About the Journal

The SAIEE Africa Research Journal of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers, is an accredited, peer-reviewed research journal published quarterly, covering research in all fields of electrical engineering. It is the only peer-reviewed journal in the local electrical engineering sector in South Africa. The journal was initiated as the Transactions of the SAIEE in 1909 and covers all areas of electrical engineering (see:  IEEE-designated fields).

Nature of Articles

Two types of articles may be submitted:

  • Papers: Presentation of significant research and development and/or novel applications in electrical, electronic, computer, information or communications engineering.
  • Research and Development Notes: Brief technical contributions, technical comments on published papers or on electrical engineering topics.

No maximum length for a paper is prescribed. However, authors should keep in mind that a significant factor in the review of the manuscript will be its length relative to its content and clarity of writing. Membership of the SAIEE is not required. Authors must have ownership to all text, tables and images. Images must be at least 300 dpi.

Double-blind paper review 

All contributions are peer-reviewed with the aid of appropriate reviewers. Each published article is reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers using a double-blind peer-review process, where the identities of the reviewers are not known to the authors and only the managing/specialist editor knows the identity of the authors. Manuscripts are initially submitted without author names or affiliation. Reviewers will, therefore, not have author information or affiliation. While articles will be screened for plagiarism before acceptance, authors have an obligation to submit, in every respect, only original articles. The editorial workflow is provided here.

Process for initial submission of the manuscript

Submission is only possibly electronically - compilation as MS Word and submitted as PDF.

  • PDF format files should be ‘press optimised’ and include all embedded fonts, diagrams etc.
  • Where possible, diagrams should be in grayscale.
  • Articles must be proofread using US English.

On 18 May 2024, the SAIEE Africa Research Journal has taken note of the new SciELO Publication Criteria. The following is additionally applicable:

  1. Authors must have an ORCID profile {https://orcid.org/} - this must be provided when they update/create their authors profile.
  2. Authors should please ensure that at least their affiliations and qualifications are made public in their ORCID profile {https://orcid.org/}.
  3. Regarding usage of LLM/AI tools, we follow the ASSAf guidelines - the same as the South African Journal of Science (SAJS) - please see: https://sajs.co.za/editorial-policies#AI-LMMs
  4. The inclusion of an inclusive language policy, as introduced by the SAJS - https://sajs.co.za/inclusive-language-policy (i.e. writing in English that can be understood by English 2nd language readers).
  5. Regarding datasets used in your publication, please submit the dataset to IEEE DataPort: https://ieee-dataport.org/ - please cite the resulting DOI in your article.
  6. Authors are encouraged to include the relevant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the article in the keywords.
  7. Ethics policy: ASSAf’s Code of Best Practice in Scholarly Journal Publishing, Editing and Peer Review.
  8. Pre-print and Post-Print Policy

Submit online: https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/SAIEE/submissions

These submissions will be used in the review process. A receipt will be acknowledged by the online open-access journal system (OJS). For each manuscript, a Specialist Editor (SE) will be assigned. Through OJS, the SE will further handle the paper and all correspondence pertaining to the manuscript. If accepted for publication, you will be notified of acceptance and of any alterations necessary. You will then be requested to prepare and submit the final script.

E-mail for queries: researchjournal@saiee.org.za  

Open Access and Copyright

This journal is 100% open access, which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. All articles are currently published under Creative Commons licenses (either CCBY or CCBY-NC-ND), and the author retains copyright. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles published under CCBY, or use them for any other lawful purpose, as long as proper attribution is given.  Articles published under CCBY-NC-ND are also available to users under the same conditions as CCBY, but the reuse cannot be for commercial purposes or change the work in any way.

Open access is provided through the payment of an article-processing charge (APC) paid after acceptance. APCs are often financed by an author's institution or the funder supporting their research. For accepted papers, the APC is currently US $500/article. Corresponding authors may apply for reduced or waived APCs.

Originality of text and images

For research articles/documents or opinion pieces, text must always be original. Images are an extension of text and are often drawn to simplify communication. Images must also be original. Taking an image from another source or modifying such an image requires permission from the source – in case image(s) must be used from another source, the authors must upload copyright authorization from the publisher. In case image(s) are taken from within the creative commons (open access) collection, appropriate referencing (the copyright licence or type must be specified) is still required.

Because an article may build from prior work, one can refer to such work by using references.

If text must be used in an exact form, these should be provided in quotation marks and reference must be included. If an image is used exactly or in a modified form, the author(s) must specify that the image is adopted/adapted from reference [Z] and the copyright authorization must be uploaded.

Note – prior work that is published may not belong to the author if copyright has been transferred. Authors must bear this in mind and ensure that there is an appropriate acknowledgement of the work.

Special Issue proposals

 To propose a Special Issue, please provide a proposal in this format (example).

  1. Please ensure that the guest editorial panel is geographically diverse.
  2. The timeline of a journal – our publications occurs in March, June, September and December. The deadline for “camera-ready papers” is typically 4 months in advance of a publication. Camera-ready entails: proofread post-print (US English) with author affiliation and biography.
  3. Editorial panels are encouraged to plan a review process timeline of 3-4 months (the process often takes longer and for each paper, two reviews are required).
  4. With the "camera-ready" paper, APC is required (APC is required prior to publication). 

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Pre-print and Post-Print Policy

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Author and Editorial Development material:

Further training material for editors/authors.