Internet of Things (The Netherlands): Scopus, Scope & Submission Guide

Quick Answer: What Is the Internet of Things Journal?

Internet of Things; Engineering Cyber Physical Human Systems is a multidisciplinary Elsevier journal for research spanning IoT theory, software and engineering, real-world applications, and societal implications. Elsevier describes it as a platform for collaboration among researchers, engineers and practitioners across the breadth of IoT technology, science and applications.

The journal is currently listed by Elsevier as indexed in Scopus and the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), with additional coverage noted for INSPEC and metric services including SJR and SNIP. Elsevier currently displays a 12.4 CiteScore and 7.6 Impact Factor. Metrics can change by reporting year, so authors should reconfirm the latest values immediately before using them for institutional or PhD requirements.

Researchers working on AIoT, edge/cloud-to-thing systems, security and privacy, sensors, digital twins, smart infrastructure, healthcare IoT, industrial IoT, connected business processes, governance, regulation or human-technology interaction may find the journal relevant when IoT is central to the research contribution.

Key Takeaways

• Publisher: Elsevier B.V.; the journal is hosted on ScienceDirect.
• Scopus: indexed; supplied Scopus Source ID 21101058910.
• ISSNs: online 2542-6605; print 2543-1536.
• Current publisher-displayed metrics: CiteScore 12.4 and Impact Factor 7.6.
• Access model: hybrid; open access is available for an APC, while the subscription route carries no publication fee for authors.
• Peer review: single anonymized; suitable submissions are typically sent to at least two independent reviewers.
• Core scope: IoT theory, software/engineering, applications, and societal aspects.
• Acceptance rate: no official public acceptance-rate figure was found; do not rely on estimates from unofficial sites.

Journal Information at a Glance

What This Page Covers

• Aims, scope and major subject areas
• Scopus and other indexing information
• Metrics and how to interpret them cautiously
• Article types and likely author fit
• Submission, formatting and reference requirements
• Peer review, access options and fees
• Ethics, generative-AI disclosure and author responsibility
• Journal-fit and pre-submission readiness checks

Methodology and Sources

This profile prioritizes the official Elsevier/ScienceDirect journal page, the official Elsevier Guide for Authors, the ISSN Portal, and the supplied Scopus Source ID. Where a current value was not directly verifiable from those sources, the article says so rather than filling the gap with an estimate. Journal metrics, editorial teams, fees, indexing status and policies can change, so authors should reconfirm time-sensitive details before submission.

What Is Internet of Things?

The journal sits at the intersection of computer science, engineering, technology management and application domains where connected physical and digital systems create measurable technical or societal value. Its scope is broader than a networking-only journal: a strong submission may focus on algorithms, architectures, software, security, sensing, intelligent edge systems, applications, governance or human interaction, provided the IoT contribution is substantive.

Elsevier’s subject-area summary includes general computer science, general engineering, energy, and management of technology and innovation. This breadth makes the journal potentially suitable for interdisciplinary teams, but breadth does not remove the need for a clear IoT-centred novelty claim.

Internet of Things Journal Aims and Scope

Elsevier organizes the scope into four broad blocks. First, theory and fundamental research includes formal methods, analysis of large-scale IoT ecosystems, AIoT, explainable machine learning for IoT, intelligent edge research, and work on security, reliability and privacy. Second, software development, technology and engineering includes device software, cloud-to-thing continuum systems, secure communication, IoT software design, test beds, quality assurance, sensors, actuators, remote operations, control and digital twins.

Third, applications of IoT span energy, transportation and critical infrastructure, manufacturing, robotics, business and finance, smart urban environments, education, ecology and agriculture, healthcare and emerging nano/biological/chemical IoT contexts. Fourth, societal aspects include political and social implications, ethics, regulation, governance, disaster management, public safety, human-technology interaction and issues such as liability and social vulnerability.

For journal selection, this means a manuscript should demonstrate more than use of connected devices as a data source. The research question, method or contribution should meaningfully engage with IoT systems, their engineering, application, or consequences.

