal, with its own ISSN. You may include the corresponding publications in the "journal publications" section of your CV, if you split out your journal and conference publications.
  • What is the ISSN of TCHES?
    The ISSN of TCHES is 2569-2925 .
  • Does this journal require authors to pay article publishing charges or article submission charges?
    No. The IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems is free to both readers and authors.
  • Does the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems have a digital archiving policy?
    The IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems is archived by Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
  • What is the benefit of the journal publication, compared to traditional reviewing?
    Many good papers have some technical shortcomings that prevent them from being accepted for conferences when submitted the first time. When a conference like CHES occurs only once a year, it seems a shame to potentially have authors wait an entire year to get another shot at publication. The quarterly deadlines for the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems help bring these papers into publication faster. Furthermore, when resubmitting an improved paper to a new conference, authors are usually faced with a new set of reviewers who may raise different concerns. In contrast, our journal-style reviewing allows for revision of your work within a reasonable timeframe and the opportunity for a consistent technical dialog between the authors and reviewers across manuscript revisions.
  • Is there any change to the presentation slots at CHES?
    Given the switch to a journal model, the total number of accepted papers varies more than in the past. The duration of the presentation slots gets adjusted accordingly.
  • Is the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems indexed or ranked in any way?
    The organizations that produce journal impact rankings can take several years to add any given journal to their rankings, and we will endeavor to include the journal in these rankings. Of course, major search engines like Google Scholar will pick up our publications immediately, and our open-access policies make it easier for others to read and cite your work. We also provide various abstracting and indexing services, like DBLP and IACR CryptoDB, with metadata so that our publications can be indexed. To this end, it is important that authors make sure that references in their papers are standardized and clean.
    We intend the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems to be the premiere venue for scholarship in cryptographic hardware and security in embedded systems. The rankings and impact factors will be high.
  • What will be the turnaround time for the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems?
    The journal is structured with 4 submission deadlines per year. After each deadline, a decision will be provided within 2 months of the deadline. If your paper is "accepted conditionally with minor revisions," then your paper will be assigned a shepherd and we expect you to submit a revised version within one month, together with a document explaining how the reviewers' comments have been taken into account. If the editors believe your paper requires more substantial revisions a "major revisions needed" decision will be made. In this case you will be expected to submit your revision to any of the two subsequent deadlines. If your paper received a “reject & resubmit” decision, you may, at the discretion of the Editors-in-Chief, resubmit a revision to any of the four subsequent deadlines with the strong suggestion that the immediate next deadline is only chosen in exceptional cases to give time for a thorough revision. At the discretion of the Editors-in-Chief, rejected papers may be resubmitted if they are revised substantially.
  • What is the cutoff date for making next year's CHES?
    There will be several deadlines each year for the journal. All papers which have been accepted between July 15 of Year (n-1) and July 15 of Year n will be presented at CHES of Year n. Papers accepted after July 15 of Year n will be presented at the following year's conference. Accepted papers will appear online as soon as the regular journal publication occurs. The publication is planned to be one month after the submission deadline of the camera ready versions. The planned important dates for the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems are as follows. A call for papers with the exact dates is published on the CHES website for every year. 
 

 

Submission

Notification

Camera Ready
 

Issue 1 of year n

15 Jul, year (n-1)     

15 Sep, year (n-1)     

14 Oct, year (n-1)
 

Issue 2 of year n

15 Oct, year (n-1)

15 Dec, year (n-1)

14 Jan, year n
 

Issue 3 of year n

15 Jan, year n

15 Mar, year n

14 Apr, year n
 

Issue 4 of year n

15 Apr, year n

15 Jun, year n

14 Jul, year n

 

