•  
  •  
 

Policies

Contents

Submission Guidelines

Submit manuscripts using this form (opens in new tab) according to the following guidelines:

  • Times New Roman font, size 12, double-spaced, 1-inch margins on all sides, and left justification.
  • Include a cover/title page with the authors' names listed as “Blinded”.
  • Include an abstract.
  • Figures and tables should be included within the body of the manuscript where they would appear in the article.
  • The entire manuscript should not exceed 8,000 words, including the cover page and reference list.
  • Manuscripts should follow the style of the Seventh Edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA).

If you have questions or concerns about about the submission guidelines, please contact the Editors.

{ top }

JHESA publishes articles in the following section:

  • Research and Scholarship in Higher Education and Student Affairs
  • Research and Scholarship for HE/SA Professional Preparation
  • Research and Scholarship from Emerging Scholars (Graduate Student Manuscripts)
  • Book, Media, and Technology Reviews

{ top }

Publishing Process

JHESA is committed to the timely dissemination of research, which enhances the visibility and impact of academic contributions in the field. JHESA takes the approach of publishing accepted articles as soon as they are ready, rather than waiting for a complete edition to be finalized. This allows articles to be available to readers without delay, ensuring that important findings are accessible. This approach helps our authors share their work more quickly with the HE/SA community.

{ top }

Review Process

'Research and Scholarship in Higher Education and Student Affairs' and 'Research and Scholarship for HE/SA Professional Preparation' articles are double-blind peer-reviewed. 'Research and Scholarship from Emerging Scholars' are reviewed by a JHESA editor and a double-blind peer reviewer. 'Book, Media, and Technology Reviews' will be reviewed by the JHESA editorial board. Authors will receive reviewer feedback through the editor(s) as soon as possible. We ask that all authors thoroughly copyedit and proofread any materials they submit, and we will return the material without further editing until this has been accomplished. The editors, in consultation with peer reviewers, will supervise all changes necessary for publication. All acceptances are conditional upon completing all necessary changes by the editor(s). All decisions by the reviewers are final. The Editors will resolve conflicts between reviewers, authors, and/or other parties. If you have questions or concerns about the review process, please contact the Editors.

{ top }

Open Access Policy

Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs is an open-access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of all articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access (opens in new tab).

{ top }

Accessibility Requirements

By submitting their work for publication, the author(s) must warrant and affirm the following:

  1. The author(s) have reviewed the Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs’s accessibility requirements as outlined in the journal’s policies and submission guidelines.
  2. The author(s) have made a good-faith effort to ensure that the work, including all text, images, figures, tables, supplementary materials, and multimedia files, complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA (opens in new tab), including but not limited to:

    • The work uses built‑in heading styles to reflect its structural hierarchy.
    • All tables are created using proper table tools and include clearly identified header rows.
    • All images and figures contain descriptive alternative text (alt text).
    • All video or audio content contains accurate captions or transcripts.
    • Color is not used as the sole method of conveying information.
  3. The author(s) affirm that an accessibility check has been performed on the work, and all identified issues have been resolved.
  4. If any component of the work cannot be made fully accessible due to the nature of the content, the author(s) have described these limitations and the accommodations provided.
  5. The author(s) affirm that the work may be returned to them at any time for accessibility remediation, both prior to and following publication.

{ Go to top }

All works published in Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (opens in new tab) (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Copyright owners retain all rights to their work without restrictions and agree to apply the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license to the final published version of their work as a condition of publication.

End users' rights under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license are outlined on the Creative Commons website (opens in new tab). For all other uses, permission must be obtained from the copyright owners or their authorized agents.

Copyright and licensing terms for Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs are registered with Open Policy Finder (opens in new tab).

{ Go to top }

{ top }

Plagiarism Policy

The Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs may use Similarity Check, a multi-publisher initiative, to selectively screen article submissions for originality. Similarity Check uses the iThenticate software, which checks submissions against millions of published research papers (the Similarity Check database), documents on the web, and other relevant sources. These submitted papers are not retained in the Similarity Check system after they have been checked. Read more at Crossref's Similarity Check Page (opens in new tab).

{ top }

Charges & Fees

The Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs levies no submission charges, or charges or fees for publication of accepted articles.

{ top }

Digital Archiving

The Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs is preserved using CLOCKSS (opens in new tab), a leading preservation archive that guarantees persistent access to journal content for the very long term. Articles also receive Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) through Crossref (opens in new tab) to ensure they can always be found.

{ top }

Policy on Author Participation in Peer Review

To promote a sustainable and high-quality peer-review process, the Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs (JHESA) acknowledges that all authors who benefit from peer review share a responsibility to contribute to it. Therefore, authors who submit manuscripts are expected to participate as peer reviewers for future submissions within their field of expertise. This policy applies to all corresponding authors and co-authors who submit manuscripts to JHESA. The integrity and sustainability of peer review depend on mutual participation and collaboration; by contributing reviews, authors help ensure that the journal maintains timely and rigorous evaluation processes, benefiting the entire scholarly community. JHESA's peer review policy includes the following:

  • Reciprocal Review Expectation. Authors submitting a manuscript agree, as part of the scholarly community, to serve as peer reviewers for the journal when invited by the editorial team. Each author is expected to complete up to two (2) peer reviews per submission made to the journal.
  • Eligibility and Matching. Editors will only assign reviews that reasonably align with the author’s declared expertise, disciplinary area, and preferred methods. Invitations will consider potential conflicts of interest, workload balance, and the availability of reviewers.
  • Notification. Invitations to review will occur up to two times a year. Authors may decline with a valid justification (e.g., time constraints, conflict of interest).
  • Declining and Deferrals. Authors may request to defer their review service if:
    1. They have completed recent reviews for the journal or
    2. If they are temporarily unavailable (e.g., sabbatical, leave).
    The editorial board will maintain a record of such deferrals.

{ top }

Annual Author Publication Limits

To ensure that the journal reflects a wide range of perspectives, scholarship, and professional practice, authors will be limited to publishing no more than two articles within a single calendar year. This policy is intended to promote diversity of thought, encourage broad participation from the scholarly and practitioner community, and safeguard against the journal being dominated by any one author, topic, or perspective. By maintaining this balance, we aim to provide readers with a more comprehensive and inclusive representation of the field. Manuscripts submitted by an author/co-author who already has two publications within the same calendar year will not be considered. However, if the author wishes their new manuscript to be considered for publication in the following year, they must first contact the editorial board before submitting.

{ top }