Journal Objectives and Subject Areas

The journal’s objective is to support exchange across researchers, engineers and practitioners. In practical terms, suitable work can be theoretical, empirical, applied or methodological. Topics may include AIoT, edge intelligence, privacy-preserving IoT, secure architectures, sensor networks, digital twins, cyber-physical-human systems, industrial automation, connected healthcare, smart energy, transportation, smart cities, precision agriculture, governance and regulation.

A manuscript is less likely to fit when IoT is only a peripheral keyword, the paper primarily addresses a generic machine-learning problem without an IoT-specific contribution, or the application context is connected-device related but the novelty is not tied to IoT design, deployment, evaluation or impact.

Scopus Indexing and Other Databases

Elsevier’s journal insights page lists Scopus among the journal’s abstracting and indexing services. The journal record supplied with this task identifies Scopus Source ID 21101058910. Elsevier also lists Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and INSPEC. The ISSN Portal independently confirms the journal’s identifiers and Netherlands record context.

Indexing should be checked as a current status, not treated as a permanent guarantee. If a university, funding body or doctoral regulation requires a specific database or quartile, use the current Scopus or Clarivate record at the time you submit or report the publication.

Current Journal Metrics and Quartile

Elsevier currently displays a CiteScore of 12.4 and an Impact Factor of 7.6. These are different metrics and should not be used interchangeably. CiteScore is a Scopus-family citation metric, while the Journal Impact Factor is a Clarivate metric.

The journal page also names SJR and SNIP among its metrics/indexing services, but a current official numeric SJR or SNIP value was not directly available in the authoritative pages checked for this guide. Likewise, quartile can vary by database, subject category and reporting year. Authors should therefore verify the current category-specific quartile rather than repeating a context-free “Q1/Q2” label from an aggregator.

Publisher Information and Editorial Leadership

Elsevier B.V. publishes the journal. The official ScienceDirect page identifies Professor F. Xhafa of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, as Editor-in-Chief on the publisher information checked for this article. Editorial appointments can change, so authors preparing correspondence should confirm the live editorial-board page.

Types of Articles Published

Elsevier’s aims and scope states that the journal provides a home for full research papers, survey papers, open software and data, tutorials and best practices, case studies, and whitepapers. It also publishes topical special issues. Authors should select the article type that matches the submission portal and current Guide for Authors rather than inferring a category from a similar Elsevier journal.

Who Should Consider Publishing in Internet of Things?

The journal may suit computer scientists, electrical/electronic engineers, software and systems researchers, data/AI researchers, technology-management scholars, domain specialists and interdisciplinary teams whose central research contribution concerns IoT or cyber-physical-human systems. PhD scholars and early-career researchers can consider it when their manuscript has a clear original contribution, appropriate methodological depth, and strong alignment with the journal’s scope.

How to Decide Whether Your Manuscript Fits the Journal

1. Write your contribution in one sentence and ask whether IoT is essential to that contribution.
2. Match your topic to one or more of the journal’s four scope blocks.
3. Compare your problem, method and validation approach with recent papers in the journal.
4. Check whether your manuscript type is supported by the journal.
5. Assess whether the work offers enough technical, empirical or societal significance for an international specialist readership.
6. Verify all current author instructions before formatting the final submission.

Journal-Fit Checklist

Manuscript Submission Guidelines

Submissions are made through the journal’s online submission route linked from ScienceDirect. Elsevier’s guide requires authors to provide the manuscript and standard submission information, including title-page details, declarations and other files as applicable. Authors should use the live “Submit your article” link because platform routes can change.

The abstract must be concise and factual and, under the current guide, should not exceed 250 words. The journal requires 1–7 English keywords. Article highlights are encouraged and should summarize novel results and methods. Tables should be editable text rather than images, equations should be supplied as editable text, and SI units should be used.

Formatting and Reference Requirements

The journal does not impose a strict reference style at initial submission. References may use any consistent style, provided the necessary bibliographic information is present. Elsevier recommends DOI links where available and applies the journal’s reference style after acceptance at proof stage. This flexibility does not mean references can be incomplete: author names, titles, year, volume and article/page information should be accurate enough for linking and indexing.

As a publication-readiness step, authors should also check figure resolution, captions, table callouts, equation numbering, abbreviations, supplementary files and consistency between in-text citations and the reference list.