  • We would like to submit a paper based on something previously published elsewhere. Is that OK?
    Any paper submitted to the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems must not substantially duplicate work which has appeared in a prior publication. A prior publication is a paper that has been accepted for presentation at a refereed conference or workshop with proceedings, or an article that has been accepted for publication in a refereed journal. If a submission has overlap with a prior publication, the submission must cite the prior publication. Making a preprint available online, for example via the IACR ePrint archive, is not considered a prior publication in this context.
  • Who will review my paper?
    Generally speaking, every paper will be subject to double-blind review by three or more members of the editorial board. The editorial board of the journal corresponds to the CHES conference program committee, which changes yearly and is composed of international experts who are independent from the editiorial management of TCHES. We may also seek additional reviewers from time to time, but our intent is that editorial board members will do the bulk of the reviewing themselves. If you resubmit after a major revision, the editors will endeavor to assign the same reviewers, allowing for editorial continuity.
  • Does the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems provide editorial or other production support for authors?
    The IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems ultimately expects its authors to submit camera-ready manuscripts. Authors who need professional copy-editing or other production services should seek outside assistance before submitting to the journal. Then, authors need to make sure themselves that typesetting is high quality and that references are standardized and clean.
  • Is there any recommended LaTeX style for submissions?
    Yes, there is. Submissions should be typeset in the LaTeX style available here. Please use the submission mode (\documentclass[submission]{iacrtrans}) that displays line numbers. This facilitates the review process.
  • What is the meaning of an accept / minor revision / major revision / reject & resubmit / reject decision?
    o Accept. Good paper: Authors of an accepted paper will be invited to prepare their camera ready version while taking into account the feedback received from the editorial committee. The invitation will explain the procedure, mention the deadline, etc. Papers accepted for the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems must be presented at the subsequent CHES conference.

    o Minor revision. Promising submission with a clear list of required improvements; will be accepted if the paper is revised accordingly; the revision represents a modest challenge in terms of time/effort (e.g., the issues are mainly superficial in nature). The members of the editorial board who reviewed the submission compile the list of required improvements. A shepherd will be assigned to the paper. The role of the shepherd is to guide the authors in understanding the requirements and to verify that the required improvements have been implemented. The shepherd is usually selected from the members of the editorial board who reviewed the submission. The Co-Editors-in-Chief will set a deadline for the revision and the shepherd will explain the procedure. After the deadline the shepherd determines if the revision meets the requirements.

    o Major revision. Promising submission with a clear list of required improvements; should be accepted if the paper is revised accordingly and no follow-up questions arise or new technical findings void the contributions of the paper; the revision represents a significant challenge in terms of time/effort (i.e.., the issues are substantive in nature). However, the editorial board is confident that the authors can do the revision in the given timeframe. A major revision should highlight the modified or added parts (e.g. in color) and must be accompanied by 1) a document listing the revision requirements and explaining how each of them was addressed and 2) the original submission which received the major revision decision. Reviews of a major revision will mainly focus on how the authors addressed the revision requirements. Papers may not receive more than one “major revision” decision. The second decision on a paper must be either minor revision, accept or reject. Any change of the list of authors must be approved by the Editors-in-Chief in advance.

    o Reject & Resubmit. The idea proposed in the paper is deemed particularly promising, but execution is flawed and there is no clear list of requirements for acceptance in a revision. This may for instance happen when experiments with unclear outcomes are necessary to validate the contribution, or the submission needs to be entirely restructured to make the contribution clear. In this case, the reviewers should, whenever possible, suggest general directions for improvement, and the authors are specifically encouraged by the editorial board to resubmit the paper. Note that resubmitted papers cannot receive a “major revision” decision. A resubmitted paper must be accompanied by a document explaining the differences to the original submission and how each of the reviewers’ requested changes on the original submission has been taken into account. A resubmission must be granted by the editors and thus these materials must be sent to them one week before the submission deadline.