Language Requirements

The journal publishes in English. Authors should use clear academic English, define uncommon abbreviations, and ensure the abstract can stand alone. Language editing can improve readability, but it should preserve the author’s technical meaning and must not introduce unsupported claims or alter research results.

Peer-Review Process

The journal follows a single anonymized peer-review process. Elsevier states that editors first assess suitability. If a submission is considered suitable, it is typically sent to a minimum of two independent reviewers for expert assessment of scientific quality. Editors make the final acceptance or rejection decision.

Special issues follow the same core process, although a guest editor may coordinate reviews and recommend a decision; the journal editor retains oversight and responsibility for the final decision. Elsevier also provides an appeal process subject to its policy requirements.

Typical Submission-to-Publication Workflow

1. Prepare the manuscript and required declarations.
2. Check scope and article-type fit.
3. Submit through the official online system.
4. Complete technical and editorial screening.
5. If suitable, enter external peer review.
6. Respond to revision requests with a point-by-point response.
7. Receive the editorial decision.
8. After acceptance, review production proofs.
9. The article is published online and later assigned final bibliographic details as applicable.

Editorial Screening and Common Reasons for Rejection

Elsevier does not publish a journal-specific desk-rejection checklist on the pages reviewed here. However, the stated scope and standard editorial process imply that editors first consider suitability before external review. Common practical risks include weak scope alignment, insufficient novelty, unsupported claims, inadequate validation, unclear writing, incomplete ethical reporting, poor presentation, or a manuscript type that does not match the journal.

This is practical guidance rather than an official rejection-rate model. Authors should read recent papers and current editorial instructions instead of trying to reverse-engineer acceptance from unofficial statistics.

Publication Ethics and Generative-AI Policies

The journal follows Elsevier’s publishing-ethics policies. Submission implies that the work is not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere, has appropriate author and institutional approval, and is not redundant publication except for permitted prior forms such as preprints, abstracts, theses or registered reports under applicable policy.

Authors must make substantial contributions consistent with Elsevier’s authorship requirements and disclose competing interests and funding as required. The current Guide for Authors includes a declaration requirement for the use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation. Researchers should follow the live Elsevier policy, use AI tools transparently where required, and never use them to fabricate data, references, peer-review content or authorship contributions.

Open Access Model and Publication Fees

The journal supports both open-access and subscription publishing. Elsevier currently lists an open-access article publishing charge of USD 3,020, excluding taxes, while noting that the amount may be reduced during submission when applicable. Under the subscription option, Elsevier states that no publication fee is charged to authors and the article is immediately available to subscribers.

Authors should confirm the current APC, institutional agreements, funder requirements, taxes and waiver/reduction eligibility before choosing a route. A hybrid journal’s APC is not an acceptance fee: editorial decisions should remain separate from the author’s publishing-option choice.

Acceptance Rate and Review Timeline

Acceptance rate: an official journal acceptance rate was not found in the authoritative sources reviewed, so this guide does not estimate one.

Timeline: Elsevier’s journal insights currently display journal-level indicators of 4 days from submission to first decision, 54 days from submission to decision after review, 116 days from submission to acceptance, and 6 days from acceptance to online publication. These are publisher-reported journal indicators, not a guarantee for an individual manuscript. Review complexity, revision rounds, editor availability and reviewer availability can materially change a paper’s timeline.

Special Issues and Recent Research

The journal publishes topical special issues and article collections. Recent publisher-listed themes include advances in IoT systems and services, machine learning in smart agriculture, collective intelligence for IoT, and explainable AI for industrial information integration. These examples show the breadth of contemporary interests but should not be treated as an exhaustive list of acceptable topics.

Practical Journal-Fit Examples

Likely stronger fit: a privacy-preserving federated-learning architecture evaluated across resource-constrained IoT devices, with IoT-specific threat modeling and deployment analysis. Potential fit with clear framing: a smart-agriculture prediction system where sensing architecture, edge processing and field deployment are central to the contribution. Likely weaker fit: a generic image-classification model tested on a public dataset with only a brief claim that it could someday run on IoT devices.

Pre-Submission Checklist

• Scope and article type verified against the current journal site
• Original contribution stated clearly in title, abstract and introduction
• Abstract within the current 250-word limit
• 1–7 English keywords prepared
• Methods, datasets, baselines and limitations reported transparently
• Figures, tables and equations checked against Elsevier requirements
• References complete, consistent and DOI-linked where appropriate
• Ethics approval/consent included when applicable
• Funding and competing-interest declarations prepared
• Authorship and author order approved by all authors
• Research-data and code statements prepared where relevant
• Generative-AI use declared where required by current policy
• All authors approved the final submission
• Open-access/APC implications understood before selecting a route

After Submission and Responding to Reviewers

After submission, authors should monitor the submission system and respond promptly to editorial queries. If revision is invited, create a point-by-point response that quotes or summarizes each reviewer concern, states the change made, and identifies where it appears in the manuscript. Where a suggestion is not adopted, respond respectfully with evidence-based reasoning rather than simply disagreeing.

How Researchers Should Evaluate This Journal

Use multiple criteria: scope fit, indexing requirements, recent article quality, audience, peer-review model, access model, fees, timeline indicators, and institutional expectations. A strong citation metric does not compensate for poor topic fit. Conversely, a journal that fits the research problem and audience closely may be a better strategic choice than a higher-metric title that rarely publishes the manuscript’s methodology or application area.

Journal Selection Warning Signs to Avoid

When evaluating any journal, be cautious of unofficial websites that promise guaranteed acceptance, sell “fast-track publication,” invent acceptance rates, or present outdated quartiles as current facts. For this journal, use Elsevier/ScienceDirect, Scopus, Clarivate and the ISSN Portal for current verification. Contentxprtz does not guarantee publication, peer-review success, indexing outcomes or citation performance.

Is Internet of Things Suitable for PhD Researchers?

It can be suitable for PhD researchers whose work makes a mature, journal-level contribution within the stated IoT scope. Whether it satisfies a doctoral programme’s publication rule depends on the university’s current requirements for indexing, quartile, authorship, article type and publication date. Candidates should verify those rules independently before submission.

Is Internet of Things a Good Journal?

“Good” should be defined against the researcher’s objective. Verified signals include publication by Elsevier, Scopus indexing, SCIE coverage, an established editorial structure, a documented single-anonymized peer-review process, and strong publisher-displayed citation metrics. The more important decision is whether the journal’s readership and scope match the manuscript and whether its publishing model fits the author’s funding and access needs.

How Contentxprtz Can Support Authors Preparing for Internet of Things

Contentxprtz can support researchers with academic editing, manuscript language polishing, journal-format checks, reference and citation consistency, scope-alignment review, abstract and cover-letter editing, reviewer-response editing, and publication-readiness assessment. For researchers converting thesis work into an article, support can also focus on reducing thesis-style repetition and strengthening the journal-facing contribution.

Such support is preparatory and editorial. The researcher remains responsible for the study, data, analysis, citations, authorship, ethical compliance and final submission. Contentxprtz does not control editorial decisions and does not guarantee journal acceptance or publication.

Explore ethical journal publication support from Contentxprtz

Summary: Internet of Things Journal

Internet of Things is an Elsevier journal covering IoT theory, engineering, applications and societal dimensions. It is indexed in Scopus under the supplied Source ID 21101058910, with online ISSN 2542-6605 and print ISSN 2543-1536. Elsevier currently displays a CiteScore of 12.4 and an Impact Factor of 7.6, offers hybrid publishing, and documents a single-anonymized peer-review process.

For authors, the strongest submission strategy is to verify current journal information, demonstrate unmistakable IoT relevance, align the manuscript with recent published work, meet the live Guide for Authors, and treat metrics as one part of journal selection rather than the whole decision.

Conclusion: Verify, Align and Prepare Before You Submit

A credible submission decision combines verified journal facts with manuscript-specific judgment. Internet of Things offers a broad but clearly IoT-centred scope, recognized indexing, documented peer review and both open-access and subscription routes. Before submission, confirm the live journal profile, decide whether the manuscript’s novelty is genuinely IoT-relevant, and prepare every component to the current author guidelines. Professional support can improve clarity and readiness, but editorial acceptance remains solely with the journal.