    o Reject. Out of scope, not enough contribution, major technical flaws that seem hard to fix, etc. It is not recommended that authors resubmit their paper. They are only allowed to do so with substantial revisions and the consent of the Editors-in-Chief. A resubmission without consent of the Editors-in-Chief may be rejected without further consideration. A resubmitted paper must be accompanied by a document explaining the differences to the original submission and how each of the reviewers’ requested changes on the original submission has been taken into account. A resubmission must be granted by the editors and thus these materials must be sent to them one week before the submission deadline. Turning a rejected paper into a new submission (defined by an overlap of less than 40%), does not need the consent of the Editors-in-Chief.
  • How does governance for the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems function?
    The IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems has two Editors-in-Chief, selected by the CHES Steering Committee with the consent of the IACR Board of directors. The Editors-in-Chief are appointed for one year. The Editors- in-Chief of Year n act as Observing Editors-in-Chief for the issues 3 and 4 of year n-1 in order to handle the transition from one year to the next year. The Editors-in-Chief are responsible, under the supervision of the CHES Steering Committee, for the editorial policy of the journal. The Editorial Board is appointed each year by the Editors-in-Chief, with the consent of the Steering Committee.
  • Are the members of the editorial board allowed to submit a paper to the journal?
    Yes, members of the editorial board may submit an arbitrary number of papers to each deadline. Editors-in-Chief are not allowed to submit papers (either new ones or revisions of prior submissions) during the 4 issues they are handling. They are also not allowed to become a co-author of any revision or resubmission to TCHES if they handled the original submission during their term as Co-Editor-in-Chief.
  • What are the new roles of the CHES program committee and program chairs?
    The CHES Program Co-Chairs correspond to the Co-Editors-in-Chief of the journal. The CHES program committee corresponds to the Editorial Board of the journal.
  • What is the relationship of the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems and the Journal of Cryptology (JoC)?
    The relationship is not defined yet. It will be defined by the IACR, the editor-in-chief of the journal of cryptology and the CHES steering committee. The relationship will be aligned with FSE and other IACR conferences working with a journal model.
  • What is the relationship of the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and the Journal of Cryptographic Engineering (JCEN)?
    The journals are independent. There is no relation between JCEN and the CHES conference or the IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems.
  • What is the role of an Observing Editor-in-Chief?
    An observing editor-in-chief has the same access rights to the review system as the editors-in-chief. He/She is involved in all discussions of the editors-in-chief and in particular is involved in discussions of papers that receive a “major revision”. However, all decisions are taken by the editors-in-chief. The observing editor-in-chief is not able to access discussions of his own submissions. An observing editor-in-chief will be co-editor-in-chief in the next round.
  • What happens when becoming Editor-in-Chief?
    The Editors-in-Chief for CHES in Year n are selected by the CHES steering committee at CHES in the Year n-2. After being confirmed by the IACR, the timeline is as follows:

Sept/Oct- Year (n-2):

Selection as editor-in-chief by the CHES steering committee and subsequent confirmation by the IACR BoD. After the confirmation by the IACR, they join the editorial board for CHES n-1 (in case they are not already part of the editorial board).

15-Jan-Year (n-1):

Submission deadline for issue 3. Both editors-in-chief of year n start acting as observing editors-in-chief. 

15-Apr-Year (n-1):

Submission deadline for issue 4. The editorial board for year n is fixed and the call for papers for year n is placed online. 

15-Jun-Year (n-1):

The final notifications for issue 4 of year (n-1) have been sent and the editorial board is updated in the review system for the next year. 

15-Jul-Year (n-1): 

Submission deadline for issue 1 of year n.

15-Oct-Year (n-1):

Submission deadline for issue 2 of year n.

15-Jan-Year n:

Submission deadline for issue 3 of year n.

15-Apr-Year n: 

Submission deadline for issue 4 of year n.

15-Jul-Year n: 

Submission deadline for issue 1 of year n+1: the co-editors in chief of year n are not blocked from paper submission any more.
  • How should the editorial board be formed?
    When forming the editorial board, please consider the following guidelines:
    o There should be between 33% and 50% new members each year.
    o It is recommended that members should not stay for 3 years or more without a break.
    o At most three members in the editorial board should share the same affiliation. It is possible to have four members from one institution. However, in this case, this exception needs to be approved by the steering committee.
    o The editorial board should be as balanced as possible with respect to regions, gender, industry/academia and institutions.

  • Can I withdraw my paper at any time during the CHES submission process?
    Any submission to CHES implies the full acknowledgement and commitment of the authors to the entire review process. A withdrawal of any paper prior to the notification deadline will be accepted only in exceptional cases (i.e., severe technical flaws discovered after the submission deadline). The rules for resubmission of a withdrawn paper are the same as the rules for resubmission of a paper that has received a reject decision, see